Hi everyone,
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to finish off TSHOOT to complete my CCNP. I thought I would make a post about my CCNP journey.
I passed my CCNA back in 2013 and had been eyeing the CCNP ever since. I gathered my resources a couple months later but I was never able to get back into study mode. I would review some of the material here and there but didn't really have a study plan. Back in August of this year I found out that the CCNP was being updated and rather than have to gather new resources, I decided to use this as my motivation for studying.
Originally, I had given myself 1 month for each test, and set my course for SWITCH->ROUTE->TSHOOT.
I started studying for SWITCH and found the material to be fun, I liked it, it was easy to understand -- everything was clicking away. I used the INE videos as well as the Keith Barker CBT nuggets for one of the CCNP:S tests. I found that the CBT nuggets series was a great compliment to SWITCH for the gaps that the INE videos left. This was also my first experience with Keith Barker and I was very pleased that the videos weren't dry and boring like some of the Microsoft ones I have watched in the past. I labbed using the switches I have at home as well as the switches available at
Free Cisco Catalyst Switch Lab. I studied probably 3-4 hours weekdays and 8 or so hours Saturday and Sunday. By the middle of August I was able to knock out SWITCH and move on to ROUTE.
Keeping with my 1 month per test plan I immediately dived into ROUTE. I found the ROUTE material to be very dry and slipped into a study coma for the next 2-3 months. At the beginning of November I had decided to pickup ROUTE again as I was behind schedule. Something was different this time, the material didn't put me to sleep anymore and everything was clicking again. On my first run through I had difficulties with the more advanced OSPF material and BGP, but this time I had no problems. Once I understood the rules for BGP I quite enjoyed it. Study time was a bit longer than SWITCH, and I spent more time labbing ROUTE; again 3-4 hours workdays 8 or so hours weekends. When I sat ROUTE at the end of November, I felt really good while taking the test. I passed, but didn't do as good as I thought I would as my score was only 8 points higher than the minimum passing amount.
Right after ROUTE I jumped over to TSHOOT. I downloaded the topology maps from Cisco and created a lab in both packet tracer and GNS3. After watching Kevin Wallace's TSHOOT videos on Youtube and reading a bunch of other blog posts describing TSHOOT as a fun and somewhat easier exam I booked my seat for TSHOOT three weeks later. Yesterday I wrote TSHOOT and immediately felt like I was punched in the gut. I went through the first three trouble tickets nervously and blanked out; I couldn't find what the issue was to fix. I had a horrible feeling of impending failure jumping into the 4th ticket. However, I was able to knock this one out right away; and I must say that it was a confidence booster to go through the questions and see my fix listed for selection on the last page. I aborted all the tickets until I was sure I had the correct answer, I also used my exam sheet to record info about each ticket so I could go back and close them all afterwards. I finished TSHOOT with 3 minutes to spare and my strategy had paid off as I landed my best score on an exam ever, a perfect 1000/1000!!
I must say that TSHOOT was a rather humbling experience, I did achieve a perfect score, but I don't feel that it was a cake walk exam, you need to know what you are doing to pass.
So, my CCNP journey is complete. I am going to keep studying and labbing for a while as I want to improve on a couple areas so I can be confident with my abilities and be able to back up my claim of being a CCNP
Thanks for letting me share my experience, I hope you don't slip into a post coma from reading this.
