Passing ICND2

Guys, Im so blessed that after all my hard work and studies, I have passed my ICND2 Exam - which makes me a CCNA right?

All I can say that the exam was so hard.. The Time Pressure made me lose my focus.. And I had a hard time answering my NO. 8 Exam which about OSPF , eating my 25 minutes of pure troubleshooting..

Im just so proud of myself, and glad to be called somehow a cisco networking engineer...

Now, can you please give me some advice, where would I go after my CCNA? should I focus on learning while experience real world networking jobs?

From there, what other cisco certification should I get

Congratulations.. Well done

I'll say now focus on real world experiences, enough studying :twisted:
May be after 1 or 2 years from now you can go for CCNP or whatever you think is suitable for you and your job demands, may you also consider other CCNAs like Voice, Security and Wireless.

Cheers,

thanks alan.. youre right. its about time to practice my expertise on actual experiences..

i might consider CCNP after a year... ^^

Congratulations!

I can understand you want to wait with CCNP and gather some experience first.. but still, I can recommend you to go for BSCI and BCMSN.

Study is something you can do besides real world experience... and doing the BCMSN and/or BSCI will only increase your knowledge of Layer-2 and Layer-3 protocols.

As addition try to get your hands on some CBT Nuggets, they have helped me a lot with my CCNP study.

And, ofcourse, you can use this forum as a backup for questions you can't answer...

Have fun!


<Edit>

Also get the Dynamips engine to simulate some routers to do your Layer-3 experience. This is perfect for doing LABS, setting up OSPF, EIGRP, ISIS, RIP (v2), BGP.... and even though those protocols look difficult, just go and make them work.

Draw a nice network of routing and create it.. thats how I did it. Try to draw networks you can't create.. and create them ... even though the outcome can be very strange.

Great advice Chojin. Making random dynamips is a great exercise and will help you get up to speed quickly in the real world. Also, don't forget other vendors. There's no need to limit yourself to cisco. My dynamips lab nicely integrates with my Juniper simulators. Sometimes I find learning networking concepts from other vendors like Juniper or Alcatel-Lucent helps clarify and solidify the information.

I know this is an old post, but if you want to go for the CCNP just yet, you could try going for the ASA Specialist cert. ASA's are a hot product on the market.

But it requires a CCNA Security cert then you take two tests, the SNAA and SNAF to get the ASA Specialist Cert.

Just a thought.