To pursue or to not - Masters Degree

Hey TechExams community, recently I finished my BS in IT at WGU. At the time I started that program I was not working in cyber security (as I am now) so I just went a more generic route with the BS in IT because I wanted a Bachelors degree. Now I've finished my BS degree and have that behind me I find myself wanting to focus more on cyber security certifications as all I have is Security+. I am a Senior Information Security Engineer for a Fortune 500 company and have been working in cyber security for almost 3 years now focusing on mostly firewalls and IPS/IDS. The C|EH certification and other red team certifications have always fascinated me and so I've started looking into them. What I've found is I could go back to WGU for a masters in cyber security and get the C|EH, CHFI, and take a bunch of other classes that look really fascinating. Or I could just go the certification route which would honestly cost almost as much.

I was hoping others could chime in about the MS in Cyber Security at WGU and give me some good feedback. I would most likely pay out of pocket for this and get reimbursed partially by my company, later.

- Since I'm already a Info Sec Engineer would it be worth it financially? Is there value to a MS in this industry?
- For those who have taken it - is it a good degree to have? Do you find it valuable?
- How was the coursework? Helpful? Relevant?

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alan2308

I have a masters degree in IA. I'm a career retread, so I don't have the number of years of experience as my peers the same age who have been in IT in some capacity for their entire career. So I picked up some certs and education to help. The degree does help me get a look for jobs where I don't have quite enough years of experience. I'm basing this off of similar jobs I've applied for before and after finishing the degree. I currently have 7+ years where jobs I've been looking at are asking for up to 10.

That being said, nothing has had the impact on my resume as passing the CISSP has had. I get contacted a lot now because of that certification, including the recruiter pitching the job that I just accepted and start in a week. It's a Security Analyst position (heavy on IPS, SIEM, and Vulnerability Management) so it definitely has relevance to your career path.

But if a degree at WGU is in the ballpark costwise of the certs you'll pick up along the way anyway (no idea, never really looked into that school), then why not. Even if a position doesn't require the degree, it's one more thing that can put you ahead of otherwise equal candidates.

supafish9

@alan2308, did you take the CISSP after getting the required number of years of experience or before? I've worked in networking and electronics for several years but this is my first real "cyber" job, so I'm not sure if it's worth studying and taking the exam before I hit the 4 year mark.

LionelTeo

I am in the same plight back about 7 years back wondering about the same thing. After going through this phase i am glad that i didnt take up a degree at all. I am still a diploma graduate till this day.

That being said, I eventually figure out that it boils down to the ROI for the course. I wouldnt say that going for the master is a must or not, but i hope to shed some light to help you in making a better decison. Therefore, i would say that its important to consider the ROI if you would like to go for one. My question to you is how fast would you earn back that amount?

To give an example, let's say that you would need the masters to break into senior leadership, and getting the master will position you to get into one. Then you should definitely get that master since it can help you a lot in that aspect, and the pay rise should be significant.

For my personal story, i took up giac certs via self study and reimburse them with company. So i mostly dont have to pay out of pocket unless i couldnt claim them. I had manage to get 4 giac courses during my career and fully claim 3 giac certs, 1 cissp and written white paper. I did not manage to claim my GSE Labs. Therefore, i only paid about 7k USD for and i had since earned back that amount.

Danielm7

alon35 wrote: »

- Since I'm already a Info Sec Engineer would it be worth it financially? Is there value to a MS in this industry?

I can't speak directly to the WGU MS program, but I do have my BS from there. I agree with the others though, the CISSP will likely get you more attention from a hiring / job outlook standpoint in this industry. Also, if you're looking at it mostly for the CEH and CHFI, I wouldn't do it. If you really want to look down the red team path I doubt anyone here who is actually doing pentesting would suggest the CEH outside of a clueless HR dept.

For what it's worth, I had a similar dilemma a bit ago, but was already 30% into a master's program, so it might be a helpful read.

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/133466-value-technical-ms-hiring.html

If you really want an MS, WGU is at least a cheaper way of doing it, but at this point in your career you'll likely get a lot more ROI out of some in demand certs and solid experience.

alan2308

supafish9 wrote: »

@alan2308, did you take the CISSP after getting the required number of years of experience or before?

I had a bachelors and well over 4 years of experience when I took it. It was the last requirement for my Masters. I always forget about that little caveat.

But you said you're around 3 years now so you don't have a long way to go until you qualify so there's no harm starting now, especially if you're going to take on that huge time sink of higher education. Even with on the job experience, bachelors and masters degrees full of classes on related subjects, and studying for other things along the way with some level of overlap, I still spent a solid 5 months cramming for this exam and really didn't feel confident going in on test day.

PCTechLinc

I took the MSISA at WGU, and I couldn't be happier with my decision. I had just about zero experience in IT Security specifically, but it gave me just about all the knowledge I needed for passing the CISSP. Thankfully all my previous jobs had aspects of the 8 domains covered, so I was able to find duties I performed that satisfied the work experience requirement. I have a former student that is wrapping up the MSCIA there, and she just got hired as a Risk Analyst making around $65k. The IT Security Director there finished the MSCIA there a little over a year ago.

Overall, I haven't heard any negative feedback from the WGU program, myself included. I do wish the CISSP were included with tuition instead of CEH and CHFI though.

yoba222

As for the motivation because of the CEH/CHFI: I haven't gone down this path personally, but I've had a good look at the training material/labs and have heard plenty of stories.

What you perceive you'll gain from the CEH/CHFI today--the enthusiasm you feel about that right now, mismatches what you'll actually gain from it.
The what-you-see/what-you-get ratio imbalance on those certs is alarming.

TechGromit

I say it depends on the field you want to pursue. For some fields such as Psychology (Social Worker, mental health therapist), a Masters is a must if you want to advance in your career. But for IT, I think it's a waste, Yes having a masters degree will certainly help you get into a senior manager role in the long run, but only a few people get that opportunity, so if everyone had one, 95% of them would be a waste of money. Not to mention you can pull down a good 150k in some areas of IT in purely a technical role with no degree at all. You have to get into a vice president position in most organizations to earn more. In my opinion the ROI just isn't there for most people.

Perryblunt

Hi, I’m applying to wgu master program in Cybersecurity and information assurance however they require a resume showing how my present and passed jobs as a sysadmin and cyber transport specialist in the Air Force
correlates with some of the domains of CISSP. Can you provide me with some resources or advice. Thx

iBrokeIT

Similar dilemma here as well. Bachelors from WGU and not a fan of the EC-Council certs instead of CISSP in the WGU MS program.

Decided to start chipping away graduate coursework at SANS via their Graduate Certificates starting with the Penetration Testing & Ethical Hacking program ($5k per class & cert) using company tuition reimbursement. Transferring in the GCIH from work study, took SEC542/GWAPT maxing out tuition reimbursement for 2018, will be taking SEC560/GPEN at HackFest using training budget and will finish up SEC660/GXPN in 2019. Will follow that up with the Cyber Defense Operations certificate program.

alon35

Hey everyone, a little late of a reply but I just wanted to thank you all for your responses. After talking to my manager and some others I've decided that it would be more worth while for me to try and pursue the CISSP for the time being as my employer puts a high value on it and requires it to move into higher level roles.

Although I did hear nothing but great things about the MSCSIA at WGU I think I will maybe reconsider it at another time as I'm not really sure it would pay off for me at the moment to go back. Kind of wish the masters at WGU would throw in the CISSP because if they did this wouldn't even be a choice for me