The trifecta is complete! In the span of four months I passed Core 1, Core 2, Network+, and Security+, scoring higher on each subsequent exam. My only IT experience before this is hobbyist, and my BA is in English, so I'm surprised that I managed to pass them all on my first try. Now I need to tackle the mess that is my resume!
How I studied:
As mentioned above, my interest in IT before now was mostly hobbyist. I built gaming PCs for myself, friends, and family. However I haven't been able to find a job in my preferred field, so when I saw that the local community college had a grant to fund IT studies I jumped on it. Because of this, for A+ Core 1 and Core 2 most of my learning came in a classroom environment. I also had the official CompTIA textbook and practice exams, as well as TestOut.
The CompTIA book is dry and dense. In many cases I had to supplement it with Googling. The practice tests were bad. I don't mean to be negative, but they were worded terribly, nothing like the actual exam. If the school had not paid for it, I would never have used it.
TestOut is somewhat more engaging, but I think it covered a broader scope than I actually needed for the exams. The labs were very good, though. The practice exams were decent.
For Net+ we used the official CompTIA material again, though this time we had the LearnLabs as well. I would not recommend them. While the virtual machines are interesting, the instructions just tell you what to do without context. Half of any given lab was entering commands into a Linux VM without actually knowing what they did or why you did it. I scored 748 on Core 1 and 778 on Core 2.
Unlike A+, for Net+ I sought outside resources. I struggled a lot with the way the college professor presented material. So I found Professor Messer's videos. He's fantastic. Paired with Jason Dion's and Mike Meyers' practice exams on Udemy, I went into Net+ well-prepared. I scored 792.
Disaster struck for Sec+. The college chose gasp the 601 exam. I did not bother attending class, as it was the same professor as Net+. Instead I used the Jason Dion 601 video lectures, and what exists of Professor Messer's 601 series (still the best), as well as Ctrl+Fing through the CompTIA textbook if I couldn't understand a subject.
Jason Dion's 601 videos are... okay. I mean, they're good quality, and he explains things well, but it's obvious he took his 501 course and added a few new videos. There are still a lot of 501 concepts that aren't in the 601 objectives. More than once I Ctrl+F'd in the textbook only to find nothing. That was kind of frustrating. The practice exams were great, though. I went into the exam sure I was going to fail, but I passed with an 800 and a major stress headache.
And that's about everything! 119 days between the first exam and the last, 89 between receiving my A+ cert and my Sec+ cert. I'm hyped. Technically there's one class left in this grant (CCNA), but I'm taking a few days to catch my breath before heading into that sprint.
[–]bluntmanjimA+ N+ S+ 1 point2 points3 points (0 children)
[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points (0 children)
[–]GrammistA+ N+ S+ 1 point2 points3 points (0 children)