C480 Network+, Thank Goodness It's Over!

There are 2 courses I've dreaded most in my first year at WGU, this is the first one.  Dreaded for it's complexity, depth of knowledge and for the fact that I resent having to take this class.  I feel that networking, cabling, wireless and security were all covered extensively enough in Intro to IT, A+ Certification and Network and Security Foundations for my major.  This class is excessive and the stress level induced is torturous!

March 3rd, the day I passed C172, I took the pre-assessment for C480, and scored a respectable (in my mind) 67%.  After that I struggled to work through the videos provided in the course, and other resources.  So boring, so not what I wanted to spend my time doing, I really don't like this subject matter.  I can't tell you how many videos I fell asleep watching, or drooped off mid scroll through seemingly endless network diagrams.  This was a struggle that got me nowhere over a period of 2.5 months, yes I said months.

May 23rd, I attempted the pre-test again.  75% <insert head banging on wall>

Aside from the fact that I hate this class, why couldn't I get this stuff stuck in my head?!  My weak spots were definitely OSI, subnetting, cable specifications, IP routing, command line and troubleshooting.  There was no time to waste, my exam date was set for May 30th a week away, and I needed to make measurable strides in this course.

On May 25th, I spent 5 hours on subnetting, I reviewed several "quick" methods online, but most of them seemed to rely on doing a brain dump of a table as soon as your test started.  I knew there was going to be so much going on in my brain, that wasn't a good add on.  I worked on subnetting until it clicked in my brain, and then did oodles of practice questions to make sure I had it down.  I am happy to report I can answer most subnetting questions in less than 45 seconds with no table or calculator!  This website is a wonderful subnetting quiz resource:  https://www.subnetting.net/Subnetting.aspx?mode=practice

Studying via test question worked last time, so I went through all the quizzes again and another practice test.  I completed all of the labs (which I hadn't done previously).  On May 26th, I took a practice test that while part of the course work, was provided by another vendor, I did awful, 64%!  I found there to be many more troubleshooting and concept related questions rather than technical regurgitation questions.

My stress ramped up a ton!  4 days til my test and I was clearly not grasping these concepts.  I went to the WGU College of IT Facebook group and asked my peers, "how am I ever going to get this done?"  Someone gave me great advice that fit in the same vein as my "study via test question" approach.  He said there was a mastery mode built into the course, I did not know this, so I dug a little and found it.  It asks you every test/quiz question and many of the labs built into the course, 3 times.  Yes, 3 times.  If it asks you once and you get it correct, great, it will still ask you 2 more times, if you get one of those wrong, you start over at 0.  And it goes on that way until you get all of the questions correct.  I was sure to read all of the explanations when I got a question wrong, and even those I got right, to help make the concepts stick.  I think there are 598 questions total.  It took me 3 days to complete it all, many many hours.

On the morning of May 30th, I took one final practice test, the official post-assessment, and scored a 96%.  I was still plenty nervous, but I felt like this would be ok.  If not, I had another month in my term to try again, but I was sure hoping I wouldn't need a second chance.  I arrived early at the test center (the local community college).  Anticipating that I would need the whole 90 min and no breaks allowed, I used the restroom and then checked in for my test.

It did take me the whole 90 minutes, but I passed with room to spare.  I felt like having subnetting down saved me in about 6 questions, and there were several troubleshooting scenario questions.  There were 79 questions on my test.  The score is out of a possible 900, with 720 being the passing score.  I scored 780!  I had a good cry, followed by a steak dinner with my family, followed by a blizzard and a quiet bubble bath.  Network+ was the highest tech certification achieved by my father in his tech career, so he was a proud dad.

 I am now CompTIA A+ and Net+ certified and a CIOS specialist.  Bummer that you have to recert every 3 years.  I'll have to look into the logistics of that.  The last CompTIA certification required by my program is Project+.  I'm not positive yet what term I'll tackle that one.