IT Employment

My local tech college runs the Cisco Networking Academy courses during the day.

We bought this kit:
http://www.ciscokits.com/cisco-ccna-ccnp-kit-cbt/ (this is too much, the company paid for it and I had no saying)

But I think this one is good enough:
http://www.ciscokits.com/cisco-ccna-router-switch-lab/

I borrowed a Cisco 1841 router and for the most part I learned enough with only one router, I also took a course and that helped me even more.


You can always purchase the cisco kit and sale it after you're done. You can also do more research and get your equipment from Ebay, Amazon or Craigslist.

One question, have you taken a Net+ course?

Some resources:
http://faculty.valenciacc.edu/wyousif/classesm.htm

http://faculty.valenciacc.edu/wyousif/cet1610M.htm

http://faculty.valenciacc.edu/wyousif/CET2615C_M.htm

http://www.informit.com/library/content.aspx?b=CCNA_Practical_Studies&seqNum=7

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_3t/fun/command/reference/123tfr.html


(edit)
You can also download Packet Tracer 5.1. If you buy those two books it comes with the labs.

because you can't work with the routing protocols, or check for connectivity issues.

Check ebay and you can find older systems fairly cheap, or if you know of a company that has upgraded in the last few years, they might sell, lend, give you their old routers to use.

Esims are nice for configuration, but don't cut it for all the connectivity issues you will have to learn.

Oh, and CCNA is a LOT of terminology, subnetting, and knowing binary.

Hmm... I can handle the terminology and sub netting but the binary might throw me a loop. I understand it but it takes me a bit to get it sometimes.

Do you mean to say you can't count to one? :^0

When I was teaching digital electronics at the high school career center, I used this t-shirt as a training aid: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/generic/6a20/zoom/

My students loved it (never ratted me out!) and they learned binary. Most of them got it the first time through, but some actually found it easier to understand binary after they learned hexadecimal. Give that a try if you haven't already tried.

Until you get it down, just use the simple conversion table below

[pre]Decimal = Hex = binary
0 = 0 = 0000
1 = 1 = 0001
2 = 2 = 0010
3 = 3 = 0011
4 = 4 = 0100
5 = 5 = 0101
6 = 6 = 0110
7 = 7 = 0111
8 = 8 = 1000
9 = 9 = 1001
10 = A = 1010
11 = B = 1011
12 = C = 1100
13 = D = 1101
14 = E = 1110
15 = F = 1111
[/pre]

so BEFORE you start the test, you can create the binary chart, allowing you to just look it up.

The rule is you can't take notes in, but you CAN make notes before hand.

Oh, definitely practice some. do a google search and you will find sites that help with binary.

I do have Net +. It's been over a year since i took it though. I also have A+ and have went through training for MCSA but have not obtained it quite yet.