Did BCMSN seem harder than BSCI?

optimus

Hi eveyrone,

Not sure where I saw it, but I think it was here, that some people thought that the BCMSN was easier than the BSCI. I don't know about you, but from doing the BCMSN studies, I am like "WOW!" on some of the BCMSN topics. I found the BSCI to be quite a lot easier to understand, especially with acronyms. There seems to be a staggering amount of acronyms in the BCMSN to memorize.

Just wondering about anyone's thoughts or how you prepared for the BCMSN. Maybe I am doing things the hard way - labs, reading all the Cisco books, and Trainsignal videos.

Ferret999

Optimus,

I found BCMSN harder than BSCI. For one it was not as interesting to me and secondly the main thing was that I could not practice very much as I did not have as many switches as I have routers. Also I found Chris Bryants stuff really good for BSCI where as for BCMSN it was not as good. Then there is wireless which is really hard to practice.

So do not feel bad about finding it harder than BSCI and do not under estimate the exam I read the self study guide and the exam cert guide for BCMSN.

Good luck

networker050184

The wireless and voip can be hard to grasp without experience or gear. The wireless was pretty new to me which was my hardest subject. So far I'd say the BCMSN is harder, but haven't taken the BSCI yet, hopefully I won't be eating my words soon!

optimus

Yes, thanks for your postings. I also noticed that Chris seemed to rush through some of the topics on the BCMSN compared to BSCI. The videos are about 30% shorter than the BSCI series I am estimating. Not sure what the reasoning was behind that because the BCMSN seems to have just as much as the BSCI. Oh well, time will tell on this one. Gonna take it nice a slow until I know the material has sunk into my brain matter.

joshgibson82

I've passed the BSCI, and now studying for the BCMSN and I definitely think it is harder due to the fact that the material is so dry and uninteresting. I hate reading about STP and other boring topics. Routing is way more fun and interesting to me, so I think that makes all the difference.

mikearama

joshgibson82 wrote:

I've passed the BSCI, and now studying for the BCMSN and I definitely think it is harder due to the fact that the material is so dry and uninteresting. I hate reading about STP and other boring topics. Routing is way more fun and interesting to me, so I think that makes all the difference.

I feel the same way about BSCI... uninteresting. I've worked in several enterprise environments, and they have all used EIGRP. Frankly, reading about IS-IS and BGP rank only slightly higher on my "pleasure scale" than my last root canal. And multicast and IPv6 are only a notch higher than them.

Oh well, grin and bear it, I guess.

joshgibson82

I feel the same way about BSCI... uninteresting. I've worked in several enterprise environments, and they have all used EIGRP. Frankly, reading about IS-IS and BGP rank only slightly higher on my "pleasure scale" than my last root canal. And multicast and IPv6 are only a notch higher than them.

Oh well, grin and bear it, I guess.

There are tons of networks in production today that use ospf as well. I agree that ISIS isnt very useful unless you work for a carrier, but IPv6 is up and coming, and BGP is extremely widely used. It was my favorite protocol to learn. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.