CWNA exam - DONE!

I have a couple things I'd like to write about as my first real post here but I think I'll do a quick post about my recent CWNA exam experience.

As I have been progressing in my career and as my role on my team has evolved and progressed, I wanted to have something that would help validate my knowledge wireless professional.  Now I don't believe certifications alone make you a great engineer, as I've seen many paper CCNAs, CCNPs, etc.  You know these guys, they go out maybe read the books and get a brain dump, memorize the questions and go pass the exam.  When you ask them to build something they are lost.  But if you truly know the subject matter and are good at your job, why not spend a little bit of your spare time studying for an exam?  In all actuality it really shouldn't be difficult to pass an exam on technical knowledge you use day in and day out.  Plus part of being in IT means you need to constantly be evolving your skills and knowledge as technology progresses.

Having had the experience of working on multiple different vendor's equipment, I didn't want to start down a path that focused exclusively on Cisco.  This train of thought led me to CWNP program.  For those of you reading this who don't already know, CWNP is an organization that offers vendor neutral wireless certification programs.  Given the diversity of quality wireless vendors in the market today I felt it would be advantageous to stay as focused on RF technology in general so I could apply what I learned to any set of wireless gear I may get my hands on.

During my studying I found that a lot of the the material covered was indeed stuff I had learned from on the job training.  However there was just as much that I didn't know or understand.  This is where I felt the CWNA material has really bolstered my knowledge of wireless.  There are things at the PHY and MAC layers that I know now and understand and I find helping me in everyday troubleshooting.

On exam day, I was nervous, I have to admit it.  Not nervous because I didn't understand or know the material, but more nervous like you would be before a big game.  I equate this to how I feel before a race, specifically my first marathon this past fall.  I knew I put the time and effort in to prepare for it, but when the time finally comes to test how well you prepared you can't help but mentally think about what could you have done just a little bit better.

During the test I made note of the questions that stumped me, and a lot of them had to deal with Vo-Wifi.  Along with that there were a few about surveying and security that I just had to use the process of elimination and make my best guess.  I'd love to give specific examples of the questions but by now I only remember the subject matter.  All this has done is given me another thing to read more about and focus on further, as I know they will be things I will have to deal with in the near future.

All in all, I see the CWNA as a starting point for my career.  I am a pretty young guy and and have a long career ahead of me.  You can't learn everything overnight, but I think this is a step in the right direction.  Perhaps this is just my first step to becoming a CWNE or even CCIE.

To close, I'll quote my favorite movie: If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.

Travis

first!!

nothing to say yet.  I will eventually be posting wifi related stuff here.
Play me off keyboard cat!