ICND1 Closing in!

Time for an update!
10/31/12

Preface: The content of this post is about my career networking studies. I am working my way up the cisco certification ladder. Beginning with the Cisco Certified Networking Associate (CCNA) - a 2 part test consisting of ICND1 and ICND2.

I've gone through all the content for ICND1 thoroughly and am reviewing and starting on ICND2 content now. My review consists of me going through various practice quiz's for different content that will be on ICND1. Right now I score between 70 and 100% on them all. I won't be taking the test until I can get 90% all the time. Just a goal I set for myself.

A big step in my learning (different from studying for exams) is that I now subscribe to a massive host of blogs. My RSS feed in Outlook has 3-5 new entries that I read through in the mornings. Learning a lot of interesting things about networking. A lot of it is obscure or something I may never deal with, but it is interesting to me.

At this point I've made an agreement with my wife. She says I have to get my certification before our 2nd baby comes. Technically that is supposed to be February of next year, but our last one came early. I'm going to finish my study progressions and once I am through all of the content one more time I'm going to schedule my exam and do an all weekend study binge before testing on a Monday. I have always had a good memory and have put a lot of effort in to improving it so the amount of hands on practice, reading, and reviewing I've done up to now - combined with a weekend of 12 hour study sessions should put me where I need to be.

My next update should be the week before that study session and testing.

PS: I'm using Forza 4 as my 'escape' right now. I enjoy racing games and I can think about difficult problems or take short breaks thanks to being offline and able to pause.