CCNA 200-301 & Network+Practice Pack
Subnetting Success!

ICND1 Passed - 942/832

Just passed this afternoon.

Network Fundamentals 92%

LAN Switching Fundamentals 94%

Routing Fundamentals 80%

Infrastructure Services 67%

Infrastructure Maintenance 75%

**Background: **

I'm pretty new in the IT industry, as I'm only 1.5 years in as an IT Specialist. The first certification I got was the A+. After that, I considered going for the Net+, but after researching the cost/benefit of the CCNA vs Net+, I decided the CCNA would be a better investment. However, since my experience in networking was ZERO, I wanted to deeply understand networking since networking is the backbone of IT and is something that I need to have a solid handle on to be an excellent IT professional. So I committed to this as a long-term, 'take my time and savor the learning process' project, no rush' project. To this end, I held off on studying for the CCNA and instead studied for the Net+ *as if* I were going to take the Net+ exam. I felt that by the end of the Net+ training, I'd be prepared for the CCNA-level training. The only material that I studied with was a Udemy course from Jason Dion:

https://www.udemy.com/course/networkplus/

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So for about three months, I was enjoying Jason Dion's Net+ classes, on weeknights after work and sometimes on weekends. I watched 100% of his course and took notes on everything. It's a very well-made course with excellent visual diagrams and Jason excels at explaining networking concepts in layman's terms. So after completing this Jason Dion's Net+ course, I began the CCNA mountain-climb.

**Prep Materials**

Short version:

Wendell Odom's OCG

David Bombal's Udemy Packet Tracer Course

Chris Bryant's Udemy CCNA Course

Boson ExSim & NetSim

Jeremy Cioara's CBT Nuggets

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Long version:

The first and only book I bought was Wendell Odom's OCG book. I began reading at least a chapter per day. Reading Wendell is a bit encyclopedic, but Wendell does a really good job of breaking concepts down *thoroughly*. It's the kind of reading that is an exercise in itself, with the reward of having very a well-digested understanding of the subject matter. It's very 'chewy' reading. That being said, I couldn't really get into the chapters where he talks about Cisco CLI basics because at the time I didn't have access to any labs or Cisco gear. So I skipped all those chapters and instead focused on networking concepts, theory, etc. Once I completed that, I shifted gears into labbing mode.

*Sidenote: It was around this time that I got the news about Cisco revamping their CCNA exams. This burst my bubble of taking as long as I want to get a really deep understanding of Networking; now I only have several months left to get the CCNA. For fuck's sake, the same damn thing happened to me when I was studying for my A+; the 901/902 exam was getting replaced by the 1001/1002 and I'd already invested substantial time into studying for the 901/902. On the bright side, at least the deadlines in both cases have put enough pressure on me to get the certs sooner than later.*

The first dip into labbing was with Cisco Packet Tracker and David Bombal's PT labbing course on Udemy. David Bombal's course is pretty good. But after a while, his voice started driving me crazy as I couldn't stop thinking in his monotonous, British-with-a-hint-of-disappointed-tone accent in my head. I would literally hear his voice narrating everything I was doing during my own labbing practice and it mildly irritated me. So I switched it up a bit and tried out other online instructors.

That brings me to Chris Bryant's CCNA course on Udemy. I had a much easier time following Chris Bryant and appreciated his sense of humor. I found out Chris Bryant also has a really good Udemy course that focuses entirely on subnetting practice. I *highly* recommend this, it really solidified my subnetting mastery. I can do most subnetting in my head now, no pen and paper needed.

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-200-125-and-ccent-practice-pack-subnetting-success/

Then I shifted gears into a more serious exam-prep mode and bought Boson NetSim and ExSim. Holy smokes, what a solid (albeit expensive) investment. The NetSims really drill the procedural tasks down into you so often that by the time I finished most of the NetSims for CCENT, I feel like a lot of the CLI commands were embedded into my muscle memory. And then there's the ExSim. By far, the Boson ExSim is probably what really trained me for the CCENT exam the most. Everything else -- from the OCG to the Udemy Courses -- is just to build the framework of knowledge for your brain to perform at it's best come exam day. But the Boson ExSim trains you to *apply* that framework in exam conditions that very closely mirror Cisco's exams, which is valuable in a way that is hard to overstate. And everyone is right when they say Boxon ExSims are harder than the Cisco Exams. And what I find pretty frightening is that I saw so many ways that the ExSims could be ludicrously harder (and yet still fair). So I'm grateful that we live in a world where Cisco is not *that* brutal.

The last two weeks before taking the exam today, I subscribed to CBT Nuggets and listened to all of Jeremy Cioara's CCENT CBT Nuggets. Maximum enthusiasm (maybe a little too amped up on amphetamines). Just what I needed at the time, actually. Watching the videos gave me a contact high and WOO! got me amped up too. It was a very good overview of the concepts that I've learned and labbed about, which quite a few new tips and insights. I'll be looking forward to Jeremy Cioara's CBT Nuggets on ICND2.

One other resource I found in the last month was Professor Messer's Pocket Prep course. It looks like there's only one for the ICND1 course, as of now. This was a great way to keep my mind sharp on a lot of the concepts during my spare time.

That's it. Now I'm taking a two week break before ramping up to CCNA before February.

Thanks for reading.