Career Realization and snap decisions

So I was recently very lucky in having to deal with two awesome opportunities within my company in the same department:

1. A new role in the same city as my brother and sister-in-law. Since we're all grown up, we haven't lived in the same city for around 10 years, so that'd be cool and interesting. But I just moved and I'd be doing the same thing I'm doing now. This opportunity came to me first and forced me to really consider what I want out of my career in the short term.

2. A role in my current office but my responsibilities would change slightly. I've now got global ownership/major involvement of several large workstreams like DLP, Virtual Desktop, and privileged account management just to name a few. It feels really strange to say that I'm the global lead for initiative xyz as a 20 something that's new to information security but it's really cool and kind of an ego-trip. Also the role is more technical, which is really what I want in the short term.   

I ultimately chose the the role where I'd become the global lead. I wasn't excited about the first opportunity and that's the dead give-away. The more I found out about the 2nd opportunity the more excited and interesting I found it. I actually made the decision in about a day and a half. I know I'm going to be working my tail off but I was anyways so that's nothing new. At least I'll enjoy doing it.

Image credit: Flikr/Somemixedstuff

HUH training or lack thereof

So yesterday morning I woke up somehow at 3:30 am (before my alarm to do Hustle Up the Hancock, as if I didn't remember how horrible it feels while doing it last year. Then again, I really didn't train. I did a few stair workouts here and there, but I hardly ever worked out and weigh about 10 lbs more. But I did PR by 50 sec!

Here's what it took.
2 months of working 40+ hour days (with less than 6 hours of sleep a night), 6 months of intense studying for certification exams. 2 weeks off of working out for vacation in Seattle. So I trained less than last year.

The night before-
I lazed around and watched episodes from season two of The Fringe. Had Dinner at the bar in my apt complex with beer That's the important part. I somehow got to bed at 9pm, but not without drinking tons of water.

What I'd do next time around-
If I'm still as masochistic as I am now (prob will be) than I'll do HUH again. So I'll do the same thing except do more core training. After I finished, my abs were killing me. It hurt to breathe. The dry stairways don't help. I think that'll cut another minute off my time, maybe more.

CISA results

I took the CISA exam about a month and a half ago and I finally got my results...and I passed! It's not that I found the content challenging, but I found the questions themselves really confusingly written, so I wasn't sure of what the correct answer was. But now I don't have to worry about that. :) The difference between this exam and the CISSP exam is that the CISSP is far more technical and the CISA is more conceptual with an emphasis on general audit and governance topics. Lucky for me I took the CISSP recently so it was fresh in my head. Also CISA gives you a composite score along with scores for each of the domains. I found that I did on protection of information assets and worst on IT System and Service Delivery...I really don't even remember what was in that domain. Oh well....

I've done finally done it...

I've finally moved out of my folks place and getting settled in my own place. Granted living with my folks wasn't the worst thing in the world, I got along with my parents really well but it has its moments where it was....challenging. Yea that's the right word. Part of my challenge is that I work at the same company as my dad and when I'd do dinner with them (most nights) the topic would inevitably shift towards work. So it never felt like I left work. Neither of us had the discipline to make that topic off limits despite swearing to do so.

But now I'm on my own. The first week or so took some getting used to, especially making sure I got up and got out at a decent hour to make sure I didn't have to fight too much traffic. I find that I need a pretty rigid routine in the morning or I start getting distracted and getting late. Stupid ADD! 

I don't know the area super well, so I'm looking forward to when it warms up so I can take my longer runs to explore the neighborhood. two birds with one stone...

my CISSP prep strategy

It is said that test taking is a skill that can be learned. This is something that I feel is true. But you need a certain amount of preparation to ensure a successful exam. I think the knowledge of the material will get you a certain number of points but test taking skills may net you a few more points. This can make the difference between a pass and a fail. I think lots of practice exams helps build this mind set.

Materials used
 cccure.org
Shon Harris CISSP All in One book+CD

Comments
 I skimmed through the CISSP book. After going through the ginormous book, I used the CD's practice problems. I found these questions to be much deeper in detail than the exam itself so it wasn't very representative. Also I felt that there wasn't enough detail around explaining why the question wasn't correct. After that, I spent a lot of time on cccure.org's questions. I found the explanations to be very helpful. Also there are lots of questions in their question bank.

CISSP results

I got my results for the CISSP exam several weeks ago. Now I'm just waiting to put my endorsement paperwork in because I'm right on the borderline for the amount of experience... :(

I also took the CISA exam this December, so I was busy studying for that. There is a ton of overlap in material, but there's more of an emphasis on governance and audit.Hopefully I have good news at the end of January.It seems it takes then 6 weeks for results.

A lot of my colleagues have asked me how I had studied for the CISSP like what study materials did I use, what practice questions did I use, and were the practice questions similar to the the exam. Perhaps I should put together a couple of posts on that....:)

CISSP results and reward

I got my CISSP results yesterday.....drumroll please....And I passed! I promised myself that I'd reward myself with an iPad that I'd use as an e-book for me to study for the CISA this winter and for all the other stuff that people use the iPad for.