Bootcamp reviews / advice please

I have been pushed towards getting the ISC2 CCSP by the end of this year, and given a training budget to include books, exam, bootcamp, etc...

I have spent some time gathering details and prices and have collected the following:

ISC2 online Bootcamp $2999
Trainingcamp.com Bootcamp $2999 (includes voucher)
Infosec Institute $3700 (includes voucher)

Has anyone done a bootcamp with these companies? Is one better than the other? The ISC2 bootcamp would be my first choice, but the only 5 day online camp they have is in 4 weeks and I have not even started to study for the exam yet.

Any other organization I have not mentioned but should look at?

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Comments

soccarplayer29

Those sound very expensive compared to the ROI. If you want to spend 3k I'd look into SANS work study or some other trainings.

For CCSP I would recommend the CCSK materials as a starting point along with Cybrary.it's CCSP videos and Sybex book.

--chris--

While I agree, there are two things out of my control:

#1 I have to get the CCSP
#2 I have to get a bootcamp for the CCSP

lol

I have not been to a bootcamp before, I always self study. This is part of the reason I don't know much about these companies.

cyberguypr

I understand the mandate. Two of my colleagues took the ISC2 one and found it to be "meh". I've heard way too many horror stories about Infosec Insitute. Can't say anything about Training Camp.

--chris--

cyberguypr wrote: »

I understand the mandate. Two of my colleagues took the ISC2 one and found it to be "meh". I've heard way too many horror stories about Infosec Insitute. Can't say anything about Training Camp.

What kind of horror stories? I have not seen anything real bad except for one person who left a 1 star review everywhere possible complaining about a bait & switch.

cyberguypr

A couple of reliable stories around spreading ****, although this may be an artifact of the instructors instead of the intitution. One guy that works for me took their IR training before joining my team and described it as "garbage", promoted as being for practitioners but actually tailored for high level managers.

SteveLavoie

IMHO, bootcamp for CCSP (or CISSP) is not the most appropriate way to learn. Bootcamp for technical training yes, but not for more theorical certs.

And for ISC2 CCSP 5 day classroom training there is a lot of date in the US for 2018...

--chris--

SteveLavoie wrote: »

IMHO, bootcamp for CCSP (or CISSP) is not the most appropriate way to learn. Bootcamp for technical training yes, but not for more theorical certs.

And for ISC2 CCSP 5 day classroom training there is a lot of date in the US for 2018...

There is only 1 5-day online bootcamp left. The others are 10 week, 2x a week at night bootcamps.

--chris--

cyberguypr wrote: »

A couple of reliable stories around spreading ****, although this may be an artifact of the instructors instead of the intitution. One guy that works for me took their IR training before joining my team and described it as "garbage", promoted as being for practitioners but actually tailored for high level managers.

Ehhh....I see. Well the only one that has no negative reviews is Trainingcamp.com and they have been around awhile. I'll spend some time digging into them and see what I get.

Ertaz

Let us know how trainingcamp.com goes.

cemen777

Avoid ONLC. Waste of time and money.

EANx

I took a TrainingCamp course in 2006, I had no complaints with it. Above average but not top-tier.

yogeshbgupta

CCSK and CCSP practice quizzes available at https://www.secloud.guru
[h=1]cloudsecurity #cybersecurity #compliance #ccsk #secloud #security #iso27001 #cyber[/h]

--chris--

EANx wrote: »

I took a TrainingCamp course in 2006, I had no complaints with it. Above average but not top-tier.

Thats the route I choose. Submitted paper work this morning, once approved Ill be booking. Its not until October, so it will be awhile before there is an update.

--chris--

Follow up:

I have yet to take the exam (next monday) so this is part 1 of my experience in the Trainingcamp.com bootcamp.

First, the trainer was awesome! Hes an ol' salty dog that has been in the "cloud" adoption thing since the early 2000's and has seen or participated in all sort of failures and successes. He not only knew the ISC2 material well, but easily translated it into terms or experiences that made understanding the material much easier.

It was a 5 day bootcamp.

Day 1: We spent 1/2 to 3/4 of day one reviewing test taking strategies, working through practice problems and developing the "ISC2" testing skill set. This was VERY helpful and instantly improved my practice scoring by an easy 10%.
Day 2: We worked through some security basics (symm vs asymm encryption, pki, etc...) and started domain 1.
Day 3: Finished domain 1, completed domain 2 and started domain 3.
Day 4: Finished domain 3, completed 4, started 5.
Day 5: Completed domain 5, completed domain 6, then spent another 2 hours on test taking strategies, developing that skill set and "take aways" from the course.

Each day started around 9:30 am est and wrapped up around 5-5:30 est. We didn't do evening review, instead we would do the practice tests for each domain covered that day and review them first thing in the morning. The training was delivered via webex with audio. For the most part, we had open mic's through the course unless someone got careless or forgot (they got muted). This made participating a lot easier than the standard webex/text only training (like Splunk training, which was not easy to partake in).

Our trainer was very willing to work late/early and encouraged us to keep him engaged with questions and scenarios until we take the exam (whenever it might be). He gave us his email & cell for contact.

Any questions, let me know! I will post part 2 after the exam next week.

infosec_darren

Good luck @--chris--! I'm glad you had a good experience.

To address us using ****...that's a firm no. We have had instructors go off script in the past (we do heavily use contractors who are practitioners. Too many positives for students to not go this route), but ever since we have started delivering a high percentage of our courses live online with all sessions recorded for later viewing, that's not an issue.

One of the reasons we got involved with this forum is the stance the members all have on learning it the right way and the anti-exam **** mentality. A lot of the work you'll see from us in the next year+ will be on helping self-study and skills development in IT. Things that complement a bootcamp. I do hope you consider us in the future.

Best of luck on Monday! I hope your family is going to be ok hearing about Access Control and Evidence Storage over pumpkin pie this weekend.

Ertaz

infosec_darren

Good luck @--chris--! I'm glad you had a good experience.

To address us using ****...that's a firm no. We have had instructors go off script in the past (we do heavily use contractors who are practitioners. Too many positives for students to not go this route), but ever since we have started delivering a high percentage of our courses live online with all sessions recorded for later viewing, that's not an issue.

One of the reasons we got involved with this forum is the stance the members all have on learning it the right way and the anti-exam **** mentality. A lot of the work you'll see from us in the next year+ will be on helping self-study and skills development in IT. Things that complement a bootcamp. I do hope you consider us in the future.

Best of luck on Monday! I hope your family is going to be ok hearing about Access Control and Evidence Storage over pumpkin pie this weekend.

You are now in the running for my training class next year.