During this summer, I made a goal to work towards certifications to demonstrate my ability in various IT concepts, along with learning new concepts that I can apply later on in my career. Initially I started out on a very small scale, taking and passing the ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity exam (which is currently being offered for free), along with the FreeCodeCamp Foundational C# with Microsoft exam (also free). When looking at my future career prospects, I knew that I wanted to go into a cybersecurity position that focused on forensics, but I also knew that I need to demonstrate more foundational IT skills before I dive head-first into some of the more technical certifications. Over the last month, I have put in many hours in my free time studying and preparing for the CompTIA Network+ exam as I felt that this exam would be an excellent test of the skills that I have learned while working in an IT helpdesk role.
Planning
Going into this exam I knew that it would be a difficult challenge and would require an ample amount of time and effort, but I felt that I could tackle this exam. In order to do this, I created a plan to ensure that I covered all of the exam objectives that are provided by CompTIA. There are five domains that are covered in this exam: Networking Concepts, Network Implementation, Network Operations, Network Security, and Network Troubleshooting. As I have already taken multiple cybersecurity courses and studied the field a fair amount, I figured that the Network Security domain would most likely be the easiest for me, while either the Network Troubleshooting or Network Implementation domains would be the most difficult. To ensure that I wouldn’t miss anything, I decided that I would thoroughly cover each topic in each domain to guarantee the best chance of passing while avoiding any curveballs that could come up in the exam. Additionally, I decided that once I had finished my initial coverage of the material, that I would promptly schedule the exam for 7-14 days later. This would ensure that I take the exam with the content fresh in my head, while also allowing me to practice and review the content. I also planned to take the exam in-person at a Pearson VUE testing center opposed to taking a test online, as I did not want to have to worry about any technical hiccups on the day of the exam. When considering the primary medium to learn the content, I decided to utilize Professor Messer’s YouTube videos, as he has a very positive reputation for providing excellent content that is also free. In addition to his videos, I would also take practice exams on LinkedIn Learning (provided for free by Ohio State University to students) and ExamCompass (also free for the public). Overall, my strategy did not require any payment, and I could score a cheaper exam by utilizing my student discount on CompTIA’s educational store (Note: I purchased this exam before CompTIA redesigned their website, which no longer includes the educational store. Student discounts still exist, however you are not able to see the discounted price until the checkout page, which is where you are prompted to verify student status now. The price for the Network+ N10-009 exam also increased by $49 since I purchased my exam voucher.). All of this allowed for me to take the exam for significantly less money than previously expected.
Notetaking Strategy
In previous semesters at Ohio State, I discovered that I learned best by taking notes on paper with a pencil opposed to any digital notetaking mediums, however I also knew that I enjoyed the flexibility of searching and collating digital notes. While my solution was highly inefficient, I decided to simply do both: write an initial set of notes on paper, then copy those notes into a digital notetaking platform. I decided to manually retype my notes instead of scanning them and correcting any computer vision errors for a couple of reasons, such as wanting to reinforce the concepts by rereading and rewriting the notes, and because my handwriting is quite messy and I don’t trust a scanning software to accurately read my notes.
For my digital notetaking platform, I decided to use Obsidian. Obsidian is a markdown based text editor that also has a lot of flexibility and functionality in the form of plugins and linking. One of my favorite features to use was the backlinks, which would allow me to reference one note inside of another. This allowed for me to build up a large web of interconnected notes, and I could easily bounce around to referenced notes to remember any related concepts that might have slipped my mind. Obsidian’s flexibility is bolstered by its plugin store, which allowed for me to extend my notetaking a bit further than I was originally expecting. I rotate between a couple of different computers and wanted to have my notes appear on all devices, however I didn’t want to have to pay for a subscription to Obsidian’s sync service. Thanks to the plugin store, I didn’t need to: there was a plugin already created that would allow me to back up my notes to a Git repository that could then be synced across all devices. This took minimal effort to setup and works excellently, and made it easier for me to pick up what I was doing later on when I switched to a different computer. My experience with Obsidian while studying for Network+ has prompted me to use it as my primary notes app, replacing Notability.
Implementing My Study Plan
With my study plan in place and notetaking infrastructure working, all that was left was to sit down and learn. After around 3 weeks of watching videos, I had completed Professor Messer’s course and felt very comfortable with the material. There was still a bit of studying to do, as some concepts felt a bit vague and others required practice (looking at you, subnetting). I also started taking practice exams at this point to gauge my understanding, where LinkedIn Learning exams were more comprehensive and ExamCompass exams were focused on specific topics. Initially my scores were quite good and reassured me that I was on the right track, but I couldn’t tell for sure if I would pass or not. These exams didn’t feel very difficult, and I hadn’t taken a CompTIA exam before, so I didn’t have any point of reference for how questions would appear on the exam. There was another factor in the back of my head that made me very concerned: Performance Based Questions (or PBQs, for short). These are questions that truly test your comprehension of the objectives, as they are practical applications of topics that may occur in a real job scenario. Some instances of these PBQs may be setting up a network, or troubleshooting a configuration by using the command line. This was what prompted me to push back my attempt of the exam initially, as I felt I needed to be as confident as possible on every topic before I walked in the Pearson VUE center. A very helpful tool for practicing was the Cisco Packet Tracer, a free network simulation tool that allows for the emulation of switches, routers, computers, and more. One element included in the Network Troubleshooting domain in the exam objectives is a set of commands that are utilized on switches and routers, which I had never had the opportunity to use. This tool was very beneficial and allowed for me to actually try these commands, and to see how they worked in a real world scenario. Another set of commands are included in the exam objectives for endpoints, such as tcpdump or nmap, which I was able to test using my Ubuntu machine. I felt that these commands would most likely be included in a PBQ opposed to a multiple choice question, as they contain information that may dramatically affect how you approach a problem in a troubleshooting scenario.
Exam Day
With all of my practice and studying out of the way, the only thing left to do was take the exam. I went to the exam center and was seated with a whiteboard and a dry erase marker. With the initial agreements done, the exam began. The first thing I did in the exam room was essentially dump my knowledge onto the whiteboard: I wrote out a table that helped me with subnetting, in addition to the acronym for the OSI model along with a word about what each layer of the OSI model did. Having this written down made it easier for me to work through the exam with less stress that I would forget something important midway through. I also opted to skip the PBQs initially and come back to them later, as they would take the most time to complete. After working through a few multiple choice questions, my fear and stress began to drop as I wasn’t struggling with many questions. This allowed me to work a bit more freely and I got into a good flow with reasoning through multiple choice problems. Once all of the multiple choice was answered, I went back to the PBQs. These questions took quite a bit longer to complete, however I felt that I was able to find solutions to all of them. Each scenario had few paths that could be followed, and the terminals for routers, switches, and endpoints had a limited set of commands in comparison to their real world counterparts. All of this made it significantly easier to work through the logic for each scenario, and there weren’t any questions that felt unfair. With this done, I clicked submit and saw that I had passed the exam.
Passing this certification exam reflects the success of my study strategy along with the skills that I have learned while working in an IT role over the last couple of years. I feel much more confident with pursuing these certifications, and will be working on learning much more over the next couple of months. There were some domains that appeared weaker than I had expected on my score report, and I decided to refresh my memory on these topics for future reference. Passing this exam was a massive success, however I want to make sure that I am continuing to grow in areas that I am currently lacking in. While I am taking a short break for other commitments and my mental health, I intend to return to studying soon to take on the CompTIA Security+ exam.