Now that's one helluva first post. Love the attitude at 24. This is very similar to what I suggest in my talk DIY Career in Ethical Hacking. Decide what you want out of life, and plan backwards with long-term AND short-term goals. Sounds like you're on your way to a career and not just a job.

I love the foundation you're setting of doing system admin, network admin, Linux, security, etc. Having that under your belt really helps you to understand some of the deeper security topics as they come up.

As for CEH, if this is what you decide for an entry-level ethical hacking credential, then do self-study. I would recommend many other more advanced hacking certs instead of ECSA/LPT. Look around and let us know if we can help with more specific recommedations as you get closer to taking these.

Welcome to EH-Net!

Hope that helps,
Don

Welcome to EH Makaveli 


Very nice goals, and nice to see that you have a good plan. If you want to be one of the best, then you need to have or develop, a passion for information security. Money should always come in 2nd, 3rd or a much later row. (Of course, not all people are like this, but if you don't have a true passion for ethical hacking and penetration testing, it surely will become harder than usual, to learn and understand the true aspects of real penetration testing, and not just automated tools.) 

PS: You probably know IRC already, but check out the various channels on Freenode, like #backtrack-linux, #corelan, etc.

OK, so about 6 months passed by (feels like I started this thread last week, the way time flies by makes me think about how I can manage to do more things with the time I do have right now).

The Microsoft part is out of the way with an MCITP successful certification.

Next week I will be taking the on the heavy duty CCSA (Check Point Certified Security Administrator) and right after that go after the CCSE - We finished the materials on both of them, and starting Cisco's CCNA later this week (Looking back at my starting point, I contemplate on whether Cisco should have been the first certification in my course, since it serves as an entry-level to the networking world).

I haven't started working in the industry yet, as I am waiting to finish all of my studies. Some might say it is a bad choice, as the more experience I get at this young stage, the better I will be off in the long run, taking on more advanced jobs.

During that time I was exposed to several areas which caught my attention and got me interested.

These are:

Exploits, and everything around them, which means I need to pursue knowledge on Assembly language along with some C.

Web Applications Security, which REALLY caught my eyes and I am currently reading "The Web Applications Hacker's Handbook, 2nd Edition" in my spare time, and going to purchase some lab credits soon to practice these skills.

The OSCP and eCPPT look like a great goal for me, and I am thinking to myself it I have the right skill set to take on any of them soon (maybe the CEH, which is very expensive, $500 for that exam should be my entry level).

Any comments will be blessed.

Thank you all for your time and your great replies!