I am now concentrating on my startup which is basically a one-man show.
At the same time, i just received an email from SANS Technology Institute’s (STI) about their exciting new accelerated option called “STI Cohort 2013.” which promises me that I would get a Masters of Science.
The following information about my situation and my considerations:
1) I earned a GSEC cert that is due to expire in 30 days. This cert costs me roughly $3000 USD I think. Which got me nowhere near a security job in Singapore or any other job. The MCSD .NET certificate was far more useful than the GSEC.
2) I am interested in IT security, but I want to get my startup to succeed more. My mind is thinking that I need to arm myself with IT knowledge since ecommerce requires my startup to prioritize.
I am just not sure if this is rational reasoning OR rationalizing my fear of failure in my startup hence very subtly sabotaging my chances of startup success by tempting myself towards this Masters of Science.
3) The Masters of Science in 2 years sound tempting, but I am very unsure how useful it is for me in my startup or, taking a longer view, my career.
4) I have no intention to travel to US to complete the Masters. I have every intention to stay in Singapore or within Asia for the next few years.
Here are my follow up questions if you say either YES or NO to my question of going for the Masters.
If your final recommendation to me is YES, then I would like to ask The application apparently requires me to produce evidence that i work in organization with security as part of my working experience. Does working in my startup count?
If your final recommendation to me is NO, then I would like to ask should I let my GSEC cert expire?
Thank you.
UPDATE
conclusions:
1) get a job with IT security related experience
2) then consider getting certifications after 2 years.
3) for web application security, consider reading
the following:
a) Hacker Techniques Tools and Incident Handling,
b) 7 Most Deadliest Web Application Attacks,
c) Web Application Obfuscation,
d) Security Strategies in Web Applications and Social Networking,
e) Fundamentals of Information Systems Security