Monday, April 13, 2020

Earning IT Certifications

These days he handles a range of networking and systems administration tasks:
Creating accounts to facilitate access
Utilizing Active Directory and SharePoint
Troubleshooting any number of tickets that come through for the systems he supports

Before joining the military, he had numerous professional endeavors on his plate – but developing IT expertise was not one of them.

“I was a computer user, but I had basically no knowledge about networking or network security,” Quinones said. “I had a basic knowledge of computers, but that’s it. I started working with them in the Army, basically, after joining.”

In the military, Quinones quickly grew from a casual computer novice to a skilled IT professional.
Earning His First IT Certification

About 10 years ago in Puerto Rico, Quinones was on quite a different career path – or more accurately, multiple paths. He had earned a bachelor’s degree in business with a focus on finance and accounting, was working as a bank officer and had joined up as a U.S. Army reservist.

The U.S. Department of Defense requires those who work on military computer networks to hold certain IT certifications, so Quinones set out to get CompTIA Security+. Despite having limited exposure to cybersecurity, he found that he thrived in the test prep boot camp the military sent him to.

He didn’t take the certification exam until two months after completing the week-long class, but the targeted test prep stuck with him, bolstered by the hands-on computing skills he was already building. Quinones passed his CompTIA Security+ exam on his first attempt.

In 2014, Quinones was called up to active duty, which meant a relocation and all the significant life changes that come with it. In Puerto Rico he had his civilian jobs, a home and a world of familiar surroundings. When he and his family moved to Kentucky for his assignment, they were leaving everything they knew behind. But active duty was also opening up a new world of opportunity.

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