College not required: A guide to starting in InfoSec

So recently I had someone tell a community member that you needed to go to school like everyone else and pay to learn infosec. For some reason this bugged me because I really only see college degree as a rubber stamp for HR I would like to tell you that is a lie and here is why.
*Updated 12/15/15*

College is very rarely needed for learning especially if you’re self-motivated. Basically all college will do is open doors for some companies that management think they must have it. This is the computer age and knowledge is not learned in the class rooms with $100Ks in debt and loss of 4 years of income.

If you’re self-motivated and have a passion for learning start here!

If you never done Linux before:
intro to linux
linux+

If you never done pentesting before:
ethical hacking class
advanced penetration testing

networking overview:
network+
ccna

Nmap

TCP/IP

Silence on the Wire: A Field Guide to Passive Reconnaissance and Indirect Attacks

Psychology:

The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security

Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking

For programming topics to get you a strong foundation.
java, python, php, powershell, bash, javascript, c,  and assembly
There are many websites out there to learn programming languages here are 2 links for assembly

assembly primer linux
assembly primer windows
Regular Expression
This is a part of programming that is commonly used to help identify hard to detect data. so you can detect paterns in code. This is great when it comes to defensive side and writing rules based off regular expression.
regex101.com helps explain what your regex does
regexone.com well walk you through tutorials to learn it.

Kernel Review

Introduction Intel x86

Introduction Intel x86-64

Introduction to ARM

Linux Kernel Level Programming

Defensive and SOC training
Intro to Network Forensics
Flow analysis and Network Hunting and videos can be found here 
Intro to malware analysis and reverse engineering 
Dynamic Malware Analysis 
Practical Malware Analysis
Reverse Engineering Malware
Blue Team Handbook
 

Malware analysis tools can be found here.

Learning Exploit process and testing:

Vulnerable web Service

Broken Web Application

Setting up a Penetration Testing Labs

For more additional resources for labs check out

http://www.amanhardikar.com/mindmaps/Practice.html

Standards for penetration testing a good resource for learning them are at the bellow link.

http://www.pentest-standard.org/index.php/Main_Page

Network Security Assessment: Know Your Network

I would also take a deep look at powershell and other advanced windows services.

Windows Internals (Developer Reference)

The key is finding an area in infosec you like and become the expert for that area.

If you’re interested in more resources for learning, you can check out the bellow link for resources of websites, books, mobile, tools and more.
http://localtechrepair.blogspot.com/2014/01/information-security-software-books-and.html