Hello,
I live in WA State so we're in the same PDT time zone.
I am already setup with study buddies and I am studying Python with some of them (beginning) as well as for the following IT cert exams:
1. Cisco CCNA (plan on taking it in Dec 2022).
2. CompTIA CySA+ 003 beta exam (have to take it on 6 Jan 2023).
3. Linux Foundation's LFCS (plan on taking it in Mar & Apr, i.e., with this exam you get 2 attempts for the same price).
4. Certified Wireless Network Associate (CWNA-108). I plan on taking this in May 2023.
5. VMware VPC-DCV exam (it is all about enterprise level virtualization, e.g., data centers [cloud], etc.). One of my study buddies & I have both completed the Stanly Community College (SCC) based out of N. Carolina online training for this course (worthless training, but alas, VMware is a strange firm and they will NOT allow anyone to take the VPC-DCV cert exam UNLESS they 1st have taken the training from one of their "approved VMware training providers" which SCC is one of). Most such VMware authorized training provider types of firms charge $3,500 ~ $4,000 for each one week bootcamps for ths VPC-DCV exam training and you normally would require 2 such bootcamps (level 1 and level 2 respectively). SCC only charges $195 USD for each of them, ergo we had students from all over the world in the class, e.g., Russia, Europe, Middle East, etc. The training at SCC is an utter joke, but it gives us the voucher that allows us to study up on our own and take the exam at least. Not sure when we'll be taking this exam but has to be before Oct 2023.
6. I will start studying with my one study buddy for the CCNP ENCOR exam beginning in Jan 2023 onward.
Thus far, I have already studied for and passed the following CompTIA IT cert exams: (1) Security+, (2) Network+, (3) Project+, (4) Server+, and (5) Linux+ (the last one was far and away the most time consuming CompTIA exam any of the 3 of us have studied for).
If you're a CS software developer guy, you're probably well beyond me with respect to your programming skills, etc. I have taken data structures and algorithms classes before but I would need to brush up and the only programming languages I have taken are C#, Java, JavaScript, R and Python but I'm NOT what I consider to be very good in any of them, (but I have decided to change that starting with Python and I plan on taking the Python Institutes Associate and at least one of their Professional level cert exams. I do NOT believe in programming IT certs per se, for for software developers that isn't something that is at all normal / desired. But I don't plan on being a software developer, only getting good at a handful of programming languages and using them to "automate" things, e.g., software defined networking (SDN), Ansible Playbooks, MS PowerShell scripts and Linux Bash scripting and later on Dockers and Kubernetes for orchestration of micro-services (I plan on getting Dockers & Kubernetes certified as well). Plus I think Terraform certification training for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) certification would be ideal as well.
I am currently focusing my efforts on the above areas with an eye toward more cybersecurity certs as well as the 3 main cloud vendors certs as well, e.g., AWS, Azure and Google's. I currently study 7 days a week with these various study buddies so I don't have a lot of spare time, but if any of them "flakes out on me" (i.e., they stop showing up in a consistent manner) I will drop them and reach out to you if you happen to be interested in pursing any of the above areas of study and our time lines / schedules can match up.
Looking forward to hearing back from you concerning this matter!
Warm regards,
Bob
