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Network +

Alex McCulley

• 2 min read

I managed to get my Network + last month with a score of 771 out of 900! As I've done for my Sec+, A+, and Linux+ I wanted to give an overview of how I studied and what my overall thoughts and experience was of studying for and taking the Network+.

First of all, I'm not a network admin. I've never professionally worked with switches and routers and VoIP systems, etc. That being said, my time as a system administrator gave me some familiarity with basic troubleshooting. In addition to that, my homelab has given me some experience with things like: VLANs, firewall rules, DHCP, DNS, and other networking concepts.

If you've read my other post-exam posts (Sec +, A+, Linux +), you know that I typically like to have a textbook, practice questions, and lecture series for these types of exams. So for this one I went with:

In addition to these resources I did end up buying Professor Messer's Network + notes. They were helpful in the last couple of weeks leading up to the exam since I didn't take notes from his lectures. I did manage to get my employer to pay for the training bundle (which comes with 2 exam attempts). I like the CompTIA practice exams and questions because I feel like they were closest thing to the actual exam (go figure). They also had good practice performance based questions. The Pocket Prep app was great for doing questions when I had spare time on my phone.

The actual exam I will say had more performance based questions than any other CompTIA exam I've taken. I actually had a moment of panic with how many and how in depth they looked. Obviously it ended up being alright, but that was a bit nerve racking. I simply followed my normal exam taking process of doing the multiple choice first, then going back and doing the performance based questions. I used up pretty much all my time on this one. I think I had something like 10 minutes left, which was the least amount of remaining time I've ever had.

I decided to go for this exam primarily because I wanted to learn. I wanted to gain some knowledge in an area of IT that I wasn't familiar with in an effort to help shore up some of my own weaknesses so to speak, and in that goal I was certainly successful. Topics that I had never heard of or dealt with like: routing protocols, switching loops, dedicated lines, connector types, and different enterprise networking architecture were all covered in the material and offered a lot for me to learn. I have to say, I'm proud of passing this one. Even though CompTIA doesn't place this one as high as Linux +, it took more dedicated time than that one due to my lack of hands on experience with networking.

Next Steps

This year presents some interesting routes to take as far as professional development. Now that I have my Network +, I feel like I've proven to myself (and employers) that I have a solid foundational knowledge of IT on endpoints, servers, and networking. I finally feel like I'm ready to move in the direction I've been orienting myself for the past 5 years, offensive security. With that in mind, I'd like to take something like TCM security's PJPT, which, while it is a new exam, is a start in the direction of the OSCP which has been a long term goal of mine. We'll see what the future holds, and I hope to keep updating this site with any progress, decision, or interesting things I'm doing.

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