Romain Sinclair

I recently earned my Cisco Certified Network Associate certification. The feeling after completing my test and seeing the words, “Congratulations, You Passed” was a feeling like no other. In that moment, it validated all the late nights studying, weekends at the coffee shop completing labs in packet tracer and even working with my mentor to deepen my understanding of key concepts. After several earlier attempts at the certification exam, and not passing, getting over the hump felt that much sweeter.

My interested in pursuing the CCNA cert started from a conversation I had with a few of my older cousins. I expressed my interested in pursuing a career in cyber security. Which seems to be a buzz word these days. But in expressing my interest in cyber security, my cousins who both currently work in the IT space, one as a network technician that owns his own company and the other who is a network engineer and cyber security professional, gave me some great insight into how to prepare for a role of that nature.

One of the key advices I received in the beginning, was that in order to be a good cyber security professional I must understand networking. How can I protect what I did not understand? It was recommended that I look into the CCNA certification. They went further in telling me how this certification will be great in covering most of the fundamentals when it comes to networking. Also that it is an industry recognized certification as well.

After being advised to pursue the CCNA cert, I began to go down the rabbit hole. I was on youtube searching and watching videos with anything related to the certification. I came across content from well known Youtube channels like David Bombal, Jermey’s IT Lab, and CBT Nuggets to name a few.

I later got the official certification guide volumes 1 and 2, from Barnes and Noble. Over the course of a few months, I read both books from cover to cover. The guide books I found to be dry and not the most interesting or easiest of reads. But I figured since I’m starting from scratch what better place to start. After reading both books, I still found a lot of concepts hard to wrap my head around. The books alone were not enough for me to master the fundamentals.

I decided I had to seek out some form of community, weather online or local to where I live. So that’s what I did. I found a ccna group on reddit, with members that shared their success and failures from pursuing the cert themselves. They also provided a lot of resources and recommendation of how to study for the cert. Without this, I’m not sure I would have stayed as motivated to continue with my studies. As I’ve said a few times before, the cert guides were not the most interested things to read. But I knew I had to do whatever it took to gain the understanding I needed to not just pass but really understand all the info thrown my way.

From the ccna reddit subgroup, one resource that constantly came up was the use of boson exam simulator. Boson provided really great practice test questions, that also provided detailed explanations to any questions I got wrong. This was helpful in me better understanding the why behind a lot of the concepts.

I later started working with a tutor one on one to help me better understand concepts that just were not clicking for me. Concepts like ipv4 subnetting, standard and extended ACLs and STP root bridge election to name a few. Finding a tutor was one of the smartest things I could’ve done for myself. Often times we may struggle, not because we’re not capable of learning a concept but because we simply haven’t found the method that works for us. Being able to talk through concepts, ask questions in real time no matter how crazy they sound, goes a long way in any learning process. It was a huge part of mine.

Also, can’t forget to mention the most important resource in my preparation, and that was packet tracer and GNS3, which I ended up using more than my physical home lab. Labbing as much as I could, really helped in applying the theory of everything I was studying. It was a fun way of applying different configurations and seeing how they affected devices like the routers and switches. Consistently labbing each week made the information stick better and over time really became a huge part of my study routine.

Some days after work I would just head to the coffee shop, do some practice test questions, then just start labbing for hours, until the coffee shop was ready close.

Overall I would describe the journey to achieving my CCNA cert as challenging, but also very rewarding. From starting with an end goal in mind, and seeing it through, it felt good to overcome that hurdle.

I used a lot of different resource, from reading the official cert guides, both volumes, using boson practice test simulator, working 1:1 with a tutor, setting up my homelab and labbing with pacet tracer and GNS3. I used a combination of different things. I would tell anyone pursing their certification to do the same and find what works for you.