Cisco CCNA 200-301 – The Complete Guide to Getting Certified

Passed the composite CCNA 200-125!!

Passed the CCNA 200-125 on my first try with 840/810 points.

I had to study all the material in 1 Month and half, I know it sounds crazy but the place where I work gave me a deadline where I had to get the CCNA no later than the 9 of August.

I study all days from 10 am to 10 pm with 2 hour breaks in between. Is possible to all study the material and pass the exam in 1 month and half but it will drain all your energy and make your head hurts like you have no idea...

My main sources for studying were:

Udemy: Neil Anderson Cisco CCNA 200-125 - The Complete Guide to Getting Certified https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/ Neil Anderson is excellent explaining hard concepts such as routing protocols and VLANs that were a problem to me. In general he explains CCNA subjects very good but DON'T make it your only source of information.

ICND1/ICND2 Wendell Odom Books are key to success since they explain CCNA subjects in a very deep and detail manner. I couldn't read all the chapters but I read those chapters that I needed a little bit of information to fully understand the topics.

NetAcademy Courses: I had access to NetAcademy courses from Cisco, this courses were really helpful since they had lots of simulations and showed exactly how protocols, vlans, nat between others worked exactly in a real environment.

Boson: I head that boson exams were good for stuyding. They provide real simulations to practice for the exam.

In general my main sources for studying that I used the most were Neil Anderson's Course and NetAcademy courses.

Another advice I could give you from my perspective is that making the composite is better than making the two way path. The two way path asks questions more in depth and are harder, the composite asks about everything but is not that hard.

Good Luck with your studying.

CCNA 200-125 PASSED!!! 865/810

Passed first time CCNA..

I did have an icnd1 way back in the day and stopped studying and I did attempt the icnd2 exam before my icnd1 expired but failed that twice. So I opted to re-study and go for the 1 exam and managed to nail it after 2 months of studying...

Study materials used;

BOSON;

ExSIM is a must, I did learn so much when I was getting some questions from, reading and understanding the explanation was the key

Books;

ICND2 OCG Wendall Odom (Front to back)

31 days till your ccna

I did skim through todd lammles revision book, but I did not read it much.

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I also used Packet tracer and GNS3. Packet tracer for switching and GNS3 for routing..

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Videos;

I did use Udemy specifically the course below;

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/ - Created by Neil Anderson

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Study Method;

I did study and dedicate around 2-4 hours a day, some days I decided to give my brain a rest, as its a muscle and overworking it sometimes doesn't help.

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Youtube;

labeveryday

David bombal

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I did use some supplements to help with brain function;

Peppermint tea

Multivitamin

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If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me and I'll happily answer, onto the next CCNP Route ;)

I'm currently studying for the CCNA as well, and I highly recommend Neil Anderson on Udemy. Easy to understand videos and he provides labs for Cisco packet tracer.

Course link.

Best udemy course for CCNA 200-301

Hi, i have started studying for CCNA and udemy has 2 courses with a lot of students and good notes. Which one is better for start? Thanks.

Cisco CCNA 200-301 – The Complete Guide to Getting Certified (Neil Anderson) (https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/)

The Complete Networking Fundamentals Course. Your CCNA start (David Bombal) https://www.udemy.com/course/complete-networking-fundamentals-course-ccna-start/

https://www.youtube.com/c/KevTechnerd
He does a great series on labs for people with no experience who want to get into IT
https://www.youtube.com/c/professormesser
This guy is the mother fucking boss. All you need right here to get A+, Net+, Sec+ and it's all free. If you fork out 40 bucks for his notes and his practice tests, you are good. Just passed my A+ core 1 from just his material alone with a 823.

Check out Neil Anderson's Udemy CCNA course. Lots of people swear by it and with that and their official handbook you should be able to pass.
You can easily go the self taught route and save yourself some monies.
https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

I obtained my CCNA in Jan 2020 using the following resources.

Primary: Neil Anderson's CCNA Course on Udemy Neil's course is a fantastic cover-all course. The topics are presented in a logical order so that it builds on previously introduced concepts. The included labs are a great way to reinforce those concepts and the video lecture will walk you through the lab configuration. Neil and his assistants answer all of your questions, usually within a day.

Secondary: David Bombal's Packet Tracer Labs Despite David's EXTREMELY BORING voice, his labs are an excellent way to practice and supplement the concepts introduced in Neil's course. David's course also has a video walkthrough to help you troubleshoot and configure the network.

Supplementary: Cisco CCNA Official Certification Guide by Wendell Odom I only used the OCG to look up topics that I wasn't able to thoroughly understand in either of the courses above. In my opinion, the OCG is took long and dense for anyone to read cover to cover as a primary learning resource if you’re trying to obtain the CCNA in a reasonable amount of time.

Exam Prep: Boson ExSim-Max for Cisco 200-301 I consider Boson's practice exams a necessity in CCNA preparation. It mimics the format of the real CCNA with its multiple choice and interactive test questions. At the end of the exam it summarizes your score and allows you to review each question AND answer while explaining IN DETAIL why each answer was correct or not.

Complete course by Neil Anderson -> https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

It's really well accepted.

take one of the video classes first. It will demystify and uncomplicate some of the language so that the book is a bit more approachable afterwards. There's a lot of great teachers out there. For what you are describing I would go with Neil Anderson. He is clear and to the point without being too wordy. Just checked his video is $11 US right now for the whole course think the sale is through tomorrow here is the link Jeremy's IT labs are great too. They are free and on youtube. His format is he does a lesson then a hands on lab and flashcards. This for each lesson as I said. He is excellent but about 85% through teaching the class. He could be done by the time you make your way through the course.

That's the best advice I've got. The way to get through it is to hear it over and over and over, whether that's video, or print or conversation. Hope that helps.

CCNA exam has recently changed it’s exam. Not saying you have to take the exam. But this would good for your training purposes. I wouldn’t normally recommend Udemy for training as I think there are a lot better training platforms like Pluralsight.

But this study guide for £14 really is worth it. You get lab exercises to use in Cisco packet tracer (it’s free software from Cisco) as well. So you can practise what you’re learning in a lab environment.

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

I learned with Udemy's class with Neil Anderson and mostly Lammel's book. The nice thing about Neil's class is that it is easy to watch and he is updating the course for the new test. His class got me to \~85% understanding and the book got me the rest of the way. I passed on the second try. Neil's class also set me up well to understand Cisco Packet Tracer and GNS3. That, I think, was the most powerful thing for my learning. keeping up with him in the labs was great.

I had a hard time with Odom's book, the dryness of the writing style was a real hindrance to understanding. I have the book but it is mostly unread.

I did buy and take the practice test from Pearson and that was a real big help when I went in to take the test. the wording and layout of the test were pretty on the same line. I was very unprepared for the limited command line stuff and that practice test really showed me that knowing the commands was really important (ex. the "?" was disabled for test questions)

I've heard nothing but good things about CBnuggets, I just never got to them.

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

Neil Andersons course on udemy

Neil Anderson's course on Udemy is good and inexpensive. On sale now too. Combine it with the official Cisco Press books if you want more depth.

If you are asking about the Udemy video sales they are quite often, so just check their site Neils course is currently at 13.99, it might not go any lower.

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https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

Neil Anderson’s Udemy CCNA video course is amazing. It’s so cheap for what he offers. He could honestly sell it for $300 and it would still be worth it but it’a usually only $10.

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

The Boson tests are easy to find online

Neil Anderson’s CCNA 200-125 Course is highly recommended by multiple users. I’m currently using it to study for the exam before the change. He has a Scottish accent, not TOO thick.

This is the ccna I’m using right now. https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/ This is the one I have done and it is great. I also suggest getting Wendell Odom’s OCG book with it. It is a little dry but it’s not as bad as people make it out to be in my opinion.

Mostly on-the-job experience. I also took this course on udemy:

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/learn/lecture/8585010?start=0#overview

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/ I'm using this course and I'm getting a lot out of it.

Any1 has Neil Anderson's CCNA 200-301? its hard to get!

Udemy https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

Great explanation thanks Zanfar!

Broketographer - please note that you can use the course Q&A section if you have any questions about the lectures or lab exercises in my course. Your question was already answered (with a diagram and examples) here : https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/learn/lecture/7872150#questions/8386464

Don't think it's possible to learn the CCNA in such a short period. There is a lot of content and the test involves a lot of labs where you need to have spent time working with the Cisco IOS and understand how the protocols work. It would be best to buy this course and maybe the official guide. Then work through both and do lots of labbing on Packet Tracer.

Doing it this way will take a while but you'll learn it properly and save yourself money.

Well, my original purpose of these videos was for them to be used just as supplementary practice labs to review what you've studied via books, video courses, etc, not to teach things from the ground up. For example, I used Neil Anderson's CCNA course ( https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/ ) when I studied for my CCNA. His course includes lots of great labs, but I always wanted more labs. I intended these labs to take a role like that. However, if you want to use these labs as a source for learning the commands/configurations, rather than just practice/review, feel free to do so. In that case, of course you won't be able to complete the labs before watching, so you can ignore that little piece of advice!

CCNA Course

I am looking to start a CCNA course on Udemy, I have dabbled in Networking+ and A little bit of Security plus from Comptia already, was wondering if anyone else is about to do the same? Was looking to try and have a virtual study group if any one is in the same boat.

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

Is the course I was looking at.

>What are the best resources for studying for CCNA ? (Books/practice exams/videos/Labs/)

Watch Neil Anderson videos and stick to the study plan it comes with. This also comes with some lab practices.

Buy CCNA 200-301 Official Cert Guide. Read up to get more details on the things you learned in the videos (VERY IMPORTANT). This also comes with practice exams.

> How many hours a day you putting in ?

depends on how fast you want it. Neil Anderson videos are about 1-2 hours a day and ends around the 6 week windows but its not gonna be enough if you don't have networking experience.

> Was the test easy or hard ?

Its hard, thats why its so valuable. The questions are tricky and it feels that all the answers are right but here is a hint, answer will usually be what cisco likes and not what networking in general likes.

> Did you feel it prepare you for real life networking ?

Simply getting CCNA? No.

buying a switch and a router and making in home labs and breaking them and then trying to fix them help me learn networking wayyy more.

> Anything helps thank you all!

One thing i will suggest during your studies, do ALLOT of labs simply on packet tracer (you will learn about it in the neil anderson videos). You don't need in home labs for CCNA but if you can find a spare or cheap router and a switch on craiglist, I will highly recommand that instead.

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Good luck.

I bought Labsim + ExamSim a few months back. Here's my thoughts

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LabSim:

- Useful for nailing down commands and troubleshooting

- Can definitely get similar labsim for a fraction of that price

https://www.udemy.com/course/cisco-ccna-packet-tracer-ultimate-labs-ccna-exam-prep-labs/

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

https://www.udemy.com/cisco-ccna-gns3-ultimate-labs-ccna-exam-prep-labs-pass-your-exam/ (This is really similar to the ones you will be getting in Labsim)

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Ex-Sim

- Really good to find your weak areas

- Does comes with troubleshooting labs like the ones in real exam

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Suggestion: Ditch labsim and save money, go with udemy for practice labs. Get Ex-Sim !

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Cheers!

You shouldn't need to take a structured course unless you need that structure in order to study the topics well.

I would start with Udemy. I (and many others here) recommend taking a look at Neil Anderson's course (https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/) which is a great series of video lectures that cover most if not all of the objectives on the most recent exam. The course also includes Packet Tracer labs for you to complete after learning the material. The Udemy site is weird and often offers discounts on their courses, so don't pay full price if you can avoid it. Usually you can get it for under 20 US dollars, sometimes as low as 5.

I highly recommend these two courses (worth the money and think of it as an investment in you)

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/ (do this first and then go through the second link)

https://www.udemy.com/course/cisco-ccna-packet-tracer-ultimate-labs-ccna-exam-prep-labs/

Going after the CCNA after you finish tech school will help you with your career field/advance your knowledge

I assume that's through NetAcad.

If you don't mind a video course and shelling out around 30 bucks, you can get him Neil Anderson's course and David Bombal's Packet Tracer Labs from Udemy. They are a tiny bit overkill for someone going through Cisco's NetAcad, but with time set aside for self study and hands-on, he should be able to make good use of these resources.

About the Neil Anderson - Udemy Course - is [this the course you used?]{https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/}

For the Jeremy IT lab, I stumbled across his playlist on youtube, is this the one you completed?

My only concerns about Jeremy's course above is that there were complaints of missing topics like (Virtualization, Automation OSPF, EIGRP and wireless network).

Hi,

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Of course I can. For the price of haircut you cant go wrong. I'm half way through and find it very good as you have practice labs etc. I'm still along way off but its a staring point.

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https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

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Wow its gone up to £199. I personally would wait until it goes back on offer. Just continue completing the course you are doing and then once you have done that you can pick up the CCNA. What you may find like me is that you start one course than get distracted by another.

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Any questions, please let me know. I will be more than happy to advise where I can. Far from being technical I can at the very least offer you some basic pointers or advice.

This is the course from Neil Anderson: https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

This is the course from David Bombal: https://www.udemy.com/course/complete-networking-fundamentals-course-ccna-start/

Both of these courses cover the objectives of the CCNA exam.

Before you go investing £350 in a course, try out alternative avenues like CBTNuggets, or this Udemy course; https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/ .
You may not get a job instantly following certification/ passing the exam, as a lot of employers, for understandable reasons, would like you to have some basic IT experience.

As another comment suggested, study for the CCNA while in a helpdesk role, or other similar positions if feasible. This way, you're getting some IT experience and the possibility that your employer may pay for your studies/ examination fees.

Try joining discord study groups to further your knowledge;

Cisco Study Group; https://discord.gg/sJfHJgFU

If IT is something you really want to pursue.. Use this as an amazing opportunity to learn something new. Udemy is your best friend. Udemy runs sales every other day making 60 hours courses only $15 or something like that.

You might have bullshitted your way into it but use this as a chance to challenge yourself. Take the extra time to learn all the material inside some udemy courses and the pain youll go thru learning it, your future self will thank you a million times over.

I'll link some good udemy courses to get yourself in the door with basic computer hardware, basic networking, and some cloud courses using azure.

--

Entry Level Computer Hardware - FREE Youtube Course - Professor Messer - I used this guy for my A+ Cert for the 220-901 & 902 and I passed with an 92%

Entry Level Networking - Network+ Certification

Mid Tier Networking - CCNA Course - I used this course for my CCNA along with Boson practice exams and passed with a very good score, forget exactly what score.

Entry Level Cloud Technologies - Azure AZ-900 | Azure Fundamentals

Mid Tier Cloud Technologies - Azure AZ-104 | Azure Administrator - This is currently what I am studying, using this course exactly and I have zero complaints.

UDEMY RUNS SALES ALMOST EVERY OTHER WEEK, IF YOU SEE A HIGH PRICE, BE PATIENT AND WAIT A WEEK UNTIL THEY RUN A SALE.

So I actually took my local college class that was just like this a few years ago. Right before covid started actually. I did it online. I feel like I gained way more knowledge from Udemy classes like Neil Andersons course. I was unable to take all 7 of the CCNA classes offered by my college because it was extremely boring. All the online classes were like this. Get the book from the college store, make an online account to receive the weekly lessons or quizes from the teacher, and read. Then we got into the Netacad stuff /u/nickjjj Linked which got me all excited again.

If I could start my learning all over again, I would definitely go with Neil Andersons Course. Through some David Bombal videos in as well. Oh and a youtube favorite of mine is Jeremy's IT Lab

The college course just gave credit towards an associate or business computer degree. I wasnt really into that so no big loss for me. I now have a in IT as a network associate. Little bit of a story behind it all but I dont even have my CCNA cert yet. I kinda took a test for the job and passed that way lol.

I still use my netacad account for practice though. And Packet Tracer is amazing tool you can download from there. Good luck!

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

also

https://www.udemy.com/course/cisco-ccent-icnd1-100-105-complete-course-sims-and-gns3/

are the ones I signed up for, there is absolutely no need to spend 1000

Throwaway, but net engineer in enterprise (corporate) networking for over a decade.

Here is a path out of that gas station to being an engineer making 70k+ in two years. Can absolutely be 100k+, 70k is very conservative.

[Best CCNA Course](https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/) - Step #1, Neil's CCNA course is amazing, it provides structure and uses packet tracer (free) while you're learning the basics for $16 bucks. 2-3 months grinding and you should be able to finish this course. Search indeed for ccna, these are the jobs you will be applying for after you get certified. Usually entry level noc positions, stuff like that. $15-20/hr to start with 0 experience and a cert.

While you're trying to find your first job, and while at your first job work on your linux/cloud fundamentals @ [Cloud Academy](https://cloudacademy.com/library). This site is amazing, you can learn a lot of really marketable skills here after you build the basics.

From here, you'll be able to guide yourself into the area's you like the most. Search indeed for terms like devops, sre, ccnp, azure, aws, linux. But realistically, once you can put a CCNA and a Cloud cert on your linkedin. You will start hitting a lot of peoples filters and get emails/calls for jobs. Likely in the $30-40/hr range to start if you only have a year or two of experience + certs.

The whole field is automating themselves out of jobs right now, but there's a lot of work to be done still.

Lastly, learning to code will make you a lot more $$.. Python is big in both the devops role side of things, as well as under the hood networking.

My salary estimations are based on personal experience in the Phoenix, AZ market.

Neil Anderson’s are great - whole course can be got for $20-$40 depending on sale.

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

He does a video demo and there is also an answer key PDF if you get stuck.

David Bombal offers free labs with a video walkthrough. He is really thorough.

https://www.udemy.com/course/free-packet-tracer-labs-for-the-ccna-exam-practical-ccna-tests/

I just added the links to both of my Quizlet flash card sets! The Udemy courses I used were:

• Cisco CCNA 200-125 and 200-301 - The Complete Guide by Neil Anderson
• https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/
• Packet Tracer Labs for the CCNA Exam: Practical CCNA Tests - by David Bombal
• Cisco CCNA ICND2 (200-105) Complete Course: Sims and GNS3 - by David Bombal
• https://www.udemy.com/course/cisco-ccna-icnd2-200-105-complete-course-sims-and-gns3/

Those were the two hard ones for sure.

For aws I did used these two resources.

https://www.udemy.com/course/ultimate-aws-certified-sysops-administrator-associate/

https://portal.tutorialsdojo.com/product/aws-certified-sysops-administrator-associate-practice-exams/

And for CCNA I used these two resources.

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

https://www.boson.com/practice-exam/200-301-cisco-ccna-practice-exam

I know it seems like you’re never gonna get it done but I promise stick with it and you will pass. These resources cost some money but the uCertify stuff was not that great.

Since you already have access to Udemy, these are really the only courses you need:

Neil Anderson's CCNA course

David Bombal's CCNA Labs

That's really all you need from a training materials perspective. Anderson's course is very thorough training-wise and includes some labs (do them), but Bombal's labs are fantastic.

From an exam prep testing standpoint, I can't recommend Boson's ExSim enough. Make sure you get this. It mimics the exam environment and difficulty of the actual exam very well. It also tells you exactly why a correct answer is correct or an incorrect answer is incorrect, which is super helpful for learning.

In my experience, the actual CCNA exam was just a little bit harder than the Boson practice exams, so if you're scoring upper 800's/lower 900's on Boson, you're good to go.

For reference, I've been a System Administrator for about a decade and deal heavily with networking, so that was the base of my experience going in to it. I studied for about 2 weeks or so with those two resources on Udemy and Boson and passed the exam with a score close to 900.

If you are looking to just do a CCNA there are cheaper courses on Udemy. I would say start with either Neil Anderson or David Bombal's courses and use Packet Tracer. I'm currently taking the Neil Anderson course and so far has been really good. Currently it only costs $20 but has probably most of the information you will need. Neil's course comes with labs as well, I'm guessing David's does as well.

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/ https://www.udemy.com/course/complete-networking-fundamentals-course-ccna-start/

Cisco Packet Tracer is free.

https://www.netacad.com/courses/packet-tracer

May be worth just spending the $20 and downloading packet tracer to do labs. 4-5k seems like a bit much for a CCNA course.

Worst case scenario if you take one of the Udemy courses and don't find it to be enough information it will at least get you on the ground running with a lot of good information for very cheap. I think on Neil's YouTube he may even have a code to reduce the cost of the Udemy course.

> I appreciate everyone learns different was just wanting to see what other people have used.

• Community College Classes
• Odom
• Todd Lammle
• Glen E. Clarke
• https://www.udemy.com/course/complete-networking-fundamentals-course-ccna-start/
• https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/
• https://www.cbtnuggets.com/it-training/cisco/routing-and-switching
• /r/ccna

If they aren't opposed to some self study I used: Niel Andersons course

These labs for practice,

This anki deck for memorisation

and the boson practice exam

The udemy stuff goes on sale all the time and theres a 15% off coupon for boson somewhere on reddit.

Plenty of Options available to you, i am currently following Paul's course on https://www.howtonetwork.com/ good video content broken up into manageable chunks and plenty of mini labs and full labs also... Plus good practice questions after each video....
Udemy for Neil Anderson (paid) or Jeremy's IT lab which is free on youtube only, the site linked you need to pay...

If you have the money to spend then the INE track is 140 hours long but there is no labs as such and i have also heard form close friends that it is more CCNP / CCIE orientated

For reading you have the OCG Guides personally i have stayed well away from these, after 4 or 5 chapters into the first i was bored to death , but this is personal preference.

I like to learn by doing so hence i moved to using https://www.howtonetwork.com/ CCNA course, going well so far

OCG Guides if you like reading

Go again to CBt until you know it perfectly and then you can try another view from Paul Browning 1$ 1st month + labs in packet tracer and tests...cheap and good

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https://www.howtonetwork.com/courses/cisco/cisco-ccna-implementing-and-administering-cisco-solutions/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdYhc4O3G7w

https://study-ccna.com/

https://www.udemy.com/course/ccna-complete/

https://www.computernetworkingnotes.com/ccna-study-guide/

good luck

Hello!

My suggestion is since you have a 6 month time frame, I honestly don't know about what topics you covered in your electrical engineering course so if it didn't cover any networking or bare minimum at all you should check out the Network+ certification.

I can recommend Professor Messer's Network+ course/notes since it gives a very good understanding of networking in general and not vendor oriented like the CCNA.

Talking about vendors, I empathize with you because working a job you know you will hate sucks, so if you have an idea on where you want to go be it a network engineer job, NOC, SOC,etc. You should check what HR is looking for to avoid going for a cert you might not need (but can still recommend getting the CCNA at some point) if you are looking for gov sec clearance there's also Security+ which Professor Messer also covers.

Now if you are still reading and you still are going for the CCNA I will go over what I think is a good start.

Jeremy's IT Lab Course which is free on Youtube for a straight to the point and easy to understand flow.

Neil Anderson is great but I had some hard time understanding some topics even after watching the videos twice, so I used other creators like Marious Kuriata, Khawar Butt and David Bombal

The OCG is a hot topic some people swear by it and some don't, myself I find it great in the information it provides but the way the author wrote the book is kinda dry and boring at some points, so I used Todd Lammle instead which I resonated with because it's like talking to a friend who's explaining things to you without hitting you back when you say yeah I didn't get it can you explain it again? But I've seen posts of people saying they didn't need a book at all only a video course.

If you have the money CBT Nuggets is also a good resource not only for the CCNA but for other certifications.

Lastly I think most of the people here agree that the Boson Exam Sims are a MUST buy since it will prepare you for the exam style questions, just try not to remember the answers but strive to understand why that is the correct answer.