| | Yingqi Shi | Evolve Security Academy is definitely one of the best learning experiences I've had in my life. Within 12 weeks, I've had the opportunity to learn from world-class hackers, security professionals and worked in business projects with a team of talented peers. With the framework Evolve prepared for us, I've successfully nailed rankings within HackTheBox within 3 months and achieved another penetration testing certificates while staying with Evolve. The amount of intense focus Evolve gives really helps one to prepare for jobs like Security Consultant or Penetration Testers or roles alike. I will give detailed views in each of the lens:
Instructors: Make sure to learn from Ramandeep Singh on the technical side and Faisal Abdullah on the framework side. Fai has years of experience in the field and he's the one that helped me establish an extremely comprehensive framework. Like Mathematics, the field of Cyber Security is vast and it is very crucial that one develops the correct methodology to organise all the technical skills and information gathered. Fai will teach you exactly how to think strategically about this field and about security consulting in general. Ramandeep, one of my all-time favourite instructor, is a very experienced white hat whose speciality lies in actual Forensic Sciences. He came from a very wild background (discover for yourself :) ) and I'm sure if you are more into penTesting he's the guy to go to.
Curriculum: Definitely well-structured. But again the course I took served more like a honor version of Cyber Security 101 (equivalent to freshmen/sophomore experience in Cyber Sec Major). If you really want to get involved, you should definitely talk to Fai or Ram about different resources tailored towards your own interest. When I took the course, I moved to PenTesting really quickly. I asked Ram about all different kinds of questions including things like where to study, what to study and how to study. I ended up learning from Evolve during the day and doing Pentesting Labs at night from credible sources like Pentester Academy or HackTheBox. I think by the time I finish the cohort I was more than ready to just go ahead and start the Kali Professional Course.
Work Experience: The module I took involved consulting work with a non-profit organisation. In my opinion this is definitely one of the most useful and practical part of the course since it prepares you for the real industrial experience. I actually gained a lot of communication skills from it. I ended up being one part of the team presenting to our client and the feedback was very positive.
Social: I moved to Chicago for the course during my summer break, and Ram was very kind to invite me to dinner and chat with me about all sort of things. Some of the conversations we've had not only shaped my ideas about Cyber Security, but also changed how I think in general about problem-solving.
Overall: I felt very confident about landing a career in cyber security when I left the cohort. Unfortunately after I went back to school I was more involved with the development of Data Science Algorithms, Quantitative Finance and Pure Math Research. But I'm pretty sure that had I kept on and gaining more experience in the field, I will probably make the most out of my experience. (one of my peer immediately got a job as a penetration tester at the end of the cohort. I think that speaks for it). |
