The Major

Category: IT Certification

  • Damn It

    I don’t know what it is…but straight-up studying isn’t my thing. Don’t get me wrong, I studied my ass off this weekend, but it was really a test of my will power. Such a miserable weekend. It involved diet coke, coffee, lattes, and almost no chores at all. Everything else was not even secondary this weekend – it was tertiary. Secondary to studying was studying. My study habits weren’t perfect but they were almost as good as I can get. From Friday at 11am until now I haven’t made it more than three blocks from my apartment.

    Time goes slow as hell when you’re sick of studying.

    But in the end, I know it will all be worth it. Because in about 16 hours I will fianlly be a Cisco Certified Network Associate. Because if I don’t pass tomorrow, I am not really sure what else I might be able to do to study even more.

    I can remember before the other times that I’ve taken the exam. And there are so many subjects that I either didn’t know almost at all or only knew with average competence. This time I feel like I have a solid grasp on not just the concepts, but also the implementation of routing protocols, vlans, stp, design, security, subnetting, ISDN, Frame Relay, VTP, trunking and all the subjects inbetween. The only things I could use some more work on are dial-on-demand routing, “show” commands, and “debug” commands.

    I almost passed the other times. And since I am so much more solid on all of these subjects this time, I am confident that I will pass tomorrow.

    I am not sure what to do with myself for the next four hours before work. I almost just really feel like sitting here and being tense and nervous. But most of all I want the time to go as quickly as possible. So I think I will go to sleep. I’ll want to be as alert as possible before the test tomorrow anyway. Hopefully it will work out.

    I’ve been thinking about what it will feel like once I finish the test, walk up to the front and get my print-out saying I passed. And I really don’t know. I’ll just have to pass and find out.

  • Still Haven’t Heard From SFSU

    I applied to San Francisco State University over a month ago. I heard from them once, saying they needed a residency form and my transcript from UMBC. Well, I had already requested a transcript mailing from UMBC, but I requested another, double-checking that it was being sent to the correct address. And of course I sent in the residency application. I haven’t heard from them since.

    I am thinking if I don’t get in…maybe I should concentrate on career certifications instead. Of course, I am still going for my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate), but I am pretty close to getting it. So a CCNA is kind of like an associate’s degree in networking, then I could go for a CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional), which is kind of like a bachelor’s of networking. And if I am still up for it…I could go for a CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetworking Engineer, I believe). That is like a doctorate of networking.

    Now, I am not just making the above comparisons for the sake of analogy. Those certifications really are comparible in several ways to the degrees I have associated them with. In terms of the amount of work required, they are maybe a little less work required, but not all that much. And in terms of the expected salaries for those who hold the certifications, they seem to be a bit higher than their comparable degrees.

    Anyway, it would be a damn shame if I didn’t get in to SFSU. But at least I have a backup plan.