How to study CCNA

Most students who are new to networking find it very difficult to understand and memorize everything they need to know in order to pass (Cisco) exams. Whenever I teach Cisco’s CCNA in the classroom I explain students a little bit how to prepare themselves and how to study.

For CCNA there is a LOT of stuff you have to remember and trying to “brute force” it into your brain is not the best method.

When you want to study (Cisco) networking there are two things you have to learn / achieve:

• Theory: understand how all the different protocols work that run on routers, switches and other network devices.
• Practical Experience: You have to be able to implement the theory by configuring routers, switches and other network devices.

How often you should review information and how much you will remember is up to debate and personal experience but I think you get the idea. As you are studying you should create notes so that you can review what you learned before. A very powerful technique to do this is called mindmapping.