- [Lecturer] In this video,
let's take a look at some study strategies
to get ready for this exam.
When you're preparing for a Cisco exam,
I think there are three main areas of focus.
You need to know what's on the exam,
you need to focus on the exam topics,
know what they are.
Schedule your study time,
it's not enough to have the intent of studying,
you need to calendar it.
I always say, "What gets scheduled, gets done."
And finally, you need some hands-on experience.
You need to get your hands dirty.
Now, let's take a look at each one of these areas of focus,
beginning with getting to know the exam topics
and you can navigate through Cisco's website
and find the exam blueprint with all of the topics.
Just to save you the time,
I created a shortcut link,
it's a Bit.ly link.
Go to bit.ly/350-401
and that will give you a comprehensive listing
of the exam topics,
but at a high level, here they are,
we've got architecture representing 15% of the exam,
virtualization, that makes up 10% of the exam,
the big one is infrastructure,
this is where we get into topics like routing protocols,
this makes up a whopping 30% of the exam,
network assurance, 10%, security, 20% and automation, 15%
and we need to schedule that study time.
Remember, what gets scheduled, gets done.
So, let's really break it down and think about,
"How long will it take me
"to prepare for this exam?"
Our best guess "and see how much time
"I can dedicate per week towards that study."
And we can come up with a target date
that we're shooting for, for our exam.
Just to give you an example
and your mileage may vary,
but just to give an example,
I might say, "I think I can study eight hours a week."
But don't stop there, that's not specific enough.
I need to say where are those eight hours coming from?
And personally, I might say,
"Well, I can get up an hour early, Monday through Friday,
"before work and I could squeeze in some study time
"in the early morning hours of the week
"and on Saturday, the family's sleeping in,
"I could get up early.
"I could probably get three hours
"of study done on Saturday mornings,
"that gives me my eight hours per week."
Now, we need to ask,
what are we going to be doing during those eight hours a week?
And how long is that going to take?
We'll since you're in this ENCOR video training series,
you got to factor that in,
this course is not 40 hours in duration
but you might spend
or I might spend 40 hours going through a course like this
because you're not just watching the video straight through,
hopefully, you're pausing it,
you're taking good notes,
we might estimate 40 hours.
And you want to get some hands-on practice.
We'll talk later about options
for getting that hands-on practice,
but, maybe 20 hours dedicated to hands-on labs
and after you're done,
I want you to look through that exam blueprint
and identify any topics
that you still don't feel confident on.
Go back and review that,
maybe lab it up in whatever your lab environment is
and, maybe, we'll spend 12 hours
focusing on those weak spots.
Now, obviously, this is just an estimation
but it gives us a working schedule
and if we total all this up,
it comes out to 72 hours
that I'm estimating it would take me
to get prepared for the ENCOR exam.
Now, let's do some simple math.
If I can dedicate eight hours per week to my study
and it's going to take me 72 hours total,
72 divided by eight,
yeah, I can be ready for this exam,
I'm estimating in about nine weeks
and I would go ahead and schedule that exam
as soon as I could at my preferred testing center
when I was able to schedule for that date
that we've marked on the calendar.
Nine weeks out from now in my example
and scheduling early is good for a couple of reasons,
number one, for me, it creates some accountability,
"Knowing that the date's coming,
"I really need to focus on this."
Number two, it gives you a better selection, usually,
of testing centers and times when you can take the exam.
Let's talk about getting your hands dirty.
For your ENP studies,
I'm a huge fan of Cisco VIRL.
If you don't have Cisco VIRL,
you can go check out all the details at VIRL,
virl.cisco.com,
that's one option for getting your hands dirty,
that's what I typically recommend for ENCOR students
but there are other options.
For example, maybe there is some non-production equipment
at your company and you've got management's approval
to use that equipment for your studies,
that might be a great way
to construct a lab for your practice.
You might want to buy a home lab
and what I've done for both of my CCIEs,
specifically, I've purchased a home lab
and yes, it was very expensive to do that
but I would just turn around
and sell the equipment when I was done
and it did not depreciate much while I had it,
so I got almost what I spent for the equipment originally
and in the end,
it was a fairly negligible cost
to have a very robust home lab.
But what I recommend for most ENCOR students,
is to use an emulator,
this is where you're using something like Cisco VIRL
and I prefer this as opposed to a simulator
at this level of your study.
For CCNA students,
I recommend they use Cisco Packet Tracer
because that simulator's not really running Cisco IOS,
it's simulating it but it's not really running it,
there are a few things that it's not going to be able to do
and I want you to be working with real Cisco IOS
at this level of your studies,
so I prefer an emulator like Cisco VIRL
as opposed to a simulator like Cisco Packet Tracer
at this level of your study.
So, to review, we said there are three main areas
to focus on when you are preparing for this exam.
The first was get to know the exam topics
and I gave you a link to go out
and download those exam topics.
Schedule your study time,
put it on your calendar.
Register for that exam as soon as you can
with that target date that you calculated
and yes, there is a safety net.
Typically, if you're about a week or so out
and you think, "I'm no where near ready for this exam."
Because, well, life has happened.
What you usually can do is,
just reschedule your exam for further out in the future
and that typically works just fine.
And finally, we want to get our hands dirty.
We've got options of maybe using some spare equipment
at work with management's approval to construct a lab there,
maybe we buy a home lab
and maybe we resell it after our studies are done
or maybe we use an emulator like Cisco VIRL.