I've just signed up for a CCNA course and I'm scared..

whitman

I have enrolled at Griffith College for the CCNA course. I have a fairly good knowledge of *nix systems(self taught). I am by no means an expert but its a hobby of mine and I have enjoyed it for quite some time. I am fairly adept at the command line and not afraid to use it(in fact its the only thing I use for sysadmin tasks etc.). I have learned a little bit about networking mainly from using FreeBSD on a server to set up ipv6 and so forth. I have played around with the pf(OpenBSD) firewall. I am proud of the little that I have accomplished but I could have done much more with my time if I dedicated myself to reading some more books and not being distracted by the Internet. Alas, I sit here a few years later and decide I should take action and change my course of life and get a new career with this hobby of mine I have developed. I have never worked in the IT sector in any way. So I looked around and decided networking was for me as I just don't think I have the head for computer programming. I found out about Cisco courses and looked through a few of them and decided on CCNA. So here is my issue; I have just received the books I ordered for the course: [URL="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Routing-
Switching-200-120-Official-Library/dp/1587143879"]Cisco CCNA Routing and Switching ICND2 200-101[/URL]

So I get the book and open it with excitement.. I'm 3 pages into the first chapter "Spanning Tree Protocol Concepts" and I am utterly lost. I feel bewildered and absolutely terrified that I have made the wrong choice for a course. Half of me is saying

you're fine, this is exactly how you felt the first time you booted into a Linux cd way back when or when you decided to install Slackware or when you decided to use OpenBSD as a desktop OS

and the other half of me is saying

you'll never get this, its way over your head.. *nix is easy compared to this stuff

... I learned all of my *nix stuff the hard way.. trial and error and I have a good memory for the mistakes I made and the correct way I learned to do things. I really want to believe I can do this but I am terrified. Sorry the big rant, this is my first post. I'm not sure what I am trying to say here, if anything. Any advice is greatly appreciated. I really want this :-(

Sorry if this is in the wrong sub-forum .. if so please point me in the right direction :-)

Kinet1c

You will also the need the CCENT/ICND1 book. Start with that first and once you're competent with that material then move on to the ICND2 book.

whitman

Okay wow Kinet1c thank you so much. In my excitement I was reading the second book!! haha. Yeah I feel pretty silly right now. For some reason I thought the first book was a book of tests or some such. Don't ask why, I have no idea. I feel much better now. Thank you!!!

PaulieBoy

I would hold off getting the CCENT 1 book just now, there is a new syllabus just come out and the book will need to be updated. You should be given plenty of material at Griffith College anyway. It's not a hard course, but there is a lot to learn. If you can configure BSD you can do the CCNA!

L1011

The official Cisco book for the CCENT/INCD1 has come out, as I've got it here already. Bought mainly to prop up the bookshelf as it was about tenth on my priority list but as I've just got a job in a Cisco shop after working in a Sonicwall one for seven years, I may need to re-do it sooner!

Coyote

one thing I found very helpfull when I did the CCNA a number of years ago was watching the CBT nuggets from start to finish before starting the books.
even tho I did not fully understand the more complicated stuff when I was watching it the first time it was a great help.
I then when back and watched the video for the chapter I was going to read. this helps when your learning
someing in a chapter and you then have a idea of why you might need to know it from the over view you get
watching the full set of videos that might only be explaned a chapter or two later in the book.

I did the self learning option (two books and CBT) so it should not be as bad as you can ask your teacher if you dont understand why your doing something one way instead of another way.

HerrScheisse

I have also done CCNA by self-study combining several books and some CBT. I found the multiple choice aspect manageable but the lab aspect threw me off even though I had prepared using silmulators. However, once I learned how to approach such questions, it become much easier.

The pass percentage is quite high so you really need to be on top of things as a few mistakes can easily lead to a fail.

theteal

Download Packet Tracer and see if you can get your hands on some labs to do for when you don't have access to physical equipment. I found it invaluable for learning code

johnnybmac

I've had quite a few Cisco certified guys recommend GNS3 instead of packet tracer, not sure why, but they seem to prefer it and they reckon it's a more complete package...

Kinet1c

GNS3 will emulate a cisco router's ios image whereas packet tracer does not have full router functionality.

Packet tracer does however have switch capabilities.

whitman

Hi everyone, thanks for all the replies!

Does anyone here have a good link(s) to some Cisco specific CBT nuggets videos for beginners? I am just looking at their YouTube channel now and it has tons of videos on all sorts. I am super tired and could probably do a better job of searching but I thought I might just ask some of the pro's now that I have an account here! Thanks :-)