GCIH - Live or OnDemand

IaHawk

I was just approved to take SEC504 this fall/winter... and I am trying to decide which route I should go, OnDemand or Live. I have taken two other SANS courses (SEC401 and MGT414) in OnDemand format and enjoyed being able to study over a 4 month period and on my time. The reason I'm asking is that I have seen multiple people recommend Live for this particular course.

If you have taken this course, what are your thoughts? Advantages of taking Live vs OnDemand? Any books or other resources you recommend to help prepare for it? I'll add more questions as they come to me!

Thanks for any feedback!

IaHawk

NetworkNewb

I have never done an On-Demand course, but I really enjoyed the live SEC504 course I took this year. Things I enjoyed about the Live course:

- Being able to go over all the topics with instructor and hearing their experiences.
- Having them setup the labs, explain them, and have them answer any questions with them.
- Working with and meeting other people from other companies who are interested in the same things you are.

If your company is making you use PTO I could understand why someone would want to do the OnDemand, otherwise I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it.

cyberguypr

I've done OnDemand from other vendors and I always wish I had someone to run things by and maybe explore a different point of view. If given the option for a SANS class I would always choose the live version. As stated by NetworkNewb, the interaction that develops in the classroom is of extreme value. You lose that when you go OnDemand.

the_Grinch

If your company is paying then I say do it live. While I understand taking what you can get having to study for something during non-work hours would not be my first choice.

IaHawk

It will all be paid for by the company and I won't have to use PTO. I liked Grinch's point about using company time for the week long of training. When I used OnDemand, I probably spent 10% of my time studying at work and closer to 25% the last few weeks leading up to the exams...the rest of the time was obviously outside of work. I am leaning towards Live, the only reason I was considering OnDemand is that I've had such great success with it in the past.

Once you complete the live training, how much additional studying did you do with the books and mp3s? My rough estimate will be a month or two to go through the books on my own again and enough time to create an index.

Also, any books or skills I should brush up on before attending live training?

Thank you for the feedback so far.

gwood113

I would recommend 504 in person; I attended a private training event via my employer. There's a ctf event at the end as a capstone exercise with a fancy coin to the members of the winning team; it's great fun.

I hear the live events are great networking events.

As a prep I would brush up on your Linux command-line skills/basic commands and go ahead and download the latest version of kali Linux and familiarize yourself with the tools (particularly metasploit and gcc).

IaHawk

We moved about a month ago and I am not just now getting my office area up and running. I plan on going through some of these prep items and using some free resources to touch up on Linux cli and Kali Linux and related tools.

Danielm7

I've only done the ondemand SANS courses so far. The issue that I have is my workplace treats it a lot differently than if I was off site training. Id start some training time at work, someone runs up to my desk, then an hour is gone. Then I'd start again and 20 mins in someone else needs something. I found it hard to fit all the material around already busy days. Obviously everyone's work environment is different.