This was fascinating! If I could do it all over again, I'd have gone into the US Foreign Service. Maybe not to places like North Korea (which we don't have a presence in anyways), but I'd have loved to travel the world. Maybe in the next life...
I told myself this about an important decision. I thought about it more and decided I didn't really believe in that (proof: what do you remember from your last life), so just did it in this one. No regrets!
Sure they don't ;)
I tried for 5 years in a row to get into my country's service. It failed. Pivoted to information security, hey at least I am a millionaire now.
But I certainly can offer some advice:
1. Be hardcore and really interested in security. Read everything. Deep diving into networks, software, vulnerability, risk management.
2. Get a CISSP certifiaction, then maybe an ISO 27001 cert and then also something juicy from SANS (I have none of these).
3. Get an AWS or a public cloud of your choice certification
Also
* Cia triad
* Mitre attack framework
* Cis controls
* Nist framework
* Ise 62443
* Zero trust framework from NIST
Get work experience, projects, situations, grow and evolve
Yet if one takes them, they will certainly help.
I think we sometimes look past how valuable it is to just have two clearly stated, conflicting views on an issue, without a day long effort to unify or persuade them.