Official CCNP accountability thread

Thought I'd throw my name in the hat and start an official accountability thread for my CCNP. I'm starting SWITCH first, then ROUTE and T-SHOOT.

I've got Chris Bryant's Udemy course and the OCGs. I have GNS3, but I'm still trying to figure out how to lab the SWITCH exam without real equipment. I sort of have some switches I can use at work, but I'd prefer a virtual option at home.

No hard timeline yet, but ideally no more than 6 months to pass SWITCH. Here goes nothin'!

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

albinorhino187

Bryant's T-Shoot course is 80 videos spanning 11.5 hours. I'm pretty busy at work today but i'm tele-"working" tomorrow, so I'll try to make some good progress then.

I took one of the Boson TShoot exams near the end of my route studies just to break things up a bit, and it was definitely a challenge, but I thought the tickets were a lot of fun. From what I hear, it's very similar to the real thing, so I have a feeling I'm really going to enjoy this test.

albinorhino187

I think I'm just gonna try to schedule TSHOOT this week. I've taken all three Boson tests, and I'm getting all the tickets right the first time seeing them.

I'm just going to brush up a little on some of my weak areas from route and switch, and then maybe just familiarize myself more with the topology.

EANx

TShoot was about as fun as an exam could get

albinorhino187

Test booked for Thursday after work. The end is near!

negru_tudor

albinorhino187 wrote: »

Test booked for Thursday after work. The end is near!

Good luck! Whenever you get some spare time, take a piece of paper out and draw the full TSHOOT topology out. Make sure you time yourself. Do this a couple of times a day tomorrow and Wednesday.

When you get in the testing center, you'll have those 15 minutes to get used to the exam engine. Use that time to draw up the TSHOOT topology on one of the test center's pieces of paper they hand out to you. Put down as much stuff as you can without making the thing unreadable: IP addresses, OSPF areas, EIGRP AS, BGP AS, FR DLCis, GRE tunnels, IPv6 addressing, EtherChannels etc.

Once you're 2-3 tickets into the exam you'll start to slightly feel the pressure so having that topology at hand will save you a LOT of time.

When I took TSHOOT in March one of the tickets actually had 2 issues instead of just 1. The correct answer did indeed contain the solution to both issues

so Cisco might throw a curved one at you as well. The MQCs were painful though so try to score as much as you can on the tickets and you'll be fine!

albinorhino187

Passed and done! CCNP finally! It's been about 13 months since I started this thread to track my progress and publicize my efforts a little to help hold me accountable. I had some pretty major life interruptions in between or I could've done it in less than a year, but I'm just glad to be done.

This cert was something I thought about getting 4-5 years ago, before my CCNA, before my first real networking job, back when I was only maybe a year into my first IT job as a jack-of-all-trades. I was still figuring out what interested me when I started leaning towards networking and learning about the certifications. CCNP seemed so far away and unattainable.

Pretty proud of myself right now. I plan to take a break for a while, focus more on some of the stuff we're doing at work with Palo Alto firewalls, ACI, and some other fun stuff. And then maybe go for CCDA/DP or CCIE R&S, maybe Palo's PCNSE. We'll see.

clarson

congratulations

I hope to be passing the switch exam soon.

negru_tudor

albinorhino187 wrote: »

Passed and done! CCNP finally! It's been about 13 months since I started this thread to track my progress and publicize my efforts a little to help hold me accountable. I had some pretty major life interruptions in between or I could've done it in less than a year, but I'm just glad to be done.

This cert was something I thought about getting 4-5 years ago, before my CCNA, before my first real networking job, back when I was only maybe a year into my first IT job as a jack-of-all-trades. I was still figuring out what interested me when I started leaning towards networking and learning about the certifications. CCNP seemed so far away and unattainable.

Pretty proud of myself right now. I plan to take a break for a while, focus more on some of the stuff we're doing at work with Palo Alto firewalls, ACI, and some other fun stuff. And then maybe go for CCDA/DP or CCIE R&S, maybe Palo's PCNSE. We'll see.

Congratulations! It's a great feeling when you finally manage to nail that goal you've been soldiering towards for years.

EANx

Congratulations! A professional success is something to be proud of.