How to tackle CCNA while self studying

Ma7allawy

Hi. I have a couple of questions about how to tackle the CCNA course.
I recently got the video courses supplied by CBT nuggets along with Todd Lamlies Sybex book, the latest edition. Now these materials are amazing studied on there own. But I really wanted to tackle both together.
My question is, how can I study both materials in parallel ? I usually watch a nugget with Jeremy and need to get in deeper detail using Todd lamlies book. The problem is that they are not really in sync.

I want the nuggets to be my course, the daily lectures if I may, and the book to be the detailed studying.

Any hints or tips on how to tackle this would be very appreciated. Thanks

NotHackingYou

I went through Lammle's book and did every lab until I had a good understanding. After completing the book, I watched all the CBT nuggets. Then, I read Lammle's book again and did practice exams until my actual exam. Best of luck to you!

DoubleNNs

The 2 materials aren't really supposed to sync up. The CBT nuggets is more of a preview to the material in my opinion, whereas the book is the meat. You'll get more info out of the book.

But my suggestion is to do exactly what you're doing - watch CBT nuggets 1st then read the corresponding chapter. Don't do the book out of order (because material from subsequent chapters build upon the knowledge in previous chapters), but feel free to do the CBT nuggets out of order.

Actually, what I'm personally doing now is to zip thru all the videos 1st, then read the book in 1 shot.

ande0255

Yes DoubleNNs suggestion is what I'm doing for Voice at the moment, I think it's the best approach as well. I take a lot of notes during the videos, and read the book occasionally taking notes on main or new points.

Ma7allawy

I agree with DoubleNN too. Watch the nuggets, understand the main concepts then go through the book. Thanks guys

Magic Johnson

Do what DNNs says.

Don't do what I did and read book first then nugget as you'll just be like 'erm...well that was a waste of time!'

backdoor1

CBT Nuggets are the best, but practice and review helps quite allot. I have added my notes online if you want to use them for review. Good Luck

Cisco ccent | path to Cisco CCNA 2014

Boshy

I pretty much have an echo of everyone else.

I did the icnd1/2 route. Watched CBT nuggets first(took notes), then skimmed over Lammel's book on anything that was still kinda fuzzy. CBT gave me most of what I needed to know. The one thing that helped me the most was doing labs (NAT, EIGRP, ACL, OSPF).

d4nz1g

I never touched any cisco gear before i took CCNA (icnd1 and 2), just labbing.

After that I had the opportunity to enter in a NOC environment.

ccnpninja

in my CCNA days, studying seemed like skiing through an avalanche, since I did not have prior Cisco experience. Now, if I had kept that mindset, I would have considered networking as the North Pole.

Minary

I read all of the book with a highlighter and watched the relevent videos and then took detailed notes and labbed. But I noticed I really only remembered stuff properly when I labbed and Tshooted.

The problem at the begining is there is so many new terms and some chapters refer to tech that is in later chapters so reading it over once is useful. It is hard to really understand and remember one section without a decent understanding of a subseqent section.

The Questions in the Lammel books are great and so are the bonus labs.

I am about to do CCNP hopefully after passing ICND2 nexty week and I really want to make my study time more efficient.

Jon_Cisco

I felt like when I started there was to much information available to me. I visited 100s if not 1000s of sites but really this forum and a few other sites should give you a great start.

I would focus on one or two things at a time. A lot of people suggest watching a video series first to get an idea of the overall content then go back and read about it. I think this would work well and plan to try it when I eventually move on to CCNP. Just don't stress over fully understanding everything the very first time you see it. This is what slowed me down a lot in my first semester. Now I try to skim a chapter one day and actually read it the next.

Good Luck

Ma7allawy

Thanks guys.. really helpful