Passed and Endorsed.
I wanted to wait until I am officially endorsed before posting my experience and I finally got it last week, so here it is my experience in bullet points.
1. I have been in IT for over 20 years, but not mainly in security. Many would say experience matters, but if you are in IT helpdesk manager for 20 years, you probably wouldn't be able to pass it easily.
2. I didn't want to pass CISSP to make more $, mainly my goal was to learn as security is now in almost all aspects of IT.
3. First thing I did was take an official course from global knowledge on CISSP. I got the official book, bunch of flash card and practice exam with transander. Over the course of 5 days, we went over hundreds if not thousands ppt. But i can say this, i was no where near ready to take the exam. That was early May.
4. I took the exam the first week of September. I passed. so I studied for almost exactly 4 month. I wanted to take it early, but most testing center closed on weekends in summer. ideally I would have taken this a month earlier.
5. I used flash card(an app on iOS), electronic pdf of the sybex box, and Kelly's video while i was on the treadmill. As for practice exam, i did all the sybex one, and briefly looked at the some other online practice exams, and many youtube videos just here and there. Towards the end, I almost exclusively focused on the sybex practice exam and Kelly's video.
6. At some point in August, i felt ready. and finally registered to take the exam. between the registration and actual exam date, I had another month or so going over the sybex pdf and Kelly's video. At some point, i was telling myself, if I actually fail the exam, I am really not sure what else I can do to improve.
7. On the exam date, I remember the first 50 questions are not easy. Not sure if i was nervous, or just not use to way how the questions were asked. As the exam goes on, it really got easier. As a matter of fact, i didn't take a single break for the first round of 250 questions because I felt i was on a good streak.
8. I took a break and reviewed all 250 of them, most of them felt good. I counted that maybe 50 question i was not 100% sure, the rest should be pretty good and I can't imagine I would got all these 50 wrong.
9. i think I used 4-5 hours, honestly I couldn't wait to get out, and really didn't care what happened towards the end. I feel like I just want to end the exam.
10. I passed exam. I filled the form and got someone to endorse me after a week, and another 3 weeks later, i am officially an member.
It was a lot to study, but at some point, I think you will feel ready. i don't know what would happen if didn't take that much time and just went ahead to take the exam, maybe I would be lucky, but I rather be sure before I go. I wouldn't say it's an extremely hard exam, but it was certainly a long exam. So the both for study and exam taking, take you time, calm down and move on.
thank you for the forum and ping me if you got any questions.
1. I have been in IT for over 20 years, but not mainly in security. Many would say experience matters, but if you are in IT helpdesk manager for 20 years, you probably wouldn't be able to pass it easily.
2. I didn't want to pass CISSP to make more $, mainly my goal was to learn as security is now in almost all aspects of IT.
3. First thing I did was take an official course from global knowledge on CISSP. I got the official book, bunch of flash card and practice exam with transander. Over the course of 5 days, we went over hundreds if not thousands ppt. But i can say this, i was no where near ready to take the exam. That was early May.
4. I took the exam the first week of September. I passed. so I studied for almost exactly 4 month. I wanted to take it early, but most testing center closed on weekends in summer. ideally I would have taken this a month earlier.
5. I used flash card(an app on iOS), electronic pdf of the sybex box, and Kelly's video while i was on the treadmill. As for practice exam, i did all the sybex one, and briefly looked at the some other online practice exams, and many youtube videos just here and there. Towards the end, I almost exclusively focused on the sybex practice exam and Kelly's video.
6. At some point in August, i felt ready. and finally registered to take the exam. between the registration and actual exam date, I had another month or so going over the sybex pdf and Kelly's video. At some point, i was telling myself, if I actually fail the exam, I am really not sure what else I can do to improve.
7. On the exam date, I remember the first 50 questions are not easy. Not sure if i was nervous, or just not use to way how the questions were asked. As the exam goes on, it really got easier. As a matter of fact, i didn't take a single break for the first round of 250 questions because I felt i was on a good streak.
8. I took a break and reviewed all 250 of them, most of them felt good. I counted that maybe 50 question i was not 100% sure, the rest should be pretty good and I can't imagine I would got all these 50 wrong.
9. i think I used 4-5 hours, honestly I couldn't wait to get out, and really didn't care what happened towards the end. I feel like I just want to end the exam.
10. I passed exam. I filled the form and got someone to endorse me after a week, and another 3 weeks later, i am officially an member.
It was a lot to study, but at some point, I think you will feel ready. i don't know what would happen if didn't take that much time and just went ahead to take the exam, maybe I would be lucky, but I rather be sure before I go. I wouldn't say it's an extremely hard exam, but it was certainly a long exam. So the both for study and exam taking, take you time, calm down and move on.
thank you for the forum and ping me if you got any questions.
Comments
-
trueshrewkmc
Member Posts: 107
Congrats! You have awesome constraint in being able to wait until after endorsement to post about it.
