Getting Started in Cisco for CyberPatriot
Preface
Cisco Networking is a difficult specialty to get started in, especially if your school doesn’t have experienced competitors to guide you through the process. As such, I created this blog post to put down in writing what I have gleaned in my 3 years of Cisco experience at the Nationals level. It does not aim to cover networking content whatsoever, but instead goes over strategies that I found to be useful.
Why you should do Cisco
Cisco is, in my opinion, the easiest specialty out of Windows and Linux to master. All of the content that is tested in the competition is in the given resources from CyberPatriot. However, it is also the most intimidating and possibly the most uninteresting specialty, at least at first.
As a result, it is much easier to get onto good teams by specializing in Cisco than with Windows or Linux (at least it was in my experience :) ).
Getting Started
Getting started in Cisco is easy. Simply do the following:
Have your coach add you to the competition NetAcad course.
Download Packet Tracer (link is under resources in the NetAcad course).
Mastering Theory
This is painful and there’s no way around it. You just simply have to put in time to read and hold yourself to knowing the content. The actual content tested during competition is limited to only the modules specified, which skips many chapters of the textbooks used in the curriculum. There is also content relevant only to Cisco-proprietary devices, which can sometimes be ignored.
Mastering Packet Tracer
This is where most of your points will come from. Do the labs in NetAcad as you encounter them. Stick to the ones that are .pka. You don’t have to do the ones where you make your own lab (though I hopefully will be releasing an article about how to do that).
How the Curriculum is Organized
Netacad is organized into sections known as modules, which generally skip around chapters in a few different textbooks (CCNA Security, ITN Fundamentals, CCNA SRWE, etc…).
For the competition, you really only need to study the assigned modules. That goes for Nationals as well.
How to Study Long-term
Having a study schedule is useful, but holding yourself to it is the difficult part. I found it easiest to simply progress on modules whenever I had the time, whether that be in class or over the weekends. Using a spreadsheet to keep track of progress, I just made sure that I had reviewed all the modules I needed to cover by that point in the season.
How to Prep for Competition Cisco Quizzes
It is best to have read through all of the associated modules before semifinals or the round before Nationals. If not, familiarize yourself with generally where certain topics are in the textbooks. Most Cisco questions can be done with only Google or searching through Netacad without significant studying. However, application questions do show up, especially in Round 2 and Round 3.
There are three major types of questions:
Straight theory/vocabulary — google it/search in NetAcad (sometimes taken from publicly available CCNA tests).
Commands — usually can google or NetAcad, might need some configuration knowledge.
Conceptual Application — most difficult kind of question, usually appears as a topology describing the behavior of protocols or packets.
When going through NetAcad, focus on the conceptual knowledge, like how packets move back-and-forth in a protocol, or how a router or switch functions. This knowledge will answer the questions that cannot be google-searched.
Cisco Competition Strategies
Though it is nice to have two people during the competition, Cisco can definitely be done with just one person. Having more people doing your images is more beneficial.
My technical competition strategy is as follows.
Open all the relevant NetAcad textbooks on a personal account. Your competition quiz will be on your given team NetAcad account.
Start with the quiz, aim for less than 20 minutes to complete it. Make sure you know if the quiz lets you go back to a question. This has changed in the past before, so definitely check.
Once you’re done with the quiz, start doing the lab!
As for doing the lab portion, a major aspect is speed. Though the lab isn’t graded on time, if you complete easy things quickly, you’ll have more time to troubleshoot connectivity and broken protocols, which will happen. A tip in this regard is to use notepad scripts.
When working with two people, you can have the second person either shadow your commands and check if you make a mistake, or you can have them work on scripting later configurations specified in the readme. Personally, I prefer the second strategy because the first is pretty boring for your teammate. In any case, both of you should be familiar with where you store your scripts and be equally capable network administrators.
Beyond CyberPatriot
If you have spent a significant amount of time studying for the competition, I highly recommend you capitalize on that time and invest in a certification to prove to the world you did not waste those high school years. There are a few certifications that can be pursued, which include but are not limited to the following:
CCNA
CompTIA Security+
CompTIA Networking+
To Conclude
There’s a lot of things out there to learn for Cisco, but it definitely is well-worth your time if you’re interested in this field. Hope this article helped!
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