Good career move or wasting my time?

Guardian11

Hello all,

I just made this account to ask one question because I feel this is a good place to ask it. Lately I've been back and forth about whether I'm making a good career choice. I have a BS in criminal justice and I am currently enlisted in the military doing intel work. I chose to go back to school to get my masters degree in cyber security, but I don't have any IT experience. I chose cyber security over doing a masters in criminal justice because I felt it would compliment my intel experience and make me more marketable. My worry is that my degree will be useless since I don't have any actual IT experience. Will having a cyber security masters degree be a good compliment to my intel experience or will I just be wasting my time? I appreciate any help. Thanks!

636-555-3226

If I was going to hire you for infosec, you'd be at entry-level if you didn't have any IT experience. FWIW, I consider infosec the ultimate culmination of all things IT - you have to know at least a little bit about everything to be really good at it.

When you go to the network team to have them help install the IPS, you need to know how it works. If you don't have any IT networking experience, it's going to be real tough and they'll be looking down their noses at you.

When you go to the web team to preach to them about OWASP and how they need to start programming things more securely, you need to know how those 10 OWASP things work. If you don't have any IT web programming experience, it's going to be real tough and they'll be looking down their noses at you.

Etc etc. Not to say I wouldn't hire you, but it'd be in a limited, more targeted role and for a smaller salary.