After graduating from college, I finally decided it was time to get some certifications to help in my job search. I went about this a little backwards but that’s OK because not everyone does things the same way. That is an important lesson to learn in life. Your way and your path is going to be different from others and that is OK.
I am referring to CompTIA certifications for right now. CompTIA recommends starting with A+ and then getting Network+ before getting Security+. If you do this, getting Security+ will renew your other two certifications.
Security+ was my first certification. I was going to get this one for sure. Initially I wasn’t going to get the A+ and Network+ certifications, I was instead going to familiarize myself with the material.
The more I thought about it. I can go ahead and get these certificates for the small cost of buying a few practice tests and a little bit of time.
My college offers a program that if you pass certain classes, and you take a boot camp for these certifications, then you can earn a voucher to take the exam for free.
This was my course of action with Security+. I passed the boot camp in the middle of June, and finally in mid to late July, got the email that my voucher had come in. I scheduled my exam a month out.
Now that my exam was scheduled It was time to begin my studying. I started off with Jason Dion’s Security+ course on Udemy. I had purchased this course and practice exams a while ago but I was finally going to go through the course and prepare myself. It took a while to go through this course but I took a over 80 pages of notes. I did not really review these notes as a whole but I did refer to them for distinguishing differences between terms.
After taking the Jason Dion course, I used his practice tests. I did a few of them as I went through, but I never looked at the incorrect answers. This can be a pro tip for studying for certification exams and using practice tests. You have the ability to see what you got wrong but if you just look at your percentage, mine was a 76% on the first one. I closed it and kept going. The second test I got a 77% and then a 78 on the third. I stayed right around that range for scores.
I finished the course and did the last three practice tests. The fourth one I scored pretty low on at 73% but I felt it had more difficult questions then the three prior. The last two practice exams of his I got an 83% and an 84%. I still up to this point had not looked at any incorrect answers.
After completing Jason Dion’s course I began to use the great free resource of Professor Messer’s Security+ playlist on YouTube. There are 177 videos in this playlist and I watched them all from start to finish, again taking in the ballpark of 70 to 80 pages of notes.
I also bought Professor Messer’s notes and practice exams for Security+. I did not use his notes but I bought them anyway. If for nothing else, I bought them to support the work that he does with helping students prepare for these certifications.
After I completed his video playlist, I had an idea of some of the areas that I needed to work on more. I made a list of things that I had trouble understanding and I used ChatGPT for those. A few of the concepts that I struggle with is cloud models and roles and responsibilities.
With cloud models the difference between Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a bit confusing to me. At least in regard to the questions I was getting on these practice tests.
In roles and responsibilities, the difference between data owner, and data custodian, and data steward was confusing to me as well.
These as well as a few other things I had on a list of things that I needed more help with and I took this list to ChatGPT for help. I asked it to be my tutor for the SY0-601 exam and I had it explain these topics in further detail to me. As you can imagine while doing this, I took a lot of notes here as well.
The day was approaching for me to take my exam. I began to take the Jason Dion practice exams again and this time I looked at what I was getting wrong. I was going pretty well with these exams scoring in the mid 80’s. After looking at the incorrect answers, I realized I was making a stupid mistake. I was reading the question quickly and not thoroughly and selecting an incorrect answer. After seeing the right answer and rereading the question I realized that I needed to slow down.
My exam got rescheduled from the first day to a week later because the proctor at the testing center had a scheduling conflict. I now had an extra week to study so I was reviewing the incorrect answers from the Jason Dion practice exams and using the notes I had taken to make them make sense.
My goal was the last 3 nights before the exam I would do one of Professor Messer’s exams each night. I heard from many people on Reddit that these were the closest resemblance to the actual exam so that was my plan. August 31st was the new date for my exam. A Thursday afternoon after work. That Tuesday, August 29th, A hurricane was expected to hit Florida, so the school (where I work and was going to take this exam) was closed Wednesday and Thursday.
I had a feeling this was going to happen since I was already stressed from preparation of this exam. Why not add to it? Anyway, the good side of this was these two days the college was closed, plus my three day weekend, and then labor day, netted me a six day weekend. I will call that a fair trade.
I immediately emailed the proctor and scheduled my exam for the 6th. The following Wednesday after we come back from the holiday.
During this six day weekend, I did not study at all until Monday night. I did two of Professor Messer’s practice tests on Monday night and the last one on Tuesday night. After I did those tests, I simply looked at what I got wrong and went on with my life. I did not study anymore.
On Wednesday the day of my exam I had it scheduled after work at 4:30. Many people say to take these in the morning but my head is generally foggy in the morning so I wait until I am alert in the afternoon to take my test.
I was nervous about this test but sure I was well prepared for it. I was not sure what to expect because for five years while taking college courses I had it pounded in my head that these certification exams were very difficult.
While I was taking the test, I actually felt pretty confident that I was doing well. I thought the practice tests that I had taken were much more difficult than the actual exam. Not to take away from the exam but I think the reason for that is I was well prepared.
I took the exam and flagged the questions I was not sure about as well as the PBQ’s to come back to later. I finished the multiple choice and then did the PBQ’s after it and then I began to review the questions that I had flagged. I got through most of them but maybe four or five were left when my 90 minutes ran out.
After the exam I took the survey and when I submitted the survey, I seen that I had passed the exam and was now Security+ certified.
I had spent countless hours and taken close to 200 pages of notes during my studying but I was successful.
If by any chance you come across this page and are studying for a certification, this is the method that works for me.
Best of luck to you in your studies.
Until next time.