First CompTIA Certifications

In June, I used my student email address to get a discount on the Network+ certification. I gave myself one month to study and prepare for the exam, but when it came time for my to take it, I was not overly confident. I had read the study guides a few time by this point and set up my own practice network at home.

The first week of July, I took the Network+ test and passed it. I was so excited that I purchased the Security+ voucher and scheduled the exam for 10 days later. I wanted to build upon my success and was feeling confident. I took and passed the exam. At this point, I knew this was the career path that I wanted to take.

I doubled down on investing in a cyber lab. I bought a used Sophos firewall and three mini pcs off eBay. Two of the mini pcs had ram that was soldered on the board, but the third did not, so I invested in 64 GB or RAM. This is when I discovered Pfsense and Proxmox. Then I deployed several Linux server and an Active Directory domain. I think this was the point in my journey that I became addicted to learning about new technologies and applications.