Yesterday completed the final round of exams for this portion of the CISCO certification.
It was no easy deal, the written exams took 2 hours to be completed and was composed with 56 questions that ranged from the first chapter exams all the way up to the 11th exam. Ranged expertise questions about RIP, OSPF, EIGRP and all sort of routing hazards that might occur on everyday WAN activity.
The other part took 4 hours and was composed with two laboratory examinations where one needs to setup a network from scratch. Well, not scratch in the sense of building from the ground up since the equipment and the connections are already in place, but you still need to do all the calculations for the network ranges and then implement these calculations where they belong.
It wasn't easy, I'm mentally exhausted.
Over this week with the nerves of getting a good grade I've tried to study as much as possible about everything that could be related to networking until I could reach a point of confidence regarding what I needed to know.
Is CCNA worth all this trouble?
Yes it is, no doubt about it.
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At each part that is completed I evaluate what I knew before and after the classes begin and let me tell you that it's an enjoyable condition to look back and know that networking makes a lot more of sense now.
Some time ago I wondered about the possibility of working full time as a WAN administrator for CISCO equipment at some company but the idea was a bit frightening once I got around to consider the scale, impact and costs that solely depend on the network engineer.
It's a job to be taken quite seriously with little permission to mistakes and that is likely the reason why I see my teacher so committed in constantly refreshing his own knowledge about routers.
A good professional will always need to keep studying in order to keep track of the changes and how to get things done.
I might indeed follow a career as network engineer one day since it is a quite interesting lifestyle, but for the moment I prefer to gather more knowledge, experience and confidence before I look for another employer.
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These have been a quite a few very interesting weeks, will certainly be looking forward for Part 3 in the future.
:)
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