Training Path

I am currently studying for the GSEC certification which I plan to take in February or March 2026. I have been doing some studying on the CCNP ENCOR exam as well. I’ve decided to not do the Network+ and focus more on the result that I want to accomplish. By doing this I have been wanting to work more on certifications that align with my career milestones.

Having six career milestones will help me get to the point where I can fulfill my career goal. This is being a CIO or CISO by the time that I am 51. This is around 12 years at this point. The six certifications that I want to work on before then, include the CCIE: Enterprise Infrastructure, the CEH, CISSP, GIAC Security Professional, CCISO, and the PMI-ACP.

These certifications are something that will let me grow into what I want to be when I reach 51. The intersection of Business and Technology is where I want to be and the CIO or CISO role will help me achieve this. For the technology side, I want to do more of a Network Security Engineer role. I want to specialize in Network Defense, Network Penetration Testing, and Network Virtualization.

New Focus

I am focusing on these certifications to achieve my career goals. There are some things that I am doing for the two exams that I will be taking next year. The study plan that I am doing for the GSEC includes training for the Security+, CySA+, Certified in Cybersecurity, Network Defense Essentials, and the AWS Cloud Practitioner.

To continue in my Cisco studies, I will be taking on some more training material on Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, and CBT Nuggets – Adept. I am taking the exam sometime in July or August 2026 for the 350-401 ENCOR exam. Training mainly for skill set on these two and will be studying for mainly skills like more Ruby, more Metasploit, Python, Lua, Snort, UFW, and some more Linux and Project Management skills.

GIAC Security Essentials

Through working on my study plan for the GSEC exam I am finishing the Certified in Cybersecurity training material. Also working on the Security+ training materials for this exam. I am thinking that I will need 6 to 8 months of study to pass the GSEC with a good passing score and will take out the need to do the five certifications with the one exam for the GSEC.

Conclusion

There are some plans for staying consistent and will include TryHackMe which I am doing better on and completed a 46-day streak recently. On TryHackMe I have been doing some regular easy rooms to get more depth. I am also ranked below 8000 now along with getting promoted to being a top fan of TryHackMe. Doing another blog post on aaron597.com tomorrow 7-5-25 and want to do it on Securing DHCP. I am also posting on aaronwdejong.net every Friday.