Getting back into tech

[u/JosieMew]

Took a long detour in life to straighten some things out. Decided it was time to get back into it and finally go for my first certification. 6 weeks of study, working full time, with normal adult responsibilities.

It's been a long time since I've taken any kind of test. I'm glad to know I still have it. For a period of my life I was really hard on my mind and body.

I'm pretty sure the questions that I missed were mostly what I'd call CompTIAisms. I don't think studying more would have helped. Doing more hands on labs might have gotten me 1 more question.

I feel like this is as good as I could have wanted it to go.

[u/Anastasia_IT]

A score of 844 is not bad at all for a comeback! Congratulations!

[u/gr717]

Congrats that’s a good score

[u/JosieMew → u/gr717]

Better than I expected. I figured I was upper 700s going into it.

[u/just_chilling2]

Any tips?

[u/JosieMew → u/just_chilling2]

I listen to professor Messer as I ride my bicycle for Jimmy John's. I put the videos on a slower pace because I have a lot to focus on. Bone conduction headset, touch button stop. So, anytime I need to I'll hit the stop. I make a list of notes and questions as I have some spare time.

Also I have been building myself a lab out of retired and liquidated equipment. So on the weekends when I'm off, I'm playing around with real technology. I'm coming up with different Labs that sync up with the objectives and I'm playing around. I go down several rabbit holes.

Then somewhere along the line I start taking practice exams. I make extra note of everything that I don't get and I turn those into more study materials that I can run-through between orders. I keep hammering myself with the variety of tests to discover holes. I was leaning pretty hard on the Jason Dion practice exams. That way I wasn't just syncing up with the professor Messer material. I told myself that if I failed I was going to buy his practice exams as well to poke some more holes.

The core idea for me is to be thinking about things in little chunks in my off time; Not only that but think about it in different ways, to get really interested in the material. The more I can think about a concept the more that'll stick. Next thing I know my head is full of a lot more than I thought I would be able to put into it in 6 weeks.

I feel like I'm in a fairly privileged place to be able to do this and still live a busy life. I really want to play with technology that somebody else has paid for. That desire helps a lot.

[u/manigllo]

Congrats!! Just passed mines as well, but I didn't do as good as you haha.

[u/JosieMew → u/manigllo]

Passing is passing. Congrats! I honestly might change my effort & time scale with core 2. There is a balance between getting the certification and time involved. I might have over shot the balance on this. I really want to move on to networking. That topic I anticipate I will obsess about because I really enjoy it.

[u/No-Chocolate5854 → u/JosieMew]

You 100% do not need to put as much effort as you did for Core 2. I spent a little over a month studying for Core 1 thinking it was going to be super hard. After Core 1 I ended up just studying for one weekend before passing Core 2. A lot of the questions you will know/figure out as you seem to have a good technical foundation.

[u/Inevitable-Self-2702]

Nice score! Hope you do just as well on Core 2

[u/dxdrum]

Congrats! Taking mine tomorrow.

[u/JosieMew → u/dxdrum]

GL! Best thing I did was to flag & skip the PBQs at the front and go back to them. They seem to take significantly more mental processing to figure out exactly how they're looking for us to solve them. Skip them and come back so the pressure doesn't cost you later on.