IT & Cybersecurity – Father & Son: Which WGU Degree is Best for Us? (BABY ON THE WAY!)

hey everybody it's josh here again recently i've been getting a whole bunch of questions on like linkedin and facebook and email asking me a whole bunch of different things about like career in school and all that and some of the questions are really good actually so i i thought i would get permission from some of the askers and see if i can just like answer the question in a video for everyone because i think a lot of people can benefit from some of these so that's what today's video is going to be about and by the way before we get started on this um if anyone thinks that my advice is bad or you have like a a better idea or you want to contribute or you want to call me out on something absolutely please use the comment section to do that this video is supposed to be like not only benefit to op who asked the question but everyone watching you know everyone watching the video so if you have anything to contribute please don't hesitate to contribute and leave a comment oh and don't forget to like and subscribe either it's important so this particular question was on facebook so i'm not going to include the name or the picture or anything like that but i'll go ahead and read it it's from it's from a dad so he just basically says like thanks for making the videos the problem that i'm still uncertain about is which route i should take for wgu i'm 50 years old and my son is 20. my son is not sure exactly what exact computer field to go into as of yet the thing is his wife is expecting a baby soon and he would like to get a degree and get a path towards a career started quickly with me being 50 years old i would also like to finish soon but the thing is i i want to do something towards cyber security but i think in one of your videos you suggested doing a different route and i was wondering if you still felt that way so like what he's what he's talking here about essentially he wants to work in cyber security and then another one of my videos like the wgu graduate fast video i i kind of recommended just getting like if you want to work in security get like bs and it management because it's like really fast and then after you graduate just get whatever certs you want and then try to try to get a job so he's essentially just asking me like if i if i still feel that way and he's like i'm sorry if this is vague and sorry to bother you here i just need some advice from someone that's been there and done that your question's not vague it's really good it's a really good valid question it has an interesting dynamic to it with with your son and all of that so it looks like there's a lot going on here but we can kind of break this question down into two separate parts so like the first part it looks like your son is going to have a baby suit and he just wants to get into the position where he can provide for his family and have like a regular income and maybe get insurance or something like this and it sounds like in the scenario that the degree is just kind of uh it's nice to have but it's just kind of a means to an end that end being able to like you know have a nice job and provide for his family and then the second part it just sounds like you mentioned you're 50 years old you'd like to get a degree too you're interested in working in cyber security but you want to kind of minimize the time that it takes to get your degree or to start working so since it seems like your son kind of has a greater time constraint because he has a a child on the way i'm going to go ahead and answer his part kind of separately from yours and then i'm going to answer your part then i'll kind of answer how you guys can kind of work together and achieve a common goal in the end if that makes sense so for your son getting a degree in it it certainly can't hurt the only downside to a degree getting a degree is it has a relatively high opportunity cost that is it the time it takes you to get the degree you could be doing other things that could potentially get you a job faster and like get you started in the field faster if your son still wants to get a degree i would definitely encourage him to do so but since he has a time constraint i might i might recommend like another approach so i made this i made this video here um on how to quickly get a job in in it essentially and i made this kind of framework that outlines the things that you can do here to increase your chances of being able to find a job and you notice i didn't really put get a degree on here anywhere in in the headliners because in my opinion like getting a degree in it helps out with these kind of these two areas like this base knowledge area getting a degree in i.t obviously the idea is you you get some kind of general knowledge and then under the certification area a degree essentially also serves as a filter for hr to kind of um you know help you be able to get an interview so in my opinion i think your son might be better off completing this framework here and then getting a job and then after he has the job then kind of worry about getting the degree at his own pace and the reason for this is this kind of framework slash checklist we're looking at here the opportunity cost is lower than getting a degree and this is more than enough to be able to get a job so for example say best case scenario he finishes the degree in six months or something like that that's like all well and great but he still has to in my opinion i would recommend generating some kind of experience and making the resume and applying and then preparing for interview questions so this this part might be like an additional month or something anyway to kind of maximize his chances of getting a job whereas if you just put the degree on hold and kind of work on this framework here assuming he can get comptia a plus in even like three months three months is like pretty generous like i think if someone works on it full time they can probably do in two months or less for sure but we'll say three months for this base knowledge and certification these two boxes make your own experience so for example maybe he picks up active directory or powershell he like watches some tutorials kind of learns how to do it and then he makes like a cheap or free blog post or some like really easy youtube videos or something um kind of teaching other people the stuff that he's learned and then he can put that kind of extracurricular experience on his resume then he can make his resume like this make your own experience maybe it's like one month this resume portion you can do this like quick i haven't i have a sample uh in the description of this video but you can make his resume in like a day or something the application process maybe it's going to take a couple days to like fill out linkedin make kind of profiles on all these different job sites maybe that's like another couple days and then the interview prep i would recommend you know gathering like 100 questions kind of like i talked about in this video just gather like 100 questions just so you can practice articulating your your answers and maybe learning a little bit of extra knowledge on the way like this whole thing will probably take like maybe like four months um you can probably do it in three months but i would say like four months to do this whole kind of framework checklist and then you can just start applying for jobs like right away at that point and if you wanted to after this kind of this bulk of this stuff is done here he's like pretty much ready to work already and if he wants to streamline his like schooling with you know job hunting like after he finishes this in four months and he can apply for jobs and then he can start his degree if he wants to start it at that point or he could just like focus on working and you know try to get his job at that point but that's that's personally what i would do because a degree is not really it's not required to work in it and this checklist here is is much better for getting a job like especially like an entry-level job in it this is it's much faster a better opportunity cost and there's like a higher chance of you getting a job faster and then once this is done you know focus on school if you want to so that's that's how i would handle the situation of house in your son's shoes so to give your son some nice a nice actionable list of stuff to do the first thing i would get if he doesn't have one already get like a really cheap refurbished computer or laptop on amazon and then number two uh watch all the professor messer videos for comptia a plus 220 1001 and 1002. after that he should buy the professor messer questions or any any question i would recommend professor messers because his are pretty good and they're really cheap go through all those questions like totally and then after he's done with those go on quizlet and find any questions that he can for like uh 220 1002 and 220 1001 like the comptia exams and go through all those until he's like really comfortable and then at that point he should take and pass the a plus exams and then after he passes the exams i would manufacture or have him manufacture some of his own experience so that is the thing i was talking about you know learn active directory or learn powershell or some some kind of niche skill and then once he's learned it kind of create some content around it for other people to learn from that can be like a blog post or he can make like a really low low budget youtube video or something like that so create that kind of experience for himself fill out his resume with his new job experience and then his his search of course go on linkedin fill out linkedin totally all the way as well as you can then go to all those job sites like monster indeed etc create full profiles on those like upload his resume and all this all of his experience and all that and then just apply to a bunch of jobs like wherever he can like it doesn't matter like i would just go to indeed and search things like help desk entry level jobs support technician like all this you can even search like comptia a plus just search for that and it depending on where you guys live he may consider expanding the job search a little bit and maybe even maybe even consider moving initially i don't know how easy that's going to be like if he has a kid on the way but the more you expand your kind of search realm the more jobs there are on your chances of getting hired are like exponentially increased um so yeah that's that's what i would give him is like kind of actionable steps to do and then moving on to the dad's question just to recap you mentioned you were 50 years old you wanted to work in cyber security but you wanted to kind of minimize the time you spent in school so i feel there's a couple different ways to approach this it's a little bit different with security because the skill floor is is much higher like the entry level to security is like way higher than the entry level to it this is because there's like kind of a lot of um assumed knowledge that you should have going into security like you know computer systems like a decent level of networking knowledge obviously some some security knowledge and then there's usually some kind of uh expectation that you know linux at least a little bit of linux and then at least a little bit of some kind of scripting language doesn't really matter what it is but just just some kind of scripting language because this um when you're trying to pick a degree like you you want to get a degree and if someone just goes for like the cyber security degree at wgu the wgu rightfully kind of made the cyber degree a little bit more difficult because the skill level is higher and it's totally reflected in the degree if you look at it there's like a whole bunch of really relevant certs um but there's a lot of them and it's not it's not going to be as easy as just the regular it degree or especially like the it management degree so picking one of those it just kind of depends on what's most important to you so i'm going to kind of talk about three different ways that you can approach this the first one is going to assume that knowledge and your personal experience is paramount that is you don't really care how long it takes and you don't really care how much money you spend the second scenario is you just want to finish the degree as fast as possible and then the third scenario which i tend to recommend is kind of a balance between the two and something that may potentially help you and your son with your goals in the future so i'll talk about the first one where your kind of knowledge and personal experience is paramount that would be getting like the bachelor's of science and cyber security and information insurance from wg this degree in my opinion is by by far the the best one on paper it has the absolute worst opportunity cost that means it's going to take a long ass time to do but has like great certs and assuming you get this you're going to be like total rock star coming out of it in terms of employability and like in terms of your knowledge and all that and you're probably going to have a better experience getting the certificates than if you you just did it outside of wgu because there's a bunch of like really good relevant uh certs in this degree and then you have the benefit of having the course instructors and stuff like kind of walk you through it and like hold your hand when you need it and they also kind of can all the study materials for the shirts so if you did it outside of the program you have to kind of like find all the material like oh should i get boson or like professor messer like where should i get all these materials like wg just like packages that all for you and like just gives it to you so if you just want to have a good time just like kicking back and learning security stuff and doing your your exams without having to worry about too much the bsn cyber security information insurance is probably the best one but it has the worst opportunity cost takes the longest the second scenario is where the degree is the fastest so in this one this is the one that i was talking about in the other video that you kind of referred to in your question um this one you just in my opinion uh get the easiest the easiest degree in my opinion is the bachelor of science information technol technology management because it doesn't have any third party search in it it just has like the wgu created content you can just kind of go through it really fast because a lot of other people have done and there's a lot of advice kind of floating around on reddit and stuff so in this scenario you just finish that degree as fast as you can then after you graduate you go and decide if you still want to work in security at that point and then go and get your relevant certificates on your own the positive side of this one is the degree is fast and the degree is cheap but the downside is you kind of have to you're kind of on your own as far as as far as the shirts go like finding the relevant study material and then you know if you have questions you you kind of have to like you know ask ask around on the internet or read it or me i guess or like you know somewhere else there's not like a dedicated staff for you this way this method is much cheaper even paying for the certs it's still cheaper than doing it through wgu it's not going to be as good of a time i guess because you won't have that like hand holding and stuff but the degree is fast and the degree is really cheap and then the third scenario is you get the bachelor of science in information technology just kind of the regular one from wgu this one is kind of a balance between the two because it's a little bit harder than the it management degree but it's it's definitely easier than the cyber security information assurance degree um so it's kind of in between it has some third party starts in this one but they're like really really good actually um it covers like all the kind of necessary things that you need to work in security anyways like it has a plus network plus security plus cloud essentials comptia cloud essentials essentials has like linux essentials and has like itil um it's pretty good has a lot of good certs and it's definitely enough to start working in cyber security another good benefit to this one is after your son say he he got his a plus and he's like working already and he's like all squared away after he's like done with all that and he's ready to like start getting the degree you both can kind of uh and be enrolled in the same degree and then um with this degree like you can transfer a plus into it and then he'll get credit for that so he doesn't have to like take the class or take it again and then you guys can be taking the same degree and kind of uh you know helping each other through it not like you know copying i don't mean like copying each other's work but it's just easier if you have someone close to you who's doing the same degree so you can kind of both do the same degree and kind of work through it at your own pace so yeah pretty much in my opinion i would i'd pick somewhere between option two and option three honestly option two if you're fine with kind of hunting out your own certification material and kind of being on your own for that option three if you kind of want to get a degree that kind of benefits both of you and just have a good time like getting certs and these be spoon-fed the material for the shirts that has a benefit to you it just depends on how much money you want to spend and you know how long you potentially want to take to finish the degree but yeah thank you so much for the question it was really good really interesting with like an interesting dynamic to it again if anyone has any like alternative alternative advice or they want to add something or like you know call me out for saying something dumb please don't hesitate to use the comment section um if you enjoyed this content please like and subscribe again if anyone else has any questions feel free to ask me i i can't guarantee that i can make a video for like every single person but i will answer you like one one way or another whether it's like email or linkedin or whatever you want but yeah thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time oh

Channel: Josh Madakor

Views: 7,034

Keywords: Should I get certs or a degree, should I get certifications or a degree, information technology, cybersecurity cyber security, how do I get into cyber security, should I go to WGU, is WGU good, which degree should I get?, how to get a job in cyber security without experience, Which WGU degree is best?, i.t. certifications, cybersecurity certs, western governors university, it certifications, cyber security, western governors university review, online university, online degree

Id: qZHqUGjnMp0

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 24 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/joshsmad]

This is prime, rofl