Need Help into finding best route to uni.

Hi guys,

My name is Ethan I am a 17 year old Student (first year of college, england) currently studying Computer Science (networking), the course can give me a BTEC level 3 Extended Diploma including 3 accreditations, 2 in Cisco networking and another in microsoft server, Hopefully I want to be able to attend a good uni and get onto a computer security course either Ethical hacking/offensive security or forensics. The problem I'm having is that i've been promised by my head of course, that my course is the best course around my local area for where i want to get at uni and a career. my lecturer told me at the start of the course i was able to swap out a few modules out for some programming modules as wanting to go into offensive sec will need the knowledge of programming and languages, now finding out what my college lecturer is a man full of false promises he told me that you're not allowed to swap modules and "forgot to tell me at the start of the course", well Im into my second term so nice one! I need advise on what to do next, there is a Computer science (programming) course which i could take? ive spoke to the college head of department and he said i could do networking certs on the programming course but i will have to pay for the exams. Theres also another option, i didnt end up with a B in maths GCSE, do i take a resit in college and apply for A -level the next year?
I want to hear your opinions on what i should take, do i stick to the course i am on now, do i apply for the programming course and do the cisco certs on top or do i go the a level route?
any feedback would be great

I'd personally stick to the course, and take the Cisco/Microsoft accredited exams for CCNA/CCNP or MTA/MCSA or whatever it is that you want.

Lets say you started now on getting some Cisco certifications, you could take 1-2 months on the CCENT/CCNA R&S, the CCENT (100-101) is a prerequisite for doing CCNA Security which is one of the specific areas in Cisco, then they have a specialization course in Cyber Security.

There's also other options out there given you mentioned ethical hacking.. You could also approach the OSCP certification which is offensive security, relatively expensive (£800 - includes the course materials and examination) The OSCP examination is pretty nice, you VPN into a virtual environment and they give you 24 hours to fully breach the security of the environment, and to develop a report based on what you done.

In many respects it'd be better to stick with programming since a lot of ethical hacking is done by programming!

EDIT: Stick with the BTEC (Also doing the certifications if you want), get DDD-D*D*D*, and do a resit in GCSE Mathematics to get A*-B, then you could easily apply to places such as Royal Holloway for Computer Science Information Security (Year in Industry) (BSc) - To my knowledge Royal Holloway also have one of the closest links in the UK with (ISC)2; the awarding security consortium for CISSP! If you ended up considering Royal Holloway it might also be worth looking at the CASP!

If you want more advice or information, then feel free to ask!

wow cheers dude for the advice nice to hear someone else's opinion, i have already applied today at college to resit my GCSE maths to get an A (Hopefully). do you think its beneficial to stay on the networking course?

No problem, and that's good!

Might also be worth asking them whether you'd be able to do A-level Mathematics alongside your second year of the BTEC!

Are you doing Systems Support & Networking?

Either way, it'd probably be beneficial if you kept on with the networking!

yeah thats the course im taking