CCNA Study Resources

I mentioned in my first official post here that I’m going for the CCNA certification. I haven’t scheduled it yet, but my goal is to take it sometime in the next 6-8 months. Once I set an exam date I’ll have more of a formal study plan, but for the time being I have started doing some resource gathering and light studying. I picked up the first volume of Wendell Odom’s Official Cert Guide CCNA and plan on using it and the second volume as my primary textbook source. In addition to that, I’m also going to use David Bombal’s Complete Networking Fundamentals Course on Udemy. That combined with Network Chuck’s free CCNA course videos will be my primary video resources.

I know that the CCNA requires a good amount of hands-on experience so I’ll have to keep my eye out for some potential labs. One program I continuously hear about when it comes to CCNA lab setup is Packet Tracer, and I know both David Bombal and Network Chuck both use these programs in their videos so I’ll grab that for sure. I’ve also taken a look at CBT Nuggets and Boson for practice exams and labs. However those options are expensive and time intensive so I think I’ll stick to what I have for a while and reevaluate once I’ve got some more study time under my belt.

One resource that surprised me with my A+ studying was having an app on my phone for test questions. The amount of times I used it while waiting or lounging around was surprising. I’ve heard of a couple of apps that may help, but the Anki flashcards app seems like a solid choice. Unfortunately it costs $25 for iOS but it does have a free desktop version as well. The goal of Anki is to get some of the more base knowledge you need to be able to recall quickly more ingrained. I think Anki uses spaced repetition so it helps with memorization which is kind of neat.

I’ll be sure to post all these books, apps, links, etc. to my Resources page so you can more easily get an idea of what I’m using to study for the CCNA.