The World According to Mitch

While my focus has of late shifted to cybersecurity, I have spent most of my teaching career focusing on Microsoft technologies. It made sense, since as an IT consultant I had always specialized in Microsoft infrastructure technologies. Even with my recent shift to infosec, I am still the go-to instructor for the Microsoft stack for a couple of training companies when they know they have a possible difficult client.

From time to time one of those training providers will call on me to teach a course that is outside of my comfort zone. When that has happened, it has almost always been on the Microsoft stack. ‘Mitch is a Microsoft guy, so we can ask him to teach Azure Open AI, or DevOps!’ At first, I used to jump at every class I was offered, simply because as a contract trainer I only earn when I work… and teaching a course that I am not comfortable teaching is still more comfortable than not being able to pay my bills. On these classes I usually spend a lot of time studying and preparing… it would be unfair to the students if I went into any class unprepared.

A couple of months ago I got such a call from a training provider with whom I have an excellent relationship. Really, they have helped to advance my career so much that it would be hard for me to imagine not accepting any reasonable request from them. Of course, they know that my expertise lies in cybersecurity and the Microsoft infrastructure stack, so most of their requests – even the ones that are outside of my comfort zone – are usually tied to one or the other of those.

“Mitch, can you teach a CompTIA Linux+ class for us at the beginning of December?”

After checking my calendar to confirm that it was not April 1^st, I gave it some thought. I have been using Linux for a couple of decades… for very specific use cases. In 2010 I even bought a laptop that was intended strictly for me to use and really learn Linux on… although that never really worked because I was distracted by a number of other, more pressing tasks… including being a new father. I have been using both Kali and Parrot Linux for my cybersecurity work (and demos) for several years. I can certainly navigate the command line interface of BaSH and could even do some very rudimentary Python scripting. It’s not like I would be diving into a new invention (which I have done for Microsoft on at least three occasions)… Linux is an operating system, and I know operating systems. Sure, there would be a few concepts that I would really need to brush up on, but would teaching Linux be so difficult?

I checked my calendar again. No joke this time, while there was a month between the request and the course delivery, I do have obligations (including other classes to teach) that I needed to consider when estimating if I would have sufficient time to prepare for the course… and of course to book and pass the exam. I decided that it would be a little tight, but it would certainly be doable. I would be cutting it close… but yes, I could do it.

I joked with the training broker that they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I agreed to take on this class. They assigned me the courseware, and I got to work.

I downloaded the courseware at the end of October when the weather was still reasonable, and I spent a few evenings on the balcony studying with a cigar. I was interrupted by a high level infosec class I needed to deliver, and some other work I needed to do, but I made sure that I was able to go through all of the labs provided… and replicated many of the steps in my own lab so that I could have the technology as persistent, and not in an online lab that is wiped out at the end of each session.

When the training provider asked me a week before the class if I was ready… I lied and said that I was. Deep down I knew that I was not… and I was certain that I was going to fail the exam. I booked the exam anyways… for Thursday afternoon. I figured that if I failed it Thursday, then I would have enough time to rebook it and take the exam again over the weekend.

Thursday afternoon came, and I decided to reschedule the exam for Saturday. I was not feeling confident, but I was at the point where I felt that a couple of more days of studying would make a real difference. I spent two more days studying and then sat down to the exam.

I was very confident on some questions, extremely unsure about others. In short, I was not confident when I pressed the ‘End Exam’ button. When it told me that I passed I was relieved… and I started to laugh. I have passed fifty-eight Microsoft exams… and now one Linux exam! (It should be noted that several of my cybersecurity and networking exams required a decent knowledge of Linux, including live simulations… but none of them were Linux exams.)

Okay, I am certified. Great. Was I ready to teach the class? That was another issue. I went over my score report and spent several hours on Sunday reviewing the topics I was uncomfortable with. By the time I was ready for bed I was confident that I was ready for the class. Woohoo!

I had more fun teaching the Linux+ class than I ever thought I would have. I went through the material but broke into demos as often as I could so that I could show the students what the concept I was teaching looked like in practice. I always prefer to teach with demos because there is only so much you can learn from slides. I also realized as I taught that despite my heavy focus on Microsoft, I have implemented or at least used so many of the features and concepts included in the class in my professional life.

Because all of my students were very new to Linux, and were mostly Windows guys, they asked me to show the comparison to Windows on a lot of concepts. I realized that for someone who grew up in Windows, they would be familiar with the concepts I was teaching if I could draw the comparison. That was probably one of the most beneficial reasons to have a Microsoft consultant teach Linux. I asked the students and they all agreed that it was a huge value add for them and helped them to better understand the material covered.

We spent the week together, and at the end they all filled out the course evaluations that were entirely positive. I was relieved by that because trainers live and die by those scores, so when I am teaching well outside of my comfort zone, I have to pay even closer attention. It was a win.

I never expected to love teaching that course, but I have told the training provider that I did, and that I will happily teach it again. Don’t get me wrong… I am not reformatting my primary computers to Linux… but I will definitely maintain the lab environment that I built, and I will continue to work in it so that I can maintain and hone my Linux skills. I am also thinking that when I get a laptop that I loaned out back next month, I will repurpose my other spare laptop to run Linux. Which distro? I don’t know… but expect this Microsoft guy to continue to coexist in Linux!