Is Cybersecurity Really for Me?
The Beginning No One Talks About
In today’s job market, more students and career changers are getting interested in cybersecurity. The excitement at the beginning is real. But chasing the wrong things or not knowing where to start often leads to exhaustion, loss of motivation, or impostor syndrome.
And if I am honest, that last one follows many of us in this field.
When I was studying at Turku University of Applied Sciences, many fellow students chose data networking and cybersecurity as their specialization. A large number of them lost interest and switched paths, often because of the networking courses. Networking can feel dry and abstract at first, and it can kill motivation before people even reach the parts they were excited about.
If you are aiming for offensive roles like penetration testing, networking fundamentals are unavoidable. You cannot meaningfully attack a protocol you do not understand. How do you exploit FTP if you have never configured it? How do you recognize a bad configuration if you do not know what a good one looks like?
Cybersecurity can feel punishing in that sense. The field moves fast and expectations are high. But at the same time, it can also be deeply rewarding once things begin to make sense.
What Kind of Roles Exist in Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity isn’t a single path. It’s an ecosystem.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that cybersecurity is a single path. It is not. It is an ecosystem.
Some people work in offensive roles like penetration testing, focusing on finding vulnerabilities and thinking like attackers. Others work in defensive roles such as SOC analysts who monitor environments and respond to anomalies.
There are also research roles, threat hunting, malware analysis, governance and compliance, cloud security, and many others. The field is much broader than most people initially realize. I explore these paths more deeply in a separate article that maps structured career roadmaps across domains.
Why the Beginning Feels Hard
Cybersecurity is built on layers of invisible systems. You cannot see packets moving or permissions being enforced. You are building a mental model of systems you cannot directly observe.
Struggling isn’t a sign you don’t belong. It’s a sign the foundation is forming.
At the beginning, that model does not exist yet. Networking feels abstract because it is abstract. Logs look meaningless because you do not know what normal behavior looks like yet. Security tools feel complex because they assume foundational knowledge.
Struggling at this stage is not a sign that you do not belong. It is a sign that you are still building the foundation. The learning curve is steep, but steep does not mean impossible.
Certifications and the Cost Reality
When motivation drops, many people start looking at certifications as the next step. The problem is that certifications can be expensive, and cost becomes a real barrier.
Not everyone can afford a 300 to 400 euro exam when they are unemployed, studying, or changing careers. This is where expectations need to be realistic.
The good news is that there are affordable and even free ways to build credibility.
Free or low-cost entry points include:
ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC), which has offered free training and exams during global campaigns
Fortinet NSE training paths, which provide free foundational security learning
Vendor learning platforms like Microsoft Learn and Cisco Networking Academy
Hands-on platforms such as TryHackMe and Hack The Box that offer free tiers
More structured but still accessible options include Security Blue Team, TCM Security, and other training providers that focus on practical skills at a lower price point than traditional certifications.
Certifications can still be useful. They provide structure, a shared vocabulary, and signals to recruiters that you understand core concepts.
But they also have limits.
Certifications do not create deep technical understanding.They do not replace hands-on practice.They do not guarantee a job. And they do not remove self-doubt.
A certification can make you credible without making you an expert.
A first certification does not make you an expert. It makes you credible at entry level. Used correctly, certifications are tools, not identity markers.
Labs Are Where Understanding Begins
Labs are where theory turns into cause and effect.
If certifications provide structure, labs provide depth.
Hands-on environments let you experiment, fail safely, and observe how systems behave. Platforms like TryHackMe and Hack The Box allow you to connect theory to real behavior. Cloud free tiers from providers like AWS and Azure make it possible to build your own lab environments at almost no cost. This is where things begin to click.
You see how misconfigurations expose services.You see how permissions change outcomes.You see how logs reflect real activity.
Confidence does not come from memorizing definitions. It comes from understanding cause and effect.
It also helps to approach labs with the right mindset. The goal is not collecting flags. The goal is understanding what actually happened.
The Confidence Gap
One of the most common experiences in cybersecurity is the confidence gap.
You might understand the theory but hesitate to speak.You might complete labs but still feel behind.You might earn a certification and still doubt yourself.
This is more normal than people admit.
Cybersecurity is often portrayed as a field of exceptional technical brilliance. In reality, it is built on cumulative understanding. Expertise grows through repetition, exposure, and time.
There is no single personality type that fits cybersecurity. The field includes governance roles, cloud specialists, SOC analysts, DevSecOps engineers, researchers, and many more.
Struggling with networking does not disqualify you.Being unsure does not exclude you.Learning slowly does not mean you are incapable.
The Real Beginning
The real beginning of a cybersecurity career is not your first certification and not your first lab.
It is the moment you start seeing how systems connect.
When you understand how a request travels through a network.When access control stops being a buzzword.When logs start telling a story.
You do not need to know everything. You need to start connecting the pieces.
Confidence in cybersecurity rarely arrives all at once. It builds quietly as abstraction turns into understanding.
So Is Cybersecurity Really for You?
The real beginning is when abstraction turns into understanding.
If you are asking yourself that question, consider this:
Are you curious about how systems work? Are you willing to sit with complexity a little longer? Are you ready to build understanding step by step?
If the answer is yes, then you are already at the real beginning.
And beginnings are rarely comfortable. But they are powerful.
Stay with it, clarity comes one step at a time.
Text: Roosa Yöruusu, W4CFI Articles
