Getting a Master's in Six Months

    At the time of writing this, it has been almost two months since I completed my Master’s degree in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance from Western Governor’s University (WGU). As I explained in my Bachelor’s degree blog post, WGU is an online university that only has degrees in business, technology, health and nursing, and education. These degrees have higher rates of employment and so WGU focuses on these degrees. The school does not have traditional semesters, instead the school has six month terms. The school is also competency based, which means students can complete as many classes as they can in the six months term. Many classes are completed by either writing an essay or taking a test. Other classes are completed by gaining an industry certification like CompTIA Security+. While I completed my Bachelor’s degree in one year, it only took my six months to complete my Master’s degree at WGU.

    While deciding if I wanted to pursue a Master’s degree, I heard that a Master’s degree is less useful in the world of IT than experience and certifications, but I decided since I had the GI bill available to me, getting a Master’s degree would be worth pursuing. I also needed to decide which Master’s program I wanted to pursue. It came down to choosing between the Master’s in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance and IT Management. I was considering IT Management because I already had a degree in cybersecurity and thought the management option would be more useful. However, after talking to school advisors I decided to go with the cybersecurity option because the advisors told me the cybersecurity path would be more technical, which is what I wanted more than management.

    Since I was already going to WGU for my Bachelor’s I was able to start my Master’s one month after I finished my Bachelor’s. The Master’s program only has ten courses to complete for the whole degree. WGU has a generous transfer policy. I received credit for three courses before the term even started due to already possessing the CompTIA CySA+, Pentest+, and a combination of Security+ and Network+. Having these certifications satisfied the requirements for Security Foundations, Security Operations, and Penetration Testing. This gave me a significant head start for completing the degree. The first course I took was Secure Network Design. This class was honestly one of the most enjoyable courses during the program. To complete this class I had to make a diagram to show how I would combine two different networks, keeping both secure and separate at the same time. I then had to write an essay explaining the diagram and why I made the decisions I did. The project was pretty enjoyable, but I did not learn too much more than what I did in the Bachelor’s program. The next course was Governance Risk and Compliance. The project for this class was analyzing a fictional company, creating a risk matrix for the company, and explaining what corrections needed to be made for the company. I hoped this class would be more educational because I had never focused fully on governance risk and compliance. I found that most of what was discussed during the course were things I had heard of during other courses or certifications. It was helpful to review the information and I thought the project was decent. This course was followed by Cloud Security. I thought the material for this course was interesting and should have had the best and most useful project. The project involved logging into a virtual machine and securing an Azure cloud for a fictional company. The only problem with the project was remoting into the virtual machine had so much lag that it was almost unusable. It took me a lot longer to complete the project than it should have. The next course was Secure Software Design. This course was completed only by taking an exam. Studying for the exam was difficult because I have no experience with developing software. Since I was studying for this course during my other courses I was able to complete the class quickly. At this point I was a little over a month into my program, then I took about a month long break from school to go on a business trip. Coming back after the month away was difficult to get back in the swing of things, but I started studying for the Cybersecurity Architecture and Engineering course which only requires an exam to complete. This exam was one of the easier exams because all of the certifications that I’ve taken build up to this exam, meaning I already knew almost all the material. Since this exam is similar to the CompTIA SecurityX certification, WGU gives students who complete this course a voucher for the SecurityX exam. The final course before the capstone was Cybersecurity Management. The project for this class was similar to the Governance Risk and Compliance essay, except it focused on what gaps existed at a fictional company and what personnel were needed to fill those gaps. I thought this class was decent, but management is difficult to teach and I do not feel like there was much I didn’t already know before taking this course. The final course was the capstone project. For my final project I came up with a fictional company and went over how this company would protect company data and employee data while traveling abroad. This course is really what you make of it, but over all it was a good exercise to come up with my own project and go through it start to finish. I turned in my final project only days before my term ended. It was sent back to fix a few things on the paper, but I was able to make the changes and resubmit two days before the term ended and I passed. 

    Looking back at the Master’s program and knowing what I know now, I might have pursued a different program. Having a Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, there was not a lot of value to me with this Master’s program. I think if I had a different undergrad that was not focused on cybersecurity then the courses would have been great and the certifications gained from this program would bring a lot of value as well. The thing I am most happy with from my Master’s program is how quickly I completed the entire program. I had a huge advantage with the courses they gave me credit for and my previous knowledge from school, certifications and work experience. My advice to the average person looking to get a Master's degree in technology is this program could easier be accomplished within six months even without the credit that was given to me through transfers, but I would highly recommend taking a long look at what you want to accomplish with a Master's degree. What will broaden your abilities and be most valuable to you. If you value getting a Master's degree quickly or if you don't have a cybersecurity undergraduate, this would be a great program for you.