My honest opinion on Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate

Introduction

To give some background about myself, I am a self-taught software developer with almost 2 years of professional experience. The reason why I decided to take the Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate is to transition to the security field. I thought that it would be a good place to start learning about the cybersecurity field.

The course seemed to be highly recommended by many YouTube channels, and has a very good rating on Coursera where the course is hosted. And bearing the brand of Google only can do good for its marketing and credibility.

Do take note that I am taking this course after I have completed the ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity exam so I have some basic understanding of cybersecurity concepts.

The professional certificate

To attain the professional certificate, I had to complete 8 individual courses. Each course is broken into 4 weeks with each week containing 4-6 hours of content. Coursera estimates that the courses can be completed within 6 months at a 7 hours a week pace, but in my experience, about 1 month of consistent effort should be sufficient.

Within the courses, they use various modes of teaching which actually makes the learning quite engaging. These includes typical mediums such as video lessons, readings, and multiple choice questions (MCQs). The more interesting resources they use are virtual labs, where they provide an environment to use security and programming software and tools.

The topics included in the courses covers a good range of cybersecurity knowledge. It does give a nice overview of cybersecurity topics from a perspective of somebody new.

My thoughts

After earning the professional certificate, I had mixed feelings about my experience. On one hand, the course is really well made. It has a good coverage of topics while being very easy to learn and very interactive. But I feel that the course is oversold based on what is within the course content.

Course content

As I mentioned, the content in the course are really well taught in a manner that is easy to absorb. The mix of teaching medium made going through the course really easy, and the short video format also helped me to stay focused.

They also expand beyond the scope of theoretical cybersecurity information. Through the virtual labs, I learnt more about Linux which is very relevant in the tech industry. I was also exposed to various cybersecurity tools such as SIEMS, packet sniffers, and more.

As typical for a beginner friendly course, the content does not go very in-depth into the subject matter. The various virtual labs are also very surface level. To me, it feels like the course is hand holding me through the labs, so I do get to pratice but with guard rails.

Spaced throughout the course are motivational videos of people sharing their experience in the cybersecurity industry. They are really inspring with sharings of how they overcome challenges or about how they feel really fulfilled in their current roles. There is a strong emphasis on diversity of backgrounds in most videos, which I found interesting but a bit unrealistic.

The last course includes a section on preparing candidates on how to get a job. It goes through resume and cover letter writing, helpful interview skills, and on how to search for jobs. I find that these resources are really useful and relevant to someone looking to get a job in cybersecurity.

The assessment in the course comes in the form of MCQs quizzes, the quizzes are placed at the end of every week with an additional one at the end of each module to wrap up the content. I personally did not find the content particularly hard, and it seems like they are just making sure that the user is paying attention to the content.

Because the quizzes were not proctored, it is possible to refer to the notes while attempting it. This makes me doubt the credibility of the course for actually certifying the competency of the candidate.

Promotion

The marketing for this professional certificate is very aggressive. This course is highly promoted by content creators on YouTube, but most of them are sponsored content which makes it very biased.

The one thing I do not agree with the course promotion is that one can Qualify for in-demand job titles: cybersecurity analyst, security analyst, security operations center (SOC) analyst. As mentioned previously, I do not think that the courses have sufficient rigor to certify that the professional certificate holders has achieved the learning outcomes as mentioned in the professional certificate. Therefore I have some doubt about the relevance of the course in this aspect.

Another thing to note, is that through a brief search of cybersecurity analyst roles, I was not able to find a listing that mentions the Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate. In comparison, there are some listings referencing the CompTIA Security+ certification.

Cost

The course cost $49 USD per month of study, this is excluding the one week free trial. Given that the estimated time to completion by Coursera is 6 months, the estimated cost is $294. Realistically, I think one can complete the course within 1 month which will only require one month of subscription. Overall I find that its quite affordable compared to other certifications.

The completion of the certificate also gives a 30% discount voucher for CompTIA Security+ exam. Given that the cost of the exam at the point of writing is $404 USD, the Google professional certificate can help save $121.20 USD.

However, you do not need to complete the professional certificate to get the discount voucher, since it is a generic discount code (not tied to individual), you could do an online search to find the discount coupon as well.

On another note, I am still able to access the course material after completing the course and having my subscription expire. If you are really concern about the cost, you could rush through all the content to complete the course within the first week of trial, and then go through everything once again without the pressure of avoiding the next month of subscription.

Alternatives

This section is to describe what I would have done instead of the Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate knowing what I know now.

First, I would start with the CompTIA Security+ certification because it is much more recognized in the industry. There is free training available from Professor Messer that covers the knowledge required for the Security+ certification.

Next, I would look up the job listings that I am interested in, and learn specifically the technical skills required. There may be certificates related to it, but I would try to see what projects I can work on to showcase that I have the skills necessary to work proficiently with the tool.

Lastly, I would craft my resume and cover letter to fit the job specifically. There are many free resources online that teaches about resume writing and interview preparation. I think anyone could prepare sufficiently from these resources.

Conclusion

All in all, I think that the Google Cybersecurity Professional Course is well made, but is lacking to adequately prepare someone for a job in cybersecurity. It can be a good jump start because it is easy to follow and has very low initial financial investment. It does not hurt to take this professional certificate to get an overview of the industry, but more work will be needed before looking for job.