Cybersecurity BA - Military

[SwiftHax]

Another thing that I found out was that the military will not fund the Excel track

Just to clarify, they won't fund the excel track, but they would still fund the traditionally paced program right? I'd say just go for the traditionally paced program(The classes are the same either way) and try to enroll in your first classes around spring 2024 since that should be plenty of time to finish your Sophia/study courses and work out military TA. Any extra time you can start studying for CySA+ which will probably take several months of prep for at a minimum, though you will get some good overlap from your other IT/cyber courses. You'd still be accelerating this way and be able to finish in about a year or less. Despite many online communities pushing everyone to self paced programs, citing the hyper accelerators out there who can finish very fast and cheap(these are usually people with lots of experience), the majority of people don't find that to be the case for them.

 I don't plan on taking the CompTIA Linux+ course because it feels like more of a hassle to do than taking the course through PUG. I needed another course to keep me above the 25% of required PUG courses anyways. If this is a bad call then by all means let me know. 

That's a perfectly fine plan. Feel free to ask any other questions and advice.

Correct, the military will fund the traditionally-paced program, just not the excel track. 

I think it might also be a good idea for me to go at a regular pace with the higher level cyber courses because I don't have a background in this field at all. As much as I want to go quickly, I also want to feel like I'm gaining competency in the field.