How we got here.
The year was 2020 and I was in the midst of a lot of stress from work and life in general at the time and realized that my career, nursing, did not align with my long-term goals. I love helping people and serving others, but the pandemic displayed the cracks in the armor of our healthcare system. It was not a field I wanted to be in 5 or 10 years down the road. I saw a lack of true internal growth potential and the constant invisible push to go back to school. I think at one point, everyone but me on my unit under 40 was enrolled in some sort of Nurse Practitioner (NP) program to advance at any meaningful rate. The issue with that was that everyone was going this rate and as my time as a nurse continued, I heard more and more nurses turned NPs complain about a bloated NP workforce for a limited number of jobs. My options were to go get a Master’s or a Doctorate, accumulate a ton of debt for a field I was not totally sold on, or find the door to another profession. As you can tell, I chose the latter.
My initial door was to obtain the CompTIA Security+, often shortened to Sec+, and believe in the falsehood that this certification is all I needed to break into Cybersecurity. After many failed SOC analyst attempts, I realized that I needed exert more of an effort if I wanted the change to happen. I never realized how truly vast the field of IT was. I only heard of the Sec+ through friends and I was naïve to the studying paths in front of me. I started aimlessly learning at a rapid pace. Anything I didn’t know, I was Googling and utilizing Wikipedia like I once had in high school. Looking back, I wish I had focused my studies into a specific path. I may have been able to cross over more quickly.
Nonetheless, I pressed onwards. My at-the-time fiancé (now wife) and I had determined we needed a change of scenery for a few reasons; mental-health, proximity to family, and job opportunities. We decided that Atlanta would be our new home. We were going to leave Charleston, SC after a stint of about a year and a half for the Peach State. In between making that decision and moving, I actually got a follow-up for an interview. The county penitentiary had an opening for an IT specialist or field tech (I can’t quote remember) and I decided it was worth the experience. I went and realized that I was out of my depth. They threw out all these acronyms; a lot of them, I had heard of, but couldn’t talk about, quite a few I flat out didn’t know, and a small percentage of ones I did know. This mostly comprised of DHCP, DNS, IP and the sort. I felt a bit demoralized. Surprisingly, they actually offered me the job. I had only applied to probably 20 or so jobs that were more in line with the entry-level scope after realizing cyber was anything but, so I figured I wouldn’t have a problem once I got to Atlanta. Boy, was I wrong.
We made the move and nothing. No bites. 100s of applications and no responses except for the occasional rejection. I felt a bit hopeless, but I was fortunate to have a backup career that was in quite high demand. I went back to work as a nurse. First, as a detox nurse at a private rehab facility. Nope. No thanks. Then I worked the better part of a year as a home health nurse on the south side of Atlanta. I lasted longer at this job as my heart really went out to my patients, but that too was unsustainable. All the while I was still getting nowhere with IT. I had started studying for the Google IT Professional Certificate and was advancing through that to lead into the A+. It was decent material and a good on ramp to the A+. I completed the Google certificate and landed a job at a cardiologist’s office. This job was much, much better for my mental health and work-life balance.
My time at the cardiologist’s office was spent studying. Of course, I was still completing my assigned work, but in my downtime, I was learning. In the year I was there, I got my CompTIA A+ and was close to sitting my CompTIA Network+ exam. Finally, after a TON of applications, the IT gods were pleased and I got an interview at an MSP as the IT Operations Coordinator. They thankfully extended an offer that I accepted. Soon after starting I got my Network+ certification and I officially had the CompTIA Triad completed.
As of January 2024, I have now been at my job for 7 months and I just completed my first AWS certification; the Certified Cloud Practitioner. I am excited about the road ahead and I am trying to soak up any and all information I can so I can continue to develop as an IT professional. My time at the MSP has allowed me to garner experience with administrative device management, vendor relationships, and enterprise-level ticketing with ConnectWise. I have a good working knowledge of Microsoft 365 account management and licensing and how to remotely manage devices with NinjaOne.
Where I plan to go
I will keep this section succinct as not to bore you and to not over promise. I plan on continuing to learn about AWS and the many abilities of the cloud. There are many projects I have planned and I hope to document them here. I also plan on getting my CCNA to truly understand networking to an extreme level of detail. From my learning, I have realized that without a strong foundation in netoworking, a job in Cybersecurity is silly. You need to walk before you can run, or at least tracert before you analyze packets. I also plan on learning automation through programming. I have begun learning Python and Powershell. These seem to be in-demand skills to help me achieve my goals.
