Career Advice/Insight

viney042018

Hi. I graduated with an Accounting degree and is a CPA but was inactive since transitioning to the IT industry 4 years ago. I started in the workforce a bit late considering I was already 24 then. Worked accounting and audit related job for 6 months and got really bored. I researched and found that the IT industry is booming so I decided to take a leap. My first IT related job was as a 1 year contractual Functional consultant for a small IT vendor of a cloud ERP software. Then after, I worked as an IT Audit associate for almost 2 years with one of the Big 4 audit firms. Then I was pirated by a publicly listed company for a security analyst position. I am mostly working on 3rd party risk mgmt where I learned a lot about technical controls and hipaa related requirements since company is in healthcare. I just celebrated my 1 year with them and so far Ive been enjoying it but I have to be honest that its difficult for me when we get into conversations that involve a lot of technical concepts as I cant fully grasp or visualize it since I lack the technical background. Im not sure if enrolling at a university for a degree in IT would help me given I am working full time but I really want to learn and I always felt insecure that I lack the IT knowledge that some of my peers at work have since most of them have an IT degree. Ive grown to love being in cybersec so much that I also want to work towards a digital forensics or cybercrime career in the future. It was a dream for me to be in the crime investigation/law enforcement industry but life got in the way which did not allow me to achieve it in the past but now I feel I can leverage my experience somehow and be able to bridge the gap between my current work background and the dream I want to have I just dont know how. So if anyone here can help me please and share your advice as to the best educational/certification and career paths for me to take at this point on how I can get the knowledge and experience I need to get into forensics or cybercrime given my background? I would greatly appreciate it! thanks

TechGromit

viney042018 wrote: »

I'm not sure if enrolling at a university for a degree in IT would help me given I am working full time but I really want to learn and I always felt insecure that I lack the IT knowledge that some of my peers at work have since most of them have an IT degree.

College is great for learning theory and learning communication skills needed as a professional, but since you have this already, there really no real benefit to going back to school I can see at this time. Your far better off getting technical training and certifications to fill in the knowledge you need. The only real advantage of going back to school is if you Accounting degree is a BA, you might benefit with a BS later in your career if you get into management roles, but I would wait on this. See were your career leads you, you might be perfectly happy not getting into a management role, making a BS completely unnecessary.

denis92

TechGromit wrote: »

College is great for learning theory and learning communication skills needed as a professional, but since you have this already, there really no real benefit to going back to school I can see at this time. Your far better off getting technical training and certifications to fill in the knowledge you need. The only real advantage of going back to school is if you Accounting degree is a BA, you might benefit with a BS later in your career if you get into management roles, but I would wait on this. See were your career leads you, you might be perfectly happy not getting into a management role, making a BS completely unnecessary.

Does a BA vs BS really matter? Many Ivy League schools only offer BA such as Harvard.
This isn't only directed to you but I have noticed many people share the same sentiment yet many schools are liberal arts schools and their curriculum is the same as many bs programs. It's sad that many people discriminate based on BA vs bs. If only they were more informed.

viney042018

@TechGromit Thanks for the insight. You're right. I might just go for the certs and trainings. BTW, my accounting degree is BS