CCNA Advice

sainth

I need your advice but please be gentle to me

Here's my story, I finished in Cisco Academy taking CCNA but have not take the exam and that was 2 to 3 years ago. The reason why I did not take the exam is that we're moving in the US and I know that it's hard to find a job in our area(we have a contract to stay here for 3 years). I decided not to take the exam because I'm afraid that I wont be able to use it and it will just expire. I'm thinking now that I did a bad decesion because I already forgot almost everything.

My question is, if I will use the CBT nuggets and a home lab to get into it, would that help me pass CCNA or even land a job in Raleigh, NC? I'm planning to get a CCNA kit at CISCOKITS. So before ordering a kit, could someone give me an advice on what to do.

By the way, for the last 2 years I've stay here in the US, I only worked as PC Tech on a small shop and able to get an MCP.

Thank you so much and hope someone with a kind heart will give me advice on what to do.

Sainth

ChrisfromtheVille

You should get some hands on experience of some sort, either in a lab, or on the job. Without going into great detail, you're going to see a lot of simulations, and they will make or break your test experience.

Other than that, be familiar with everything in the books.

mikej412

You should be able to get Alumni Access to the Cisco Network Academy website -- and access to the latest courseware for the courses you took. It's worth checking out -- especially if you liked the Academy courses.

The CBT Nuggets should help refresh your memory -- they definitely won't hurt. But they are just an additional resource to use -- not a single magic study solution.

With your Academy Lab experience, you should be able to figure out what you'd need (or want) for a lab. If you go with CiscoKits -- skip the kits with the 1900 switches -- those haven't been tested for years. The prices of the 2950 switches have dropped on eBay if you search there, so that's what we'll usually recommend now for the CCNA -- but you might get by with 1 2950 and 2 of the cheaper 2924-XL-EN (you WANT the ENterprise version).

Check out the CCNA FAQ for the suggested books, lab discussions, and simulator options. The current CCNA exam has some SDM tasks -- and there are a couple SDM links in the FAQ pointing to the supported routers (you'd want a supported router in your home lab for SDM) and an SDM demo.

sainth

Thank you, I will do all your advice... I'm planning to buy cisco kits and just get switch from ebay... I hope this will help me with CCNA and able to get a decent job.