Feeling Unsure
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So far I have completed the CompTIA IT Fundamentals, and the Network Fundamentals courses (practice labs still pending,) I'm feeling unsure about whether or not I'm learning. The information is going in, and in general I do not feel like I'm having a hard time following along (with the exception of the sections that are heavy on acronyms.) However, I still do not feel confident or capable of applying the knowledge from these courses. The practice labs are great but I find that I'm missing some of the questions at the end of each module. I just sort of feel a bit lost and am doubting my personal aptitude. Anyone else feel this way in the beginning?
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Yup. Totally normal. Best advice I can give you is if you can, get yourself an old desktop, take it apart and put it back together. This will help you understand the basics of desktop computing and how the parts interact with each other.
Buy an old or cheap wireless router. Log into it and read up on the settings. Change them around, setup a network. Connect multiple devices and see if you can get them to talk to each other.
Lastly, find a community. Whether thats a local IT or homelab group in your local area, or just make posts on here to discuss topics! I love tech, I love IT, I like to share knowledge and lots of others here do as well.
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One thing that will help you retain the knowledge is to teach it to someone else. If you can teach it, you know it. Make flash cards as well, and have a friend or loved one quiz you (or test yourself). Take practice tests. When you are consistently nailing 80% and above on practice tests, you're ready for the real thing. You've also got a great community of students and teachers here. Utilize them. We're here to help!
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Thank you both for the encouragement! Definitely need to network with the community some more. The practice tests have been a little bit rough. Lots of things I don't remember being covered in the fundamentals courses.
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@David-Thompson As I work through the practice labs for the comptia fundamentals course. I dont really understand how the Lab correlates to the material from the videos. I feel really lost trying to configure mobile device proxy servers on outdated windows phone emulators as it wasnt covered in the video courses. It just feels like a big leap from "this is what an operating system is" to "lets get into advanced settings on a phone youve never heard of before. I'm not trying to sound like a cry baby, but I dont feel like im learning much by just following the instructions. I got through the lab because it told me exactly what to do. Then promptly failed the quiz at the end.
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@Ian-Knight-0 ,
The disconnect you're feeling is because the Lab, you're doing and the course we're developed at different times by 2 different companies that merged. They are not meant to guild you through the video course material. In this instance it is supplemental to the video course material.Don and I had 2 goals in mind for that course. One, was to teach it in the way that we would want it taught to us and Two, it is how we interpreted what the goal of the course. We thought if it like a sample of different aspects of the field of IT work. We tried to presented for the person that was a career-changer or thinking about changing careers so it wouldn't overwhelm anyone.
The Labs were developed when ITProTV and Practice-Labs were separate companies and were probably developed by a Subject Matter Expert who looked at from the perspective of how to cover the exam material.
Neither is better than the other just differnet perspectives. Labs are meant to push you out and give you the ability to explore and do before you get into a career and then explore and do.
Look at this as challenge.
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@Ian-Knight-0, I think the above post was for you. But, if you'd like a study buddy, feel free to reach out. :o)
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@David-Thompson I think you're right. That one was probably meant for me. And to be fair, the video course was super clear and I had no problem following any of that material. I really enjoyed the video courses. As far as a study buddy goes, I would absolutely LOVE that. I took the practice test for the fundamentals course twice and havent scored above 65.33% A lot of the questions seem more advanced than what was covered in the videos. How can I get in touch with you more directly?
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@Ronnie-Wong Thank you so much for the input Ronnie! I truly enjoyed the video course. I had no problem following any of that material, and I was definitely the intended target audience.
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@Ian-Knight-0 You can email me at davidlthompson@protonmail.com.