SecureSet Academy

Coming up on just over a year working for great company I cannot help but be amazed on how graduating from the CORE program at SecureSet impacted my life! I would have never been able to land my perfect job without the help of SecureSet Academy. Not only did they help ease my transition from military life to civilian life, but they also gave me the tools needed to succeed. As an alumni from the first CORE class in Colorado Springs, I am incredibly proud of the progress made to further enhance student learning and career services. The SecureSet staff is dedicated to your future! Work ethic and drive help you become successful once you are in the field, SecureSet opens the door to get you in front of hiring professionals.

I attended the HUNT program just over a year ago.  I am not going to give you the individual gripes that I personally have, as I do not believe that helps anyone.  Instead here are the pros and cons:

Pros:
If you are a veteran, you will be decently taken care of.  Especially if your GI Bill covers it in full. (However, I would STRONGLY suggest you either use your GI Bill to attend a college or just get your certifications through one of the many veteran programs available.  Especially if you have a clearance of any sort.)

Career Services was decent (Though connecting you with employers only does so much when you are taught nothing useful)

Most of the staff was nice.

Cons:
The "hands on" labs are a complete lie.  The 3 or 4 that existed didn’t work half the time, and when they did they would be completed in about 10 minutes.

70% of what you learn is pretty useless in the industry.

Lot's of paper-writing on topics that have little to no market-value.

100% of everything that is being taught can be learned on your own, or through other avenues in a much cheaper way.

Despite the numerous (questionable) 5-star reviews, this place has a pretty abysmal reputation in the industry.  They are known for churning out multiple litters of students who lack any sort of practical knowledge and are pretty much a blank slate in terms of actual skills.

If you pay with a loan from Skillsfund (or whatever it’s called now) you will be paying about $400 a month, when the only jobs you can get pay about $19 an hour if you do not have a secret clearance or 5+ years of I.T. already.

I could go on and on, but my goal with this is not to whine about my poor decisions, it is to stop people from making the same ones I did.  Do not attend SecureSet Academy.  Just don’t.

My experience at SecureSet Academy was phenomenal.   Even though I entered with only limited IT experience, SecureSet thoroughly provided me with the tools and training I needed to jumpstart a career in Cyber Security.   The full-time program is highly intense and challenging, packing a year's worth of accredited material into six months.  It is the real deal.

Each of the teachers were venerable experts in their respective fields; individuals who are industry leaders even outside their roles as teachers at SecureSet Academy.    The school provided the training I needed to conquer industry-recognized certification exams, including the Security+ and CISSP, both of which I successfully passed on the first try.   They also have ongoing hiring partnerships with companies both locally and nation-wide, which is how I landed my current job as a Risk Specialist just one week after completing the program. 

I've been highly recommending SecureSet to everyone!

I thought secureset was extremely helpful program. I received a well rounded education in cyber security, from hacking, to forensics, analysis, python, different Linux systems and gave me the basic fundamentals of network set up and trouble shooting. The GRC portion was a bit arbitrary and could use some looking at. Also many of the lesson plans need to be updated as there would be wrong steps to follow. That could be considered a good or bad thing as this requires people to problem solve and work as a team to complete the labs.

I felt that secureset core program also began the process of preparing for the compTIA security plus certification. There is still a lot of self study and preperation that needs to be done for security plus, but it is important to remember that this course isn’t going to make you a master at one thing, but rather a apprentice at many and just enough to make you competitive in your future job search. 

What I found to be the most important part of this was, the preperation for employment after school was complete. There are a lot of mixed reviews about this, but strictly just for the sheer number of employers I was put in front of and the continual updating and tweaking of my resume, dressing in business attire, having mock interviews. The whole process here prepared me, and I am happy to say I ended up with several offers.

All in all the program is what you make of it. You can’t expect it to give you everything “like a hand out” but if you put in the effort, and take it seriously as well as do some self study and prep to find a job, you essentially give yourself the tools to move into the career field with a lot of skills. 

I agree with several other reviewers for this coding bootcamp, know before you pay. Many people that I have talked to who attended the CORE, PREP is better than the CORE Program, you're also spending less money 1,500 vs 20,000. If you are Civilian, then I would not recommend the Colorado Springs location, since it caters to mostly cleared military veterans or active personel. Plus, after graduation you simply get a Technicial Diploma and no certifications. Also, this term the graduation ceremony was very unorganized, since the main staple of graduation is getting a black zip up hoodie with SecureSet Academy on the sleeves and a geometric wolf on the back. At the beginning of the program, the staff pass around a sheet asking for hoodie sizes, which they totally ignored. I got a hoodie that was oversized and had no geometric wolf on the back. Its not worth $20,000.00, maybe half that price, since you do not recieve a voucher to take a CompTia cert. I definately recommend taking one of the CompTia Bootcamps, since they prepare you to actually take a cert, which will further market you in the world of Cyber Security. However, the best thing I received from this 5 month bootcamp was a tight family network, throughout the Green and Blue Cohorts.

We’ve just begun the ‘Capstone’ project, and I feel like I’ve learned next to nothing, as does everyone else in the class. The “labs” were written in broken English and often did not work, the servers and licensing for the programs  were broken and not available for most of the program and there’s so many unnecessary classes you’ll spend more time researching politics and philosophy than learning IT. The teachers are all smart and want to teach you but the entire thing is so rushed that you spend one day on a subject then move on and never touch it again.Only 2 people in the entire class have job offers and they worked in IT before. I would give anything to get my time and savings back.