SWITCH before ROUTE?

Cat5

Has anyone taken SWITCH before ROUTE, and if so was it difficult to do it in this order?

xnx

Do you work in networking?
I'd do Route first unless you're really good with EIGRP, OSPF and BGP

Cat5

I already work in networking, and 95% of what I do is only layer two. I also already have the SWITCH book which I bought a few years ago, but just never finished going through it. I wanted to do SWITCH unless there would be a real problem doing so.

xnx

Well that increases your chances of passing Switch 1st go, I personally find / found routing protocols harder to pick up than layer 2 stuff.

When did you get your CCNA and are your exam skills any good - did you find the CCNA exam easy to pass?

I don't work in networking since I've just nearly graduated, but I do a lot of reading and a few hours in my networking lab everyday.

So maybe my advice isn't as useful, but it's advice.

RouteMyPacket

It makes absolutely no difference, personal preference.

Hondabuff

I ended up doing Switch first since everyone was saying it was the hardest. Scored a 956 and feel really solid with L2 setups. Route seems a bit dry and all about metrics and costs, blah. Switch was a handful and took 4 months of reading, labbing, reading some more before I felt that I was ready.

sucanushie

I'm doing Switch first myself. Just personal preference.

aaron0011

I did SWITCH first, then veered off track for CCDA. I'm planning to take a ROUTE at the end of June, finally.

For me ROUTE is much more difficult because of my lack of experience with OSPF, BGP, and IPv6. Also, all of the old frame relay scenarios are a waste of time.

Fitzi

I also did switch first and I am working on route now, I didn't find any issues doing switch first.

Regarding the FR comment above, As much as I also find ospf on frame relay annoying, there are still plenty of large enterprise still using FR, for example the company I work for has many FR circuits.

That's not to say migration to other tech is not happening but this takes a lot of time and planning in large businesses that have been around for some time. We have a lot of customers in the same boat also remember lots of times new tech is very similar to or uses older concepts so it won't hurt to learn older tech concepts as you may be able to apply these concepts to newer stuff in the future.