Chasing CCNA? Check out Bradley Graham’s Blog

For those readers either thinking about or already involved in pursuing the Cisco Certified Networking Associate, or CCNA, credential I can offer a half-whimsical and more than halfway helpful resource from Bradley Graham. He currently works for Cisco as an Education Specialist and a Test Engineer, and has over 15 years’ industry experience under his belt. Nevertheless, he’s not only decided to tackle the CCNA exam (for recertification purposes), but is also reporting about it in a weekly blog entitled “My Journey Back to CCNA.”

Bradley must also go in for Star Wars re-enactements

He’s been posting regularly since mid-December 2011 and has covered lots of interesting aspects of CCNA preparation, including the intersection between work, life, family, and cert prep work. Here’s an example of his calculus for determining how much time he can spend on exam preparation expressed in hilarious pictorial form (see his verbatim explanation after the figure to better understand what makes it funny):

BG has a sense of humor that makes his blog great fun

Here’s his explanation of the visual formula just depicted:

This formula roughly translates to English Bulldog over English Bulldog multiplied by expected first child plus EMS over job at Cisco = time remaining for study. Mathematically accurate? Maybe not, but you get the general idea.

If you’re getting ready for this exam, or even just thinking about it, you’ll get a real slice of life view of what’s it’s like to prepare for the CCNA while holding a full time job, handling regular volunteer work, and getting ready for a first child. I find it fun for it’s own sake as well, and I hope you will check it out, if only for grins.