So, it would seem that I have not posted since the end of November.
They told me this would happen!! And I didn’t believe them!
No, but seriously. Apologies for not keeping you all up to date. I know that people are very interested in what goes on in CISA on an everyday basis.
So at the moment, we are actually in the middle of our exam week. This isn’t very typical for most programs at BCIT – the majority of them had their exams before Christmas, then came back on the 6th to start the new semester. Us lucky folk had to spend our 2 week Christmas vacation panicking and making sure we didn’t forget all the stuff we learned the 4 months previous in order to write our exams this week. AAARRRRGHHHH
Thankfully I don’t think I forgot too much (although admittedly, one of my exams so far was a bit of a train wreck – definitely not bad enough to make me worry about failing or anything but I definitely was sweating a little bit… So, we just have ONE final left – Cisco networking – tomorrow morning and then we’ll be starting our new semester!
New semester is lots of the stuff I like. My favorite course topics are networking and servers and thankfully we get to double up on both of those subjects this semester. We have Cisco switching (Chris, our Programming teacher from level 1 is teaching this); Cisco routing (Rob); Active Directory (Chi); Server Administration (Ray); Linux Administration (Steven); and Server Hardware (John). Personally, I’m actually really looking forward to taking Cisco switching with Chris. Programming class in level 1 was, although a little basic for me since I had previous programming experience (could have actually taken an exemption), quite entertaining, and some folks I have spoken to have mentioned that he’s especially passionate about teaching Cisco topics (Really, who wouldn’t, compared with programming – take that, CST nerds! I mean, ahem. Sorry, Joel). So that’ll be cool.
The exams so far, honestly, haven’t been too bad. We’ve been stressing about them a fair bit, but with the exception of one of them, they’ve been /considerably/ easier than I expected them to be. Not sure if everybody in my class shared that opinion but I know some did. I’m very sad to find out that we do not actually get to find out what our grades on the final exams were – after writing our last exam tomorrow (Thursday), we get a 4 day weekend, and then we’re all required to come back to school on Tuesday to get our Level 1 grades – those in the program who score below 60% …well, they have to go home. Pretty harsh way of doing it, in my opinion. But it needs to be done.
I’ll also talk quickly here about my personal goals, in terms of working towards certifications. Last I reported I’d taken the CompTIA Network+ on Halloween and successfully passed that. My next cert is an interesting choice – the day after tomorrow I’ll actually be writing the Microsoft Technology Specialist (MCTS) 74-409 exam, Server 2012 and Hyper-V with System Center 2012. Completely unrelated to what I learned in the last semester. However, MS was offering this certification for free and I am never one to say ‘no’ to some nice free resume padding. A fellow student in the class is taking the 70-642 exam (the certification that Chi’s class, NOS 1, worked towards) on Friday – no names, of course, but best of luck to them – I would have been writing that one but I wanted to attempt writing the cert at no cost to myself. I think I’ll write 70-642 and 70-685 next, hopefully during Spring Break.
Anyway. Sorry about not writing anything for a long time. I’m back now – and I’ll be back on Judgement Day (aka, Tuesday) when I hopefully get to happily report that I’m sailing into level 2!
TTYL
Seth