My Experience (CISSP 5 Week Cram)

Rick1

I figured I would give my experience with the CISSP experience since so many others were kind enough to give helpful insight into theirexperiences and backgrounds.

Well to be honest I had not even heard of CISSP or never gave it any thought untilOctober when I started working as a Government Contactor. Some background on me, I spent 6 years in theUnited States Army as an Information Systems Operator/Analyst. After leaving the Army I finished mybachelor’s degree in Network Security and held down a couple different jobs toinclude help desk manager and my own startup company (didn’t work out).

From there I took a position as a Windows 7 Software testerand my path towards CISSP began. To get the Windows 7 job I needed to be 8570 compliant, I took and passed both N+ and Sec+within a week of each other. Both exams were fairly easy to me and I spent about a day refreshing on each before taking the exams.

Then about 1 month into being a software tester (October2011) I discovered CISSP and decided I had to have it since it covered essentially all areas of 8570 compliance and let’s face it, I want more money and 8570 was my guide to get there.

I studied on and off and until January 2012 I wasn’treally taking my studies seriously. Around January 20^th I decided if I wanted to get cert I had to apply some pressure on myself and schedule the exam. I scheduled for Feburary 19^th and the race was on to cover 10 domains in 5 weeks. The plan was to cover 2 domains a week, 1 throughout the week and 1every weekend.
A note on how I use practice exams, I never take them untilthe last minute. I might crack a book and check some of the questions in the back but I try to save practice testsfor the 0^th hour. I’ll elaborate on why later.

I started with Shon Harris’s AIO but while the book did cover all the material it was very dry and difficult to get though. I had already watched an 8 hour long crash course which was available to all government contractors though an available resource but it didn’t seem through enough and wasn’t as good as I had hoped.

Around January 25^th I knew I was in trouble andpurchased Shon Harris’s online web course $550 and started watching it vigilantly every day after work for 2-4 hours and weekends 6-8 hours. The course was about 36 hours long but since each module (about 1000 total) requires you to click and wait for it to load Iprobably spent about 50 hours watching the videos. When all was said and done I finished the video series with a week to spare before the 19th. I crammed as much as I could into the last week and to be honest at this point I barely remember anything about it.

On Friday the 17th I took a half day at work and began the 4 hour drive to Raleigh NC with a quick pit stop at my parents’ house along theway. During the drive I listened to theAccess control domain which came with AIO as an MP3 but it was only about an hour long. When I arrived at my parents’house 2 hours later I decided to stay the night and begin studying there by doing practice exams. I woke up at 6am the Saturday before my exam continued my practice exams.

I had 1000 exam questions to go through and I cheated on almost every one of them. Questions I knew I answered flat out but ones I didn’t I researched the correct answer and moved on. The idea being I didn’t care about the score I wanted to cover everything in 12 hours. Around noon I decided to head to Raleigh where I would finish the exam. After 6 hours of questions my brain was fried so the drive did some good. I got to Raleigh around 2 pm and hit thequestions again. I had finished all the tests by 7pm that night and felt completely drained. I watched a movie on Netflix, microwaved a couple burritos for brain food and tried to go to sleep at about 9pm.

Then came 10, 11, 12, 1am… I couldn’t sleep I just laid in bed and my poor brain was trying to process the massive influx of information I had absorbed. I did eventually fall asleep and all too soon my 6am alarm was going off.

That morning I showered got dressed in better than my usual work clothes and lucky orange shirt. Then I drove off to the exam site. I found the hotel and with hours of extra time ran to McDonalds for breakfast and a quick stop at Wal-Mart for no.2 pencils. I got back to the Hotel around 7:30 ate my breakfast and checked into the exam. I asked one of the proctors if I could smoke during the exam, when he said no I immediately went outside and proceeded tochain smoke to get nicotine levels high enough to where I wouldn’t have a nic-fit during the exam. I also broughtsome dip in case that happened so I could use it in the bathroom that issue never came up.

So I sat in the exam room and started the test. I took extra care to fill out everything exactly as the proctors informed us too, even checked to make sure my name was the same as my voucher without a middle initial. At 9am we started with a stop time of 3pm. I started the test by filling in mybubbles and circling questions I wasn’t sure about. I answered every question thoroughly and deliberately. By Question 50 I realized I had been testing for an hour and concluded there wasn’t enough time for me to do a full review before submitting the exam. I stopped circling unknown answers and conceded to a single pass though the test. This forfeited my ability tocross reference questions but given the exams wide scope it really didn’t matter.

At 4 hours and 30 minutes into the exam I had taken 2 breaks which did nothing for reenergizing me and my answer sheet was full. I literally put my head on the desk, closed my eyes and tried to think what I should do. I decided my single pass was enough and as my earlier math had determined there wasn’t enough time to go back over everything. I raised my hand and had a proctor take myexam away.

After the exam I went to a buddies house in Durham and bless his wife for being a Sierra Nevada beer rep began working on a Torpedo IPA. It was probably the best beer I can remember having short of the one after coming back from Afghanistan. We had a small party, and although I think they were a little tired of me talking about the test they could relate and humored me.
When I left the exam I felt like I had passed. If I had failed I honestly think it would have been because I picked too many 2^nd best answers and to behonest I felt no amount of additional studying would have helped.

The exam was far less technical than I hadanticipated and much more subjective. I did challenge 2 questions on the exam due to very very poor phasing around a word which could have been interpreted two different ways. I don’t want to give specifics but similar tofirewall or trap in physical vs. network.

The next 4 weeks were pure torture, sifting through these forums for any nuisance of an update. I emailed ISC2 10 days after the test to check results and they said 4-6weeks. 28 days after the exam I sent another email requesting results and received a response on the Thursday ofweek 4. It was fantastic hear I had passed. With all that behind me I proceeded to email text and call everybody I could. I had an awesome sponsor who had already done all my verification so my package went out almost immediately.

The following Tuesday I got called into my manager’s office and was told I was officially overqualified for my current position and started naming a list of jobs better suited for me. However he also told me I needed to be patient since my company is in a hiring freeze but the doors will be opened.

I let him know I appreciated any opportunity he could give me but when my cert comes though my resume is flying out the door. He understood, I’m a subcontractor and working for him on loan so this position I’m in now was never meant tobe permanent.

Well that about sums up everything to where I’m at now. Thanks to anyone who read through all thisand I apologize for this being a long read but it should give anyone lookinginto the cert a good idea of what it took for me to essentially pass in 5 weeks.

A few other things to note, the whole process cost me about$2,000. That includes the exam, gas toget to the exam, work missed and materials. Strictly speaking my materials cost $60 for the AIO and companionquestion book 5^th edition, $550 for the exam, and $550 for the ShonHarris Videos. (If you go the videoroute don’t buy used or borrow from a friend as it violates Logical Security’slicense agreement and your code of ethics. Yes it’s expensive and boring and even annoying at times. But it’s really comprehensive and in myopinion the reason I passed)

Also I want to thank the great support fromeverybody on the forums and my unbelievably patient, understanding andsupportive wife who should probably get a cert (CISSP Survivor) just forputting up with me though this. Best of luck to you all in your own CISSP journey.

UnixGuy

What a review!! Thanks for sharing your experience and congrats on passing!

I should get more serious with my studying