Certification Studying

kocher

Howdy all,
New to the forums and certs. I had read a message a few days ago and somone had mentioned studying for certs was different than studying for other things such as college exams etc.

Anyone care to elaborate more on that? Is it just the fact its all independant study or is there something more to it?

Thanks for any help clarifying.

Qord

I think it is a little different. With most educational subjects, there is more fact learning than anything else. Well, a lot of conclusion drawing too, but I think you get me. With most certs, you need the application of concepts just as much, if not more-so, than just the facts. Similar to math I guess, you need to know how to do something, as opposed to just being able to spit out facts and answer questions.

Because of that, it's almost essential that you have actual experience applying what you learn, instead of just learning it in a traditional way. For example: If you're going to study for and get certified in Routing and Switching through any vendor (Cisco, Juniper, etc.), it's very difficult to do this without having actually configured the equipment, either physically or virtually. You can have all the book answers in the world, but that might not be enough. It's the practical application part that is new to most people that you need to add to your study regiment to guarantee success.

Of course, this is all relative. I'm sure there are people who can pass any exam, cert or otherwise, without ever working with the technology in question. However, for most of us, actually doing the "work" is what gets us where we need to be.

hennrizzler

Well in the case of microsoft exams for me, definitely a whole new level of learning. I could skim and brush up on a lot of stuff at school/college and pass the exam but with the microsoft exams, you need hands on experience and a whole lot of study time. They can ask some really obscure/difficult questions that if you didn't actually lab or experience, you wouldn't know.

Have found I actually have to put effort into my studies and "go deep" into learning the material about different technologies and how they work.