My 2019 career goals started in December 2018. Since my family and I moved from TN to GA, I would visit our HQ whenever I had a chance and/or if there was a team/company meeting, etc. It all started when in December 2018 I was visiting our main office and we went out to have some sushi. Joshua Gochee – @JGochee (who was working for Ruckus at the time) asked me about my CWNA, I told him no I still haven’t taken it but I am planning on taking it. He then asked me what am I waiting for, I bet you can sit the test and at least pass it right now. One of my other coworkers Brian Powers – @Powers17 concurred with that statement. Both of them encouraged me to take the exam and I said, “Ok I will take it before this year ends”.
I had some PTO left so I took a week off before the Christmas break, scheduled my test for December 31st and started to study the book. After the PTO and Christmas break things were slow so that gave me some time to review some additional material and resources. Finally, the day came and I was able to successfully pass the test. I was pretty excited going into the New Year with having my very first CWNP certification.
This gave me some confidence and I started to joke around that I am going to take all CWNP Certifications in 2019 one Cisco certification since I had to renew them and get my CWNE. Next, I decided to take the CWAP certification since many seasoned WLAN engineers recommended it. I had taken a training class back in 2018 from Devin Akin, so I pulled out all my notes from that training class, bought the new CWAP book and started to study.
My first attempt at CWAP was on April 15th and unfortunately, I failed it the first time. I retook it on April 26th and was able to pass it with some additional focused studying. Here is a quick post on my CWAP Exam and Study resources that I wrote.
Now I was left with 2 CWNP certifications CWSP and CWDP. I also needed to take a Cisco Certification so that I can renew my Cisco certifications. By this time I was thinking maybe I can do this. So with a whole bunch of prayers, studying, support from my family (God bless my wife for supporting me the whole year big time) and all my peers and the WLAN community, I was able to pass all 5 certifications.
- CWNA – December 31st, 2018
- CWAP – April 26th, 2019
- CWSP – September 7th, 2019
- CCNA Wireless – October 14th, 2019
- CWDP – December 3rd, 2019
Now it was time to write essays and apply for CWNE, I will talk about this in my next post. CWNE Journey – Part 2
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