BSCI Study Plans
Posted by Aragoen Celtdra on July 3rd, 2008
Well, I didn’t wait too long to get started on the BSCI track. I wanted to take advantage of the steam I’ve built up during the last month reviewing for the CCNA exam. I passed the CCNA on Saturday, June 28th, and I began hitting the BSCI books on Monday – two days after.
I started getting excited for the BSCI track midweek last week when I received my first two books (the Study Guide and Lab Portfolio). It even came to a point where having those books on my desk whilst I studied became a distraction, as I couldn’t put it down, browsing through the chapters.
So far I have read two chapters from the Cisco Press Study Guide. Lookout for upcoming study notes.
Here are the materials I’ll be using for my studies:
- Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) (Authorized Self-Study Guide), 3rd Edition -This will be the primary text book I will be basing my study off. I chose this based from opinions from the Techexams.net forums. They seem to be favoring this one over the Official Exam guide because of it’s more thorough approach. I guess we’ll find out.
- CCNP BSCI Official Exam Certification Guide, 4th Edition – I decided to purchase this as well since it is the “Official” Exam guide after all. I will use the outline from this book about what I need to learn and fill in the meat using the Self-Study Guide.
- CCNP Building Scalable Internetworks (BSCI 642-901) Lab Portfolio (Cisco Networking Academy) – Not a lot of people seem to have much experience with this. But because I don’t know any better, I’m willing to put this to the test and see how well it prepares me.
- Dynamips/Dynagen – this has been an invaluable resource for me. I’ve used this roughly about 95% of the time when doing lab practices. The other 5% was done on my real equipment, mostly when doing switching technology labs.
- CBT Nuggets – Although I like Jeremy a lot, this is a huge maybe, primarily because of the price. I’m gonna have to think hard on this because I really like this product.
- Practice Exams – I’m still not sure which one to use. The study guide does not have one and I haven’t received the Official Cert book yet. The latter is supposed to have a test engine that comes along with it. I’m assuming it’s similar to the Boson engine in Wendell Odom’s book. Those really proved to be tough questions and I believe prepared me pretty well for the exams. If it not, I’ll have to find other alternatives. Transcender, perhaps?
- Other supplemental resources such as PDFs, Cisco DocCD and the mighty google!
Daily schedule
I plan to follow my old CCNA schedule as it seems to have worked quite well for me. So far I like it and my family agrees with it. If things change or I start to get bored with it, I’ll probably devise a different schedule.
Weekdays
6:00am – 6:30am Wake up
7:00am – 8:30am Study
9:00am – 6:00pm Work
6:30pm – 9:00pm Family time
9:00pm – 11:30pm Study
Weekends
Weekends will be a little bit more flexible with times interchanging around. But to give an idea, it should look something like this:
Saturday
7:00am – 7:30am Wake up
7:30am – 9:00am Do what people do on the weekends*
9:00am – 11:00am Study
11:00am – 3:00pm Do what people do on the weekends*
3:00pm – 5:00pm Study
5:00pm – 9:00pm Do what people do on the weekends*
9:00pm – 12:00m Study
Sunday
Pretty much the same except the family and I wake up at 6am to be at Church by 7am. We are home by 8:30am so the fun begins all over again.
*Sometimes we go out to visit family and friends. But I always bring a book with me and my iTouch with the whole ICND2 CBT Nuggets on it. If I get CBT Nuggets again, I plan to do the same.
So there it is. Coming up before the end of the week, I will have finished my official study schedule and everything will be in place again. Just like old times.
July 4th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I’m using the #1 and #3 books on your list. I read the first couple of chapters of #2 at the bookstore and it looked really barebones….so I’m going to skip it for now. I’m going to be supplementing the two books on your list with the CCIE TCP/IP (vol 1 Doyle) and OSPF/ISIS (Doyle) books recommended by people on techexams. All 4 are on the way!
July 9th, 2008 at 9:06 am
The first book + some documentation from Cisco DocCD are enough to do it! But since you already own they all I think you´re all set! BSCI and BCMSN was one of the most nice topics in my CCNP exam! CIT also was good, but BCRAN! hahahaha!
Also Suffah! I do have all Doyle´s books and they´re amazing! OSPF/ISIS is very good one, you can read it from cover to cover and it´ll don´t disappoint you for sure!
Hope to see you guys soon with your CCNP numbers! You´re doing all right and for sure will finish it very fast!
Cheers!
July 13th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I’d be interested in hearing your opinion of BSCI Lab Portfolio book as you work through it. I’ve been thinking about picking it up, since there seems to be a huge lack of labs/walk-throughs (at the CCNP level) on the Internet.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Suffah: I thought about using the Doyle books. They looked very detailed when I scanned the content. I decided to skip those for now, however. As it is, i already have quite a few sources. No telling though if I’ll decide to use them midway through my studies. I’ll see how I progress.
Caue: Hehe.. I doubt it about finishing “very fast”
I plan to take about a year and a half for the CCNP. The main reason is I don’t have much experience with Cisco and what little exposure I have at work, they come very few and far in between. So I want to really let the knowledge sink in through prolonged study.
Jeremy: I’ll be sure to post some of my thoughts about the BSCI lab portfolio. I did however find that there is ample lab scenarios you can find online. I just decided to buy the book because it saves me the time scouring the internet to find the labs (I already am addicted to the Internet as it is
).
Secondly, having the book allows me to follow a more organized format instead of using fragmented labs scattered all over the Internet. I have found many them everywhere.