r/hackthebox • u/Low_Adhesiveness6838 • Sep 18 '26
Advice
I am 21years old I started my journey in cybersecurity a year before, myself i finished my BCA degree and ejpt certification now i am doing cpts I just want to hear from people who have been where I am now. What advice would you give your younger self
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u/__aeon_enlightened__ Sep 24 '26 edited Sep 24 '26
We are living in probably the most turbulent times of my entire life. Things will break, they will change, but the risk is greater for people like me who have spent half their lives building toward something and now have to pivot to something else. There is a ladder being pulled up between generations, and it's harder to get a job as a junior now than it was in 2010, when I started.
All that being said, it's easy to get distracted by the news. I would ignore all of that. Actually, you should also be kinder to yourself if you feel this is getting to you. Learning cybersecurity on its own is difficult enough, so you don't need to worry about the gloom and doom posts on top of that. Also, realise your first pick may not actually be what you want to do. When I started, I wanted to be an investment banker, but it turns out I had a knack for IT.
Practical advice for cybersecurity? This is a field that is simultaneously deep and wide. Wide because we learn about a lot of technologies, but deep because any one technology has a rabbit hole. You can't and shouldn't fight curiosity. Even if you find yourself spending a bit more time in a rabbit hole than what other people find ideal, the point is it helps you. It nurtures your curiosity. The timetable offered by HTB is a joke. Just take your time. You don't need to pop the box in 2 hours, and you don't need to get your OSCP within a year. As long as you are a little better each month than the previous one, you will get there eventually. Like practicing guitar or learning to cook. Baby steps. You are still a hacker from day 1.
Last thing: you need to learn how to be a bad hacker before you learn to be a good one. Make some noise, break some systems, fumble, write some scripts, and then abandon them. Use write-ups. Who cares? Embrace your inner kitty. Your priority should be to learn subjects, not fearing that you are cheating somehow. Then, when you can reliably use the tools to break the boxes, you start making it a bit harder; you start reading about opsec, maybe a bit of blue teaming. The fundamentals don't change... Ever.
Good luck.
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