About how many hours of studying will Network+ require?

Cyb0rgdilly

So these are the study materials I have:
* the book Mike Meyers Passport for CompTIA Network+ 5th Edition (2016)
* the book CompTIA Network+ A comprehensive beginners guide (2019)
* a video course online by Mike Meyers, I think it is around 20 hours of videos

So what am I looking at here if I studied hard 6 hours per day 6 days per week? How much study time would it take to pass the exam?

also, how easy is it to get into an exam center to take the exam?

and, are exam centers requiring any sort of “covid” requirements like PCR tests?

Thank you if you can answer these questions and enlighten me some!

E Double U

Not the answer that you want to hear, but no one can tell you how much studying you will need to prepare for any exam. It varies per person. Six hours per day and six days per week for six months might be enough for some, not enough for others, and overkill for the rest. On the job experience plus one's ability to understand and retain the information are also factors. 

Getting your hands on some practice exams can gauge how well you are comprehending the content. I am not sure if CompTIA has their own practice exams, but I used Boson to prepare for CEH and found it useful.

https://www.boson.com/certification/network+

Good luck!

JDMurray

It's very difficult to predict how much time is required for you to gain a specific type and amount of knowledge to pass an exam. It would be best if you simply spent as much time as you can per day studying and discover how much of the material you already know. Once you have a baseline idea of what new material you need to learn, you can guess for yourself how much more study time you may need.

JDMurray

Now that you have an estimate of the total amount of study time that you will require, how will you use it to help your N+ studies?

JDMurray

It sounds like that you want to know when you are ready to take the N+ exam. That's not something you measure by the number of hours that you have studied. Instead, you should test yourself on how well you understand each objective. It's your understanding of the material, and not the amount of time you spend reading or watching videos, that helps you pass exams.

ypark

I personally get asked "how long does it take to study for and pass CompTIA whatever+ exam?" all the time and the answer is what many other have told you already. There is no accurate way to estimate this.
You can create a plan after reading through a few chapters/sections in one of the books once you get an idea of how fast you can go through content and retain knowledge. I usually make a weekly goal of finishing up to a certain chapter and try to stick to it. It was years ago but I believe I spent about two months studying for Net+. That was with about six months into a NOC technician role and I had already completed A+/Sec+.

Good luck and Merry Christmas!

kaiju

Attaining Net+ will not lead to becoming a network engineer. Associate level certs like Cisco CCNA, Juniper JNCIA, Aruba ACMA, VMWare VCTA-NV and so forth plus experience will set you on the right track. Net+ is good for reading a script full of answers while tending phones at a call center. You need to decide what career path is good for you before wasting lots of time and money on certifications. No matter what you decide, securing the system/network will be paramount because of threats.

Learn scripting such as python.

Dabble into Linux.

Understand how the network and system sides affect each other.

There are tons of free information out there. On Cisco's Netacad you can take a lot of free classes (python, linux, iot, networking, AWS).

Build a virtual lab and tinker. You can expand your knowledge on topics while also gaining valuable experience. Latest versions of MS server OS can be downloaded for free with your account for home use. There are free versions of VMWare available and more.

JDMurray

Cyb0rgdilly said:

I am starting to wonder, why am I pursuing the Net+ when I am into software (not hardware and setting equipment up).

How are you "into software?" As a software developer, system admin, change control engineer, or applications security specialist?

TechGromit

Cyb0rgdilly said:

Generally I would expect to need 35 hours to go over videos. Another 5 hours to review some videos. Another 10 hours to review the whole course in a book. And 5 hours of practice tests.

About 55 hours of study time before taking the N+ exam.

I'm my professional opinion, Videos are of limited value, i can go over far more information than a video can in any given time period. Read, Highlight, create an index (Keyboard and Definition), most exams will not allow you to use an index, but if you spend enough time creating one, changes are better you will not need it.    

The CCNA is really a time sensitive certification in my opinion. If you get it you need to get a job that requires it pretty quickly. The Re-cert requirements are insane, better to get it land a job and not need to worry about renewing it. 

JDMurray

Cyb0rgdilly said:

Right now I do not have a job and I am unsure if I am only qualified for a help desk job, and I would be getting certifications that I would be unsure if the employers would even want to see on my resume.

Right now you should be applying to as many jobs as possible regardless of your current level of education, certification, and experience. This experience will show you what hiring managers are interested in you as you are now, and even interviews that do not result in hiring are valuable to experience. You might even pick up some valuable career path advice from recruiters. From that you can decide what education and certification direction to take.