CCNA - Which is the best way to complete each exam (Self Study/Online) or a month course

DJMK4

DJMK4

DJMK4

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Hi all,

I am just wondering what the general view with learning and taking the CCNA in ICDN1 and ICND2 exams.

At the moment, as far as learning material goes, I have already purchsed an exam cram practise exam book written by the same guy that makes the CCNA videos, I may need another book on the actual learning of it, and I have the CBT nugget video's.

For the practical stuff I have Cisco packet tracer for my labs.

However someone is on about the courses, and from past experience I don't tend to get on well with "cram" courses like a week etc.

However is the CCNA really one of these exams I need a "Course" for as such, or will I be fine setting myself a target to take the exam and sit it.

Also, would people recommend on-line courses? then sit the exam?
 
I basically self-studied for the exam, just make sure to keep labbing up to get stuff down. I used the Sybex book for learning and TrainSignal, but CBT nuggets should be fine. Good way is to set a lab up as they have, so you can follow them in the video's.
 
From a personal perspective I think I'd have been better off going on a course. I'm not good at putting the time in on self study.

I'd also say go for the CCNA combined exam rather than the ICND1 then ICND2. ICND2 is a bit of a female dog. Missed it by half a bloody percent.
I need to get round to rebooking, but got a job in the meantime where they don't use Cisco kit so given the two year recertification requirement I'll leave it until I need it and probably concentrate on Microsoft quals instead.
 
Zarf said:
From a personal perspective I think I'd have been better off going on a course. I'm not good at putting the time in on self study.

I'd also say go for the CCNA combined exam rather than the ICND1 then ICND2. ICND2 is a bit of a female dog. Missed it by half a bloody percent.
I need to get round to rebooking, but got a job in the meantime where they don't use Cisco kit so given the two year recertification requirement I'll leave it until I need it and probably concentrate on Microsoft quals instead.
Click to expand...

I took the 2 exam route and basically labbed up and followed the Trainsignal guy, that and did the Packet Tracer built in scenario :). Always breaking is good troubleshooting too :D
 
Hi all,

Bit of a thread revival,

I am currently munching through CBT nugget videos, have Cisco packet tracer set-up and have exam prep book from Jeremy with CD installation.

However, currently going through CBT nugget vid's, I am finding myself spending a lot of time typing down notes which are sometimes annoying as it means going through the videos slower. Would one of the books resolve this issue?

Whats the best book I can use for reference if I am using CBT nugget video's as I want to try and cut down some of the notes I am making and turn them in to super quick reference points/notes.
 
Jeremy <3 great teacher! Got me through my ICND1, now for 2.
I don't generally take notes, for my ICND1 I went through the series once, read the Cisco networking academy and then the week of my exam I went through all the videos again.. This time though I kind of made some notes.. my wall had about 18 A4 pieces of paper on with a big font and a few key points on each.

Looking for a book myself though for this one as I imagine it will be needed!

I haven't even looked through these, found them online:
CCENT CLI commands: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/67409120/CCENT Commands.xls
ICND2 CLI commands: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/67409120/ICND2 Commands.xls

Might be of some help to you..
 
Thanks :), generally the note taking at the moment is stuff he is going through on the video's, so any referencing and quick notes that I can get my hands on at the moment would be brilliant. Means I can spend more time going through books, videos and labs.

Will check out those links/commands, thanks
 
I just passed my CCNA on the 14th, and my way of doing it was to watch through the CBT nugget vids, just watch through each topic, then go back and try and replicate the labs while having the vid playing in the background, and at times pausing the vid, or switching to it so I can watch the commands etc...

A couple things to point out though, I'm not sure if my version of the nuggets vid was old or something, but it missed out on some stuff that the INCD2 exam had in (ICND1 is easy, mainly just basics and if you have got subnetting down it's easy, I finished in half the time). For example in ICND2 I got some questions on OSPF DR/BDR election (which although router ID was mentioned in the OSPF video, I don't remember seeing it talked about how the electrion process takes place) and also a generic question on IPsec. So you may want to try and do some OSPF election experiment labs to fully understand it.

As for books, first off I HIGHLY recommend printing out the CCNA relevant pages of http://packetlife.net/library/cheat-sheets/ They are great little reference pages and along with the CBT nuggets videos you should be able to do the labs yourself just fine without having to keep writing notes. If you do need books than the official Cisco press ones a great, they go into depth on what's needed, but lack any info on 'real-world' examples, or preferences of 1 technology/method over another.
 
Thanks for the link Dist, will look myself later and congratulations on passing =)!

Currently following Jeremy's ICND2 lab with my lab (3 routers, 3 switches). Packet tracer would be good right now though because I want to see if my VLANs are working and then the 'router on the stick' is working.
Using my desktop as one computer (just got to plug it into the switch and be without internet), going to pull an old computer out to use on another switch :)
Probably easier to just copy my config over to packet tracer to be fair, oh well!

So just configuring my lab as he does his, though there have been a few differences in commands and I've had a few problems which has kept me busy for hours "ummm.. well it should work :p"

I've read that this http://www.amazon.co.uk/CCNA-640-80...438X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340037319&sr=8-1 is a good book.. well they linked http://www.amazon.com/dp/158720438X/ref=pe_221170_24462450_pe_epc_dt2 but I think its the same..?
 
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I finished my Cisco Discovery course about 4 weeks ago. The course started in October of 2011 and was on every other week.

I was happy to pay the small fee for the course as I dont currently work in I.T and having a lecture to assist with any difficulties was an added bonus but id say the ICND1 is definitely achievable from self study even if you dont have a vast experience of networking.

In regards to material. I purchased the the following books from ebay which accompany the course however if you enroll in the Discovery course, the same is available online but not so indepth as to what the books go to.

Module 1: Networking for Home and Small Businesses (ISBN: 1-58713-209-5)
Module 2: Working at a small to medium Business or ISP (ISBN:1-58713-210-9)

These books include a CD which has all offline content, packet tracker activities etc etc. Good for reference material in the future too so thats why i brought them.

Ive also gone through Trainsignal (Chris Bryant) and currently going through CBT Nuggets which i find better than Trainsignal but pretty much the same.

In regards to the CCNA. Unfortunatly year s (Modules 3 & 4) wont be running at my local college so i dont think i will have it in me to self study as i wouldn't feel confident but that's solely because i dont work in I,T and dont have working knowledge. Others opinions my differ mind you.

Hopefully i'll get my CCENT next month plus my Microsoft certs a few months later to get into a job and down the line, say three years upon CCENT expiring, I'll do the CCNA if not before.
 
Lorddalron said:
In regards to the CCNA. Unfortunatly year s (Modules 3 & 4) wont be running at my local college so i dont think i will have it in me to self study as i wouldn't feel confident but that's solely because i dont work in I,T and dont have working knowledge. Others opinions my differ mind you.

Hopefully i'll get my CCENT next month plus my Microsoft certs a few months later to get into a job and down the line, say three years upon CCENT expiring, I'll do the CCNA if not before.
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Well I did Discovery 1 & 2 at college (full time IT course). The teacher had not done discovery 2 stuff in a few years so he was pretty much useless at helping me to be fair so self-studied by way through it.

I am enrolled for Discovery 3 on the networking academy so will use it as a learning resource, I can still access discovery 4 content as well so will use that. I would think though that even if you don't work in IT it doesn't really matter.. You know the basics of networking and now its just going into more detail so.. Will all the videos and books you should be fine!

Sorry OP, this is going off topic kinda ;) Books! hmm
 
Thanks very much for the info all :) got some nice little printouts for references on
commands now and dist that looks like what I need! :) makes things a lot easier. I will give that ago I think.

Use the reference pages and command line printouts (if needed), watch the video's probably a couple of videos at a time at lab at each stage.

I'm off to try and get these CBT Nugget videos on my iphone as its quite handy to watch them when I have a spare half hour and not by a laptop/desktop.
 
I just started watching the first nugget about spanning tree protocol, total confusion! I think I'll have a night off from Cisco... having enough trouble with their customer support with my account migration.

I can see ICND2 being A LOT harder than ICND1 =[
 
DJMK4 said:
Thanks very much for the info all :) got some nice little printouts for references on
commands now and dist that looks like what I need! :) makes things a lot easier. I will give that ago I think.

Use the reference pages and command line printouts (if needed), watch the video's probably a couple of videos at a time at lab at each stage.

I'm off to try and get these CBT Nugget videos on my iphone as its quite handy to watch them when I have a spare half hour and not by a laptop/desktop.
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Try not to watch too many videos on the likes of subnetting as different people do it different ways and it can all get confusing. I have decided to stick with CBT's Jeremey Cioara method as its pretty straight forward.
 
oli356 said:
I just started watching the first nugget about spanning tree protocol, total confusion! I think I'll have a night off from Cisco... having enough trouble with their customer support with my account migration.

I can see ICND2 being A LOT harder than ICND1 =[
Click to expand...

Exactly why id rather have a lecture but like you he wasn't great at times to be honest.

@OP. Jump on to linkedin if you haven't already and sign up to the likes of Cisco Academy, Cisco and other groups like that. Great place for asking questions for a wide range of response from people in the same boat as well as professionals from around the world. Im even connected to Cisco's Techwise tv presenters Rob Boyd and Jimmy Ray Purser who have helped me a few times on different subjects.
 
Oli,

ICND 2 is not harder, it just takes the ideas learnt in 1 and expands them - with a couple of routing protocols to boot and tests your understanding of what you've learnt. Before you ask, I took the ICND 1 and 2 route to my Ccna.

With STP, just remember that the lowest bid always wins (default 32768 + mac), be that root bridge or port elections and remember your port costs. RSTP has new port states (designated) and Per Vlan STP is RSTP but and a per vlan basis.

I'm happy to help you guys out with anything, I know couple of sites that may help too but probably can't list them here.


oli356 said:
I just started watching the first nugget about spanning tree protocol, total confusion! I think I'll have a night off from Cisco... having enough trouble with their customer support with my account migration.

I can see ICND2 being A LOT harder than ICND1 =[
Click to expand...
 
Awahwah said:
Oli,

ICND 2 is not harder, it just takes the ideas learnt in 1 and expands them - with a couple of routing protocols to boot and tests your understanding of what you've learnt. Before you ask, I took the ICND 1 and 2 route to my Ccna.

With STP, just remember that the lowest bid always wins (default 32768 + mac), be that root bridge or port elections and remember your port costs. RSTP has new port states (designated) and Per Vlan STP is RSTP but and a per vlan basis.

I'm happy to help you guys out with anything, I know couple of sites that may help too but probably can't list them here.
Click to expand...

Any further info would be great, today, I managed to convert the entire CBT CCENT video's to mp4, stuck them on a drop box account, I can now stream them when I am lying in bed just to give me a overview of the module ahead before I go through it again the day after with a lab.

Also printed out the excel spreadsheet that were posted for the commands on ICDN1 & 2, was a bit of a ball ache printing these out to fit right :D (does anyone have another version as I have managed to scale the excel spreadsheet down but it prints so small. I might lookout for another command reference list but this is brilliant for the time being.

Printed out the cheat sheets also that were supplied in this thread.

I have some CBT Nugget Lab Videos aswel to go through,

Awahwah - What sites are do you mean?
 
Hi all,

just a quick bump, as you probably aware I have been self teaching myself the CCNA using CBT Nuggets Videos and Lab guides, however, work have just spung on us annual subscriptions to

https://www.itskillsacademy.ac.uk

Which I have started the ICND1 course, now with CBT nuggets I got up to the sort of troubleshooting switches stage which is half way through their ICND1 video series.

Now I am starting this itskillsacadamy website, do you think its best to start from the beginning or start from the same sort of area I left off with CBT?

Reason I am asking is looking at module 1 of the ICND1 on this online course, its 150minutes for Fundamentals of Networking the first module.

Not sure what to do ? the module layouts on this new website are confusing me to what I am used to through CBT Nuggets
 
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Hi guys just a bit of a thread revival, i am really worried and getting down lately that I have not been studying when I should be, I put the effort in and got a good headway in to the course using the matirial I have, but I am finding it really hard to juggle a very busy and stressful job and revise at the study at the same time. Can anyone offer any advice?

I have all the matirial I need, official ICND1 press guide, CBT nugget theory and lab videos, packet tracer. I just cannot get motivated anymore :(

Part of It comes down to working in a data centre, my legs at the moment get pulled from every angle
 
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