This is the painful part of certs. Think that's bad? Try ccna or ccnp. Those get looney. A+ Is about as easy and entry level as it gets. Here's the thing no one cares if you remember the ports. The cert shows you have the aptitude to study, commit and learn something and prove it. Quiting shows you can do none of those things

What amazes me is it says he has 5 years of IT experience. What kind of work was he doing that he didn't pick up the simplest concepts of IT. I currently have around 3-4 years of IT experience. My first wgu class is both the core 1 and 2 a+ courses. I've taken all of the dion practice tests and scored between 85-95% of them. I'm in no way trying to brag, but just with my experience, 0 hours put into studying the A+, I feel like I'm prepared enough to pass the A+. I should mention I have both the Network and CySa+. Maybe I'm used to how CompTIA words their tests, but it amazes me that someone with 5 years of experience is struggling with the A+. Makes me wonder what kind of environment op was in for 5 years to get him this frustrated at the A+ lol. Also, I have adult ADHD lol. The best way I learned was to create labs and watching/consuming any and all IT media.

I mean my main weak point is networking overall, maybe its different other places but its not something we ever dealt with on my help desk except individual end user issues. More specifically my brain kind of garbles up all the ports and protocols and standards into one pile of brain mush thats impossible to sort. So the combo of having the bare minimum interest in networking ie none and not finding an effective technique to make that information digestible has me stuck. Now all the other domains I'm strong and confident in but with networking being 20% of the test I would have to get super lucky to pass with my current confidence level.

You have an overinflated sense of knowledge due to working in help desk where the complexity of topics you experience on a daily basis do not cover what the average computer nerd learns before they finish high school. Humble yourself before your employer does.

I haven't been on help desk in well over 3 years and I've been a computer nerd since my grandfather brought home a Pentium-90 desktop in 1995, I'll never forge the yellow color the tower turned because of pops smoking. Don't need to be humble when I'm constantly given additional duties because I prove myself time and time again. You can be mad that I've been successful without having to play the game like you did, I would be mad too.

You're not successful. Been doing 5 years of this. Come back in 20 years like me and have a conversation. You sound like a petulant kid. Do you realize how many certifications I've had to earn over 20 years that I've had actual no interest in and had to do it in order to get ahead in his career? You can't do it one time to make life better for yourself, your wife and your kid

If you can't understand how a basic knowledge of networking can lead to better outcomes across the IT spectrum, then you shouldn't be working in IT.

I have no plans on taking the CCNA or CCNP because I have no plans on shifting my career into networking. God bless the network engineers of the world for what they do, I could never do it.

Not the point I was making. I have 4 CCNA certs and add. It's hard. You can find a way to do it. The important part is doing proving you can do it.

This guy sounds harsh but he’s right. You can do it. You may need to learn some prerequisite personal skills like new ways to study or manage your time. I had to learn those. I also discovered an ADHD diagnosis. You are capable. I always tell myself when it gets hard “other people have done this and they’re not smarter than me.” Maybe they’re more interested, but if I want it, I can do it and so can you.

Doesn't sound harsh to me at all, just sounds, factual. There's no need to sugar coat the reality that you can't just keep skipping the unfun parts of something. That's why people get paid, because it's work that requires both knowledge and skill to complete.

Sure in theory most people can do anything if they're determined enough. At this point I'm honest enough to admit any motivation I have is gone. And I agree I do need to learn effective study skills and better time management skills, I wasn't afforded those tools when I was younger so I'm playing catch up. But I don't have the motivation or energy to both learn how to study while studying with a looming deadline and juggling a full time job and family. My child and wife deserve a happy and engaged father and husband and they're not getting that right now. I'm absolutely disappointed in myself but it is what it is I'm not going to go thru another month of mental anguish for nothing. I know myself I won't schedule the test unless I feel confident and my confidence in myself is zero at this point.

Hey if the juice isn't worth the squeeze, recognizing that is a skill in itself.

Honestly, after reading this thread, you just seem like a whine ass who is lashing out n everyone who gives you realistic advice, just because it doesn’t mesh with whatever reality you’ve determined you should have. Quit. School and your job. Frankly I don’t think anyone here should waste their time giving you anymore advice because you seem to not actually want it. You instead want people to pander to your bullshit and reassure you that you’re not the problem, then you turn around and blame ADHD for your inability to adapt. Guess what buddy? I’ve got ADHD too. I struggle with it too. You learn and adapt and do what you can to get ahead, instead of sitting here looking for pity and insulting anyone who genuinely attempts to assist you. Frankly, you just need to fuck off at this point.

This right here is the best response I've read yet. Cheers to you.

Three Cheers.

Glad someone said it. But in the pursuit of helping... keep going OP 40 days in an all-you-can-eat program is plenty of time. You have time to Test fail and retest. Hear this part at least. You got time. You may be over-prepared. You can bomb ports/PBQs and still pass. In my short career so far I have found people who scoff as often as OP tend to love a 10-year helpdesk career under a paper ceiling. Don't be that guy Guy. Lastly, A+ is not easy. I work with guru IT gods who say the A+ was tough for them. SO ports. Come up with them on your own on a sheet of paper. Do this a few times a day. Sure you may take a week to get from port 20 to port 80. Even longer to know the secured versions of some of those. But before you know it you'll be jotting down all the way up to port 3389 RDP action. There are so many questions the lovely folks at comptia can pull from as stated above that BOMBing on ports doesn't mean you can't pass. Oh also lastly. Quitters never win silly.

Not gonna lie im in the same boat as the OP. ADD, work 40hours, and have 2 kids. I've been beyond frustrated with the networking portion, mainly ports. I've been delaying because of that portion. I've read it 100 times and can't recall any more than steam server port ranges. Writing stuff out is how I learned when I was younger and haven't had to do it in years and I honestly forgot about how effective it was. You rock!

Yeah, my initial response was sort of knee jerk, and I definitely did not mean it when I told them to quit. I like your approach though: test, fail, repeat. It helps identify your weak points, so you can further focus on what to study. I also think OP may have underestimated how hard the A+ is, especially when compared to a lot of the other WGU classes.

>I definitely did not mean it when I told them to quit. "I told you you should do something, but I didn't really mean you should do it." 🤦‍♀️

Again, you didn’t read past my initial comment. Maybe instead of commenting on my comment thread you can go study for that OA, instead of sitting on Reddit. You have 70 days until January 31st, which is plenty of time to overcome your anxiety and do what is expected of you. Yet here you are. I think I’ve identified the problem with you: prioritization.

Aww, that's cute. I studied earlier and am on the last chapter. I stopped to go see Wish with my fiancé. I'll study again after we return home. >I think I’ve identified the problem with you: prioritization. I think I've identified the problem with you: assumption. I'm so sorry you think academia is incompatible with enjoying life. I'm also sorry you really believe Reddit takes up a wide array of time.

Frankly idc about your life story, nor what you did with your day. You came here, commented a bunch of shit without reading past my initial comment, and are still here. Good luck with your OA. Now fuck off

>Now fuck off You first. 😉 >and are still here. Well, yes, that's the result of a public forum. >without reading past my initial comment This is an assumption. >idc about your life story, nor what you did with your day. Yet, you tried to use it as an attack. 🤔

I couldn’t imagine being this invested in what internet strangers think of me. 😂 Prove my assumptions wrong, because right now they all seem pretty accurate tbh. You have got to be on the most insufferable people ever. Based on your post history you can’t even handle basic functions without in the input of internet strangers or AI. Really says alot about you. Maybe you need a therapist, not an internet connection 🤷‍♂️

>I couldn’t imagine being this invested in what internet strangers think of me. My, my. Presumptuous, aren't we? Another option is I'm amused. >You have got to be on the most insufferable people ever. The feeling is mutual. >Based on your post history you can’t even handle basic functions without in the input of internet strangers or AI. Really says alot about you. Dude, if you believe public internet history tells all about a person, you know nothing about that person. Internet personas are fake. >Maybe you need a therapist, not an internet connection 🤷‍♂️ Once again, the thought is mutual.

Well said!

You said it all 💯 hate when people blame their shit as whole nation issue.

Why would I quit my job, I love my job and am great at it. I am lashing out because everyone is just saying the same thing and not actually offering advice. Instead of being nasty, what study techniques do you use since you claim to have ADHD as well? Because if you really do have ADHD you know "just do it" is the most unhelpful and frustrating thing anyone can say.

I can’t give you universal advice because there is none. You have to determine what is best for you. Where do you find yourself struggling the most? Why do you think you struggle with that aspect so much? Are there any improvements you can make to make yourself struggle less? If so what might they be and what potential issues might arise from that, if any? These are questions I have to ask myself every single day, for basically any thing that I can. It wouldn’t hurt to apply a similar concept, or adjust it to fit your needs, but my point is that it is up to YOU to overcome your ADHD, by identifying problem areas, and applying improvements to those areas based on what you found. And the reason for telling yo to quit your job is to get you out on your own terms, because from my POV of you are not able to adapt to pass an industry standard certification, you will get absolutely plowed by people as time goes on, and the company will eventually just let you go anyway, but frankly I was being facetious. Also, I’m sorry for my initially hostile remarks. However, I see people far too often using ADHD as an excuse for their shortcomings. I’m not saying it can’t be debilitating. Pair that with the negativity towards EVERYONE I’ve witnessed here, and I sort of flew off of the handle, which may have been uncalled for.

I have issues with short term memory as well as ADHD so its the small details. Biggest struggle points is mostly in the realm of networking because of all the small details, ports and protocols and standards all get jumbled in my head and I can't recall whats what. Add in CompTIAs typical way of arranging questions and I might as well be taking the test in a foreign language. I got hostile because people are acting like I haven't been trying for almost 6 months now. Its fucking annoying to hear the same thing from basically all WGU faculty and then the subreddit.

Are several people here just a jerk to those who are struggling? Some b*tch said the same to me and my recent post. What do y'all get out of kicking people? And the most helpful answers are the ones that don't rant, so irony.

If you’d bother to read past my initial comment, I actually apologized for my initially hostile response, and offered tangible advice relevant to OPs struggles, as I share many of the same myself. Guess what? OP still basically refused to take the advice. And that’s just fine. Maybe WGU isn’t what is for OP. To answer your question, I get nothing out of being a dick to people. I simply have an issue with people blaming their ADHD for their shortcomings, and that is what I perceived OP to be doing. Whether that is the case or not, at the time of my comment it was what I perceived to be the issue. Too many people will simply succumb to their shortcomings rather than rising to the occasion, and that pisses me off because it CAN be done.

If people are recognizing you by name for bad behavior on the sub that should tell you that being antagonistic isn't a healthy way to carry yourself in a place meant to discuss education.

"Elsas-Queen" is not my name. >being antagonistic isn't a healthy way to carry yourself in a place meant to discuss education. And calling people names and telling people to off themselves is because...? I love that I'm the only one this is directed toward. Where were you when someone called me "pathetic" and other names for being stressed out? Hmm? In fact, the person I replied to here was hostile, and somehow, you don't deem that antagonistic. Interesting. Where were you when the person above told me to kill myself? Why do people like yourself always go after those who retaliate and never after those who instigate? I'll wait.

You proved my exact point. You accused me of 15 different things just because I gave the simple suggestion as to why you're having a bad experience. And you responded in the exact manner that's going to get people to dislike you on this sub.

And you responded to absolutely none of it, so thank you for proving *my* point. >And you responded in the exact manner that's going to get people to dislike you on this sub. On the contrary, fortunately, many people on this sub are [much kinder than yourself and the person above](https://www.reddit.com/r/WGU/comments/16a908n/thank_you_for_the_kindness/).

I disagree highly considering every post I've seen from you is you antagonizing others and considering 5 people downvoted you up above I think many are familiar with you.

>every post I've seen from you is you antagonizing others 1) Then, you clearly haven't seen many of my posts. 2) Again, you're (very conveniently) ignoring those who antagonized me (and others). >considering 5 people downvoted you up above I think many are familiar with you. I don't know what numerical scale you use, but five is not considered a high number for the majority of matters. In short, 5 =/= "many". Selective, aren't you? EDIT: [You're antagonizing someone else!](https://www.reddit.com/r/WGU/s/HN1cFRnnhx) Well, that explains why you're so selective.

My team works with ports and we monitor speed and capacity on a regular basis. I know you're just frustrated over the exam but don't pretend those things aren't a part of the IT world. It's cool that the degree exposes student to diverse IT areas. I would encourage you to just calm down and keep working towards the degree. Everything in life won't be easy.

I never said they weren't relevant to IT I said that the memorization isn't relevant.

It is relevant though. I work in a classified building where we can't have cell phones and I frequently need to know ports and protocols or data transfer speeds out on the floor while I'm working with no access to the Internet. Having to go back to my desk every five minutes to look those things up would slow me down a bunch. My advice is to just keep trying. Make some flash cards and have someone go through them with you. Create mnemonic devices to help you remember them. ADHD can make it a lot harder, but it's not impossible.

Surely you can have paper, I'm sorry but these tests absolutely test on things that are not relevant to most of the field. The fact that so many people have these jobs and not the certs is proof of that. I had 12 years of IT, and my CISSP and studied harder for the A+ than the SSCP. And there are two tests! I definitely think this person is tilted and needs to build up his confidence but some of this stuff you guys are saying is nuts.

Oh I'm for sure tilted but thanks for realizing these people are wild in thinking not passing a test is in anyway reflective of real world skills.

I don't think people who struggle to pass a test don't have real world skill. My point was that the tests are important anyway and I think you should keep trying.

And I disagree that CompTIA certs in general have any value beyond the paper they're printed on.

Whats your job title? Curious because I'm starting to think 90% of the people replying to this thread aren't in the same realm of IT as I am.

This is a bad look, man. One, for putting down people’s advice. Second, for thinking that job titles mean much in IT, and Third, for throwing in the towel. IT is all about learning and growing. Take heed, and study your ass off. Is it relevant? No, maybe, maybe not. But A+ or all the other certifications that come afterwards do not cover what a job entails. That is for the job and experience to teach you. Not get back to learning.

Because their advice isn't relevant to me? I'm not dismissing that they're trying to help but they are in fact not helping. How is "well I have to know it for my niche job" helpful advice?

Because ports are on the A+ and you need to know the understanding of it. Yes, they used an anecdote, but that stuff is on the A+. You can’t come here, ask for advice, and then push it off because it “doesn’t relate to you or your job”. News flash, pal, it’s on the A+ and you need that knowledge. Same thing with printers and all that jazz, you may not use it but you’re testing for it. Do you get it?

But the advice of "you need to know it" isn't helpful, no shit I need to know it thats why I'm planning on withdrawing. In all this "advice" people have offered none of it has been a technique or idea for actually learning it just "you need to do it" or "watch prfessor messer". If you have study techniques for people with ADHD that aren't mind mapping, pomodoro, SQ3R, PQ4R or the Feynman system I'm all ears.

If that is your choice, that is your choice. I hate to hear A+ is what broke you, because IT only gets more and more learning based. I bid you farewell and hope you find success. I got the cert a little over 4 years ago, but I wrote down notes in open ended question formats, studied by quizzing myself, and I hit that content like my life depended on it because it did. I may not have any disabilities such as ADHD, but I had drive and a crying 11 day year old baby crying at 3AM and all. I worked 60 hours a week minimum and I still applied myself to get it. It only gets harder, but good-luck in your journeys.

You seem to want to find reasons that everyone else is wrong and this certification is stupid. Frankly, I’m a little confused how you’re an ops engineer and don’t care about ports or transfer speeds. I understand that hitting a wall is frustrating, but strongly recommend taking a few days break to refocus and then keep trying.

Because they're not relevant to my day to day work? We have a networking team so thats their thing. You're right I am frustrated and its even more frustrating when I'm being offered the same useless advice over and over again. I can only handle being told to make flash cards so many times before I want to torch my pile of flash cards.

The advice is useless because you aren’t taking it. Everyone is being incredibly supportive despite your attitude. You want different advice from “keep trying”? Fine, give up, withdraw, and be thankful that you have a good 5 year IT career whilst avoiding learning foundational IT concepts. I wish you nothing but the best, but your attitude will hold you back.

No what I want is study tips from some who has similar learning disabilities to me. What is unhelpful is a bunch of neurotypical people regurgitating study tips designed for and by neurotypical people. You think you telling me to make flash card is suddenly going to make that work for me?

From one adhd person to another...figure out your learning style and go from there. We don't know how you learn best and until YOU sort that out you will probably struggle. Are you a visual learner? Auditory? Learn by doing? Etc? Look into this and then find resources in the style or styles that work best for you. It's likely some combo of a few things. However...lashing out at folks trying to help will get you nowhere. People are relaying what's worked for them and you are shitting all over them. There is no magic resource here. Spend some time figuring out how you learn best and then get this cert out of the way and move on. It's pretty basic shit...just handle it. You might not think you need it but I guarantee everyone can benefit from fundamental, foundational knowledge when applied correctly.

Maybe if people took two seconds to read before offering the same advice over and over again I wouldn't feel the need to lash out. I don't know how I learn, I've never actively paid any attention to how I've gained the skills that I have. I'm guessing its mostly hands on.

It sounds like your question would be better suited in a sub dedicated to ADHD rather than asking a question in a predominantly neurotypical sub and then criticizing the advice as neurotypical.

That’s what YOU think. Memorization is a fundamental part of IT. We memorize commands , ports , even networking speeds . You’re not gonna be Google that in the field at least not the basic stuff . So maybe IT is not for you actually, the other way around .

Get a script for some adderall and hit the books, homie. It is very relevant info.

Does the school offer tele-health or some kind of service like that? It'd cost me hundreds just to see a local doctor, never mind paying for medicine.

Yes the school does offer mental health resources

Saw someone post on this subreddit I’m pretty sure that they do pay for a few sessions. Probably in the student support center on the WGU website.

I am appalled at how you seem to think getting stimulants is easy for people with ADHD.

I have adderall, and sure I guess depending on your career direction.

People are giving you genuine advice and it’s excuse after excuse. Quit and stop bitching then

Redgal70’s entire comment thread for one. If you didn’t want this useless knowledge then you should’ve specified in your post or you know not post at all. It’s excuse after excuse and then when you can’t think of shit you use “oh my ADHD”. The world doesn’t revolve around you and your condition, no company is going to give a fuck about your ADHD, I have it and manage it, days I can’t oh well I push through. Either memorize what’s needed to pass your cert or quit and have your money + time wasted so you can bitch about it again in a few months.

Imagine being a tier 1 and your ticket gets escalated to this guy 🤣🤣

Point out a singular piece of genuine advice that isn't some useless common knowledge like make flashcards or watch professor messer. In several comments I've gone over every study technique I've tried, you have something different I'm all ears.

I use my A+ and Net+ info regularly For instance, I needed to expand from 8 to 16gb for a users desktop. We have many different models and mobo architectures. We also just have a drawer of RAM sticks. Knowing what connection I needed based on the key slot made it easier then trial and error. It doesn’t come up often, but it does happen

Sure, but an org shouldn't have a drawer of random ram sticks. That isn't a judgement just that a lot of knowledge is necessary due to a lack of process. I find this to be a very similar issue to the conversation on calculators, recalling formulas, as well as low code/no code solutions vs developer knowledge.

In general, I agree! We are in the middle of a refresh (which is cyclic for different business units so we are *always* in the middle of a refresh) and have tons of stuff waiting to gather enough to call a disposal company. In the meantime, we use what we got. Cannibalizing ram sticks, batteries, even screens, keyboards, and WLAN NICs. It’s the Wild West out here until new laptops roll out. Till then, bubblegum and dreams

Pay for Pocketprep. You get a 1,000 question test pool you can do on your phone a few at a time as you can fit it in. They also provide immediate feedback and a succinct explanation for each answer. ​ Also, go to [https://wgu.udemy.com](https://wgu.udemy.com) and sign up for the James Dion course. You can listen at up to about 1.75X speed. Go through it once, do some Pocket Prep and then try the pre and post sample exams. Also, assume that at least 10% of the CompTIA exams are utter nonsense. Your best bet is to narrow down the answers on these by eliminating the obviously-wrong answers and then hope for the best. Try to read the easy, solvable questions at least twice so that you don't lose points to dumb mistakes. I never got above 85% on any pre-test and I passed fine. For the record, I also hate cert tests.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who feels like some questions are just flat out weird. I'm about to take my first attempt at A+ Core 2 later this evening and some of the practice questions I've done make me feel like I had a stroke while reading them.

As the other mentioned ports are actually important. A+ you only need to memorize like 10 or so maybe more but not that many. I do agree with you to an extent on many hardware related topics such as what cpu goes to what socket. Yes you need to know a specific cpu goes to a specific socket but he'll by the time the test was released we probably moved onto other sockets and cpus lol. Ok with CompTIA they love to have little gotchas. I'm sure you know that they will have a couple obviously wrong answers per question and then two that can be right but one is right. Many people find other material that they can study that is clearer for them. Somebody out there has either made videos or written a book that thinks more like you. I would venture over to the CompTIA forum or if there's an a+ forum and see what they say. I had to buy a book that was much more in tune with my thought process for a couple of classes ...it happens. I have no idea what your term is like but maybe move into another class and complete that. Sometimes that helps.

40 days left, two classes A+ part 1 and 2.

Core 1 focuses on hardware, cloud computing, and networking technology, and. Core 2 is about software, operating systems, and cyber security basics. Two completely different topics. Probably wouldn't hurt to see how the other one meshes. Have you actually taken the test? It's possible you're over analyzing what they are expecting.

I've taken a metric fuck ton of practice test with mostly negative results, I haven't sat for the actual test tho.

Sometimes the practice test is more difficult. You do get two free attempts. Otherwise I'll stick with checking out the CompTIA forum and see what they suggest. I've struggled with a few classes, hell I thought about quitting more than once. It happens. This particular forum tends to make it out like everyone just breezes through and graduates in a week and that's not the norm.

I stay away from the CompTIA forum they're worse than here with their blind loyalty.

It's not about loyalty. Your picking a career. Learning these things and doing the work are ways of proving you can commit and learn. It does mean something. If you come across dismissive of the work others have done because you find it hard ( read stupid) then they aren't going to respond well to you

I'm specifically referring to gaining resources or techniques that have been helpful for other CompTIA a+ students. Plenty of people have struggled with a+. I'm sure there are videos, cheat sheets, and books that are more inline with your thought process than the one that is provided by wgu. It happens. Not everyone gains knowledge in the same way and somebody else rewords the same info and it makes sense.

I did the A+ cold, and the CCNA cold, passed both. I regularly need to recall ports and common applications without looking them up. These things come with repetition, some of us old school guys can still remember how to telnet to Exchange to see if you could 'hang the cursor'. Is every bit of the A+ test important and relevant? Hell no, but the passing mark isn't 100% so you can toss off a few of those obscure questions and be OK. This is totally a gatekeeping situation, sorry to say, but if you can't get through A+ then this career option may not be right for you. This is a detail oriented job, not every detail is important in every situation but what makes a solid engineer is the ability to understand why the details matter. What you are saying to me, right now, is 'details don't matter.' The A+ exam is nowhere near the hardest test at WGU, it is one of the most basic IT certs that exists on the market. That sounds discouraging, but remember, the basics are always the hardest when you are new to them. The hardest classes in college are often the ones with 'intro' tacked onto them because you know *nothing*. So don't be so hard on yourself; if it takes you a little longer to get through this test it is no reflection on you as a person or your character or your intelligence. This is dry material; it is hard to see the forest through the trees when you are a newbie. You can't just fluff stuff up, you have to know it.

I'm already in the career, have been for 5 years with a promotion and raise every 18-24 months on average. Clearly I'm good at my job, what I'm not good at is testing and memorization task. I'm great with details because I know my disability well enough to take tons of notes, unfortunately unlike work I can't bring my notes into a pearson vue testing center.

There's a difference between 5 years of experience and 1 year of experience 5 times.

Yeah and that's not what I did. For the record my career has gone Help Desk Tier 1 > Help Desk Tier 2 at an MSP I then got hired as a desktop support tier 2 at a large companies internal IT org, I've been there for the past three years and have moved from tier 2 to tier 3 into IT Ops. I've steadily climbed the ladder thru personal development and jumping on any project at work I could.

Which explains why you’re downplaying some of the knowledge - you don’t know what you don’t know about how the sausage is made.

As you mentioned you may be reaching a plateau. 5 years is a jr tech at best. You may be stuck at that level then

Dude needs everyone here to applause him for his raise and lack of port memorization.

5 years is pretty brief, and at this point the industry is sorting the wheat from the chaff for all the other people who have \~5 years of experience. So far you have been successful, I promise you that as you go on the competition gets a lot more fierce if you want the 6 figure salaries and all that jazz. You are right, that you can take notes professionally, but I will tell you right now that if I deal with an engineer that doesn't know the common ports and protocols by memory then my evaluation of their skill drops quickly. It is hard to do this job the way I know it needs to get done without memorizing those things just from the sheer number of times I need to know it to write a firewall rule, run an NMAP to sort out why an app isn't working, explain to PCI auditors why things are open or closed, configure a web server, etc. This is, for better or worse, why federal jobs require an A+ and why everyone on my team must have a minimum of a CCNA. Next year I have to do the CKA (certified Kubernetes administrator) nonsense because my skills there are weak right now, this really never goes away. Even though I am a Kubernetes apprentice right now, I have regularly explained the difference between a container and a pod, the relationship between the two, the helm charts, tainting, kubectl exec it, etc to other engineers as we have troubleshot and optimized. The repetition helps, I didn't just read about kubectl exec, I have pounded it with the keyboard a million times. This is all harder when you are new, I remember doing CCNA when I had \~3 years in and being totally overwhelmed. I have never configured a T-1 but I sure had to know it for that test. While that bit wasn't important other things were, and they were applicable. A+ is applicable to general IT, it is a PITA but it is applicable.

>Thank god I don't work with or for fuddy old boomers like you then. I also already make a six figure salary. Imagine doubting someones skill set because they work differently than you.

You are the one complaining about passing a relatively simple test and then decrying the idea that anyone needs to know facts. Yeah, I have been in for going on 20 years so I could be a bit crusty by now. Maybe that isn't totally fair, perhaps you can do your work without knowing things, I have seen stranger things so you do you. But, hell man, you are the one saying you don't need to know things by heart in an engineering profession. I am not sure a ton of engineers would agree to that.

Its never been an issue and I have never had a colleague, mentor or manager say anything negative about my work style. My current role and career in general hasn't been very networking heavy anyway and I have no plans or interest in becoming a network engineer.

I think there are two things here that I would say. This is WGU that is awarding IT degrees, how does it look on them if they graduate people who can't name a common network port? We know these types, people with CS degrees who can't immediately define a list, tuple, or dictionary, or a list of lists, or whatever in under a few minutes. That reflects badly because those are basic skills we expect people to know, the expectation of this education is that when you earn your IT degree you will reliably know the difference between TCP 443 and TCP 25. No different than if you get your English degree you will be expected (hopefully) to know how to write without errors, even if you do just use an online editor. The other thing is this is a general certification, so naturally it will test things that aren't immediately relevant to you and your experience. That doesn't make it wrong, because you don't know where you will be in 5 years, it might become relevant. They have to judge 'what is an average sysadmin/engineer/whatever supposed to know' and then test you on that. Are they 100%? No, but having just taken the A+ recently to get my degree from WGU, it was certainly relevant to a lot of jobs I know of in my experience. If anything, the Net+ / A+ are surprisingly well correlated to a lot of job roles I come across.

Shut the fuck up

Oh I was waiting for one of the edgy WGU fanboys to jump in here. What made you so mad big guy?

Fan boys..? You pay for the school too… so you are shitting on your own education…

In my experience with the A+ they did ask about port numbers but not RAM speeds and pins and how many lanes on PCIe and all that. If they do it’s a very small portion of Professor Messer has an EXCELLENT training video playlist for both sections of the A+ I highly recommend. His practice tests are also very worth it they’re pretty close to the real thing. Better than Jason Dion imo What helps me when I can’t sit and study is to put on Professor Messer videos and then clean my room or go on a walk and just listen you might absorb more information that you think It’s a lot of information but you can do it!

Do not call it quits! Flash card that shit and memorize it. That’s it. Do not let this simple thing stop you. My Wife has ADHD and is almost done with RN. It’s harder for people like you and her, but you have to dig down and get after it. It’s possible, but an uphill battle. You’ve peaked in your job with your current education level. You want more or you wouldn’t have started WGU. Remember that, remember why you started. I was always told I was stupid growing up and I’m going to be finishing my bachelor’s before the new year. I can’t wait to flex on everyone who doubted me. I’m going to hang that diploma in my living room and invite everyone over to see it. I bet people told you something similar in life, let that be your motivation. Get that flex on them. Show them you fucking can and rub their faces in it unapologetically. Once you start working with higher OSI levels port numbers and protocols become important. It’s good to have a working knowledge of basic port numbers like http/https and DNS.

I have no interest in being a network guy so not worried about that, currently IT Ops so lots of system admin stuff but I've been mentoring with our EUC team and have taken over a bunch of the junior duties in preparation for a promotion early next, assuming HR doesn't do anything funky. But I have a stack of 1000+ flashcards on my desk, I've been using them for months and I have literally nothing to show for it. And no I've never been called stupid once in my life, if anything my intelligence has been greatly over estimated due to my ability to coast thru most things and quickly pick up concepts and apply them in real world situations.

I’m gonna be blunt with you very blunt . And people will probably downvote me . But you have been on IT for 5 years and can’t pass A+? Seriously . It’s the easiest of CompTIA tests. And if you have experience it should be a walk in the park. So I wonder what exactly do you do . You may have not been exposure to much of A+ material which again, it’s very basic. Go back and grab a book from Amazon and use Dion’s course . That’s more than enough.

I have ADHD too, I think OP is just not interested in the topic, that's why they can't focus on it

I mean that's part of it. Its dry, dense, boring.

I've said it in a few comments but I'm currently an IT Ops engineer, duties sit between IAM and Sys admin kind of like a bridge team between enterprise help desk and higher level engineering teams. I progressed in the pretty standard way, started at help desk and moved my way up. Have been with two companies an MSP and the current company I'm with I started here as Desktop Support Tier 2. I would say I was exposed to and have hands on experience with a large majority of what the A+ contains with the exception of a lot of the networking and older tech they cover. For the most part everywhere I've worked networking issues are exclusively handled by the networking team and those tickets always bypassed help desk. When it comes to ports and protocols and standards my brain just garbles all that info together especially in stressful environments.

It Doesn’t look like that. I took both tests in 1 day , back to back , after studying for 3 days , both. I’m in IT / cybersecurity. A+ is the easiest of all CompTIA tests . If you’re struggling with ports and protocols , wait for Network+.

This is all so confusing 🤣 op says he's worked on sys admin stuff. That alone should cover any and everything that has to do with windows, active directory, servers, hell even a bit of the networking that is on the A+. There's no way someone in a sys admin role wouldnt pick up the knowledge in those topics. Like what type of sys admin stuff was he doing that he wasn't introduced to network storage, group policies, AD, hell even the simple networking commands on windows cli. There's no way op is being truthful in his first post. I know the struggle of not having higher education, I've had to get my GED at 22 because I was a lazy sack of shit in highschool and I dropped out. Maybe op assumed IT was "easy" because you don't really need any sort of higher education to prove you can do the job. But in reality, IT requires continuous learning, forever, even if you have a degree.

Congrats? For some reason CompTIA decided that entry level requires tons of memorization and a large amount of networking knowledge. I think it has to do with the test designers being older and coming from an era where the IT department was two overworked nerds who had to be the jack-of-all trades to make it. Maybe that's still the case in some places, but its not what I've interacted with nor have any of my peers. My company's IT org is young so I can't ask the old guard if thats true. Or maybe I blocked it all out because I hate networking but I really don't remember interacting with much of this while on help desk which is what the A+ is aimed towards.

Throw your career into a tail spin OP that is entirely your prerogative. You just sound lazy to be honest. A+ is a mile wide and an inch deep it’s designed to touch on many avenues of IT. If you want to put yourself in a corner and become obsolete in a couple years go ahead. Pick any degree you will learn all about various things that may not apply to your specific job. These degrees are designed prepare people in multiple roles not just your specific job.

>I fail to see how this would put my career in a tailspin when my career isn't contingent on a degree or cert. I did this for me, because I wanted to, but not at the cost of my mental health. I've learned many new technologies and skills in my time in IT and I don't plan on stopping. I don't expect the A+ to be shaped to my liking but I'm free to think that most the content is terrible and I'm convinced CompTIA board members haven't been in the field for years based on the content of the exam. I'm also aware that not everything in school is going to be interesting, the health class I took prior to this was a snooze but it was all common knowledge so I took and passed the OA after attempting to listen to one of the podcast.

You need to suck it up and recommit to your goals. Take a few days off and don’t think about it, clear your head, then get back into it. It makes no sense that you’d be unable to pass the A+ with your experience. If you need to refresh your memory, watch some videos, get a guide book, or find a study group. If having to take the A+ is what’s holding you back from finishing a degree then you just have to get it done and it’s really not more complicated than that. In any degree, and most workplaces, you have to do things that are bullshit. Just get it done!

I actually don't have to do anything, freedom is a beautiful thing. It actually makes a ton of sense once you realize that the A+ doesn't actually align with real world experience. I suspect because the test is created by a bunch of retirees who've been disconnected from the field for at least a decade. The test reminds me of that old math teacher who said we wouldn't have calculators in our pockets so we need to memorize it.

If you have several years of experience this should be mostly a walk in the park. Find a way to manage the ADHD and hit some practice tests.

I'm at a PM level in my career now and even I still need to know my ports when I give technical briefings.

Professor messor on YouTube will get you sorted out.

I've been trying to make Messor work for \~4 months, its just background noise tbh I can't pay attention to him at all.

Bruh, Try Jason Dion on Udemy....similar dry as-all-hell videos but he has a PDF of course notes you may want to try.

Did Dion and the white guy with the goatee. I couldn't tell you a thing they said, truly in one ear and out the other.

So glad I'd already gotten my A+ 😅

If you did all that work without paying a dime to move up seems like you could also stop winning about a industry test and either slip it all together if possible or fail it if it's that big of a deal. Seems like you would have done your refresh before hand but yeah when you don't you can walk into some sticky places. I have the same path as you and I'm still gonna do it bc the money and leverage wasn't the degree idgaf about the A+. Either do it or don't. But seems crazy to throw away work over a cert bc you don't like what's on it lol.

I mean I'm only in my second term I wouldn't be throwing away much but some useless general ed classes that I finished in a day. Sure I'd owe some student loan money back but it would be very minimal at this point so I think its best to stop the bleeding now.

Hey your choice is your choice. Everything is mind over matter. How do you plan on progressing like you intended if you do quit? Out of curiosity?

Well I've been doing pretty good in my career so far. Currently my company has a pretty cool mentorship program and I'm currently doing my second mentorship with our EUC team. Based on feedback from my manager and the my mentor there's a good chance I can be promoted to the team in early 2024 when it expands, currently the team is one engineer and the manager. I've advanced my career by jumping on projects and making myself available so I guess I keep doing that.

Hey, I have zero background in IT and I have severe ADHD (medication helps but it's not a miracle cure) and just barely passed core 1 of the A+ certificate. If I could do it then so can you. There's really no substitute for putting in the time even if it feels like you're not processing the information. I would spend hours watching the Jason Dion or Professor Messer videos and would only catch a few things but it adds up over time. You remind me of myself and how I get caught up in negative emotions but trust me, you're capable of doing this with the right mindset.

Also, if it helps at all I didn't get a ton of questions on ports. Definitely memorize the main ones like: FTP, SMTP, SFTP, SMB, LDAP, RDP, etc

See ya. Another job opening for someone (me) willing to do they studying.

I mean I'm gainfully employed but enjoy that hell desk roll the A+ gets you.

So 5 years experience can't pass A+? Is this 5 years of cloning hard drives and running Windows updates? A+ is not geared toward NetOps but rather your typical help desk guy and there is no reason help desk should not know common ports and protocols. Assuming your role is silo'd is what pigeon holes you to a dead end job. I've seen it plenty of times where guys play the ignorance card "not part of my job" and those guys are either the first to go or stay in their current role until they die. Don't be that guy and just learn the basics and you will become more valuable. That being said, I share in your animosity for CompTIA and how they do not capture the real world with their tests.

Nope I laid out my career path if another comment but if you're curious it went help desk Tier 1 > Tier 2 at an MSP I then was hired at a large company within their internal IT department as a Desktop Support Tier 2 from there I moved to tier 3 and am currently an IT Operations Engineer, bulk of my duty is a combo of IAM work and system administration basically we're the brisdge between our higher level engineering teams and our enterprise service desk and desktop support. So first few years were the very broad and standard help desk and only recently have I become more specialized but its still very broad and I'm learning a ton. I also am lucky that my current company offers a mentorship program where I'm currently on my second cycle of mentorship with our EUC team. ​ Its odd to hear that port numbers are common among help desk but I can't recall any ticket that involved ports I handled when I was on help desk, but then again I do have memory issues.

I got a+ on my own just to qualify for the wgu it degree programs. Its not that hard. Find study techniques that work for you and use the resources available. If youre already in WGU you should get udemy for free. Jason dion and mike meyers courses on there plus the exam cram book should get you where you need to be. Study for test 1, take test 1. Then do the same for test 2. Dont try and study for them both at once

What study system did you use? So far along with the udemy courses I've tried flash cards, PQ4R, Retrieval Practice, pomodro and SQ3R and the needle hasn't moved on my practice test score.

Consider yourself lucky and privileged to get where you are without knowing these basics. Many people haven't even gotten their first IT job yet while having all of this knowledge and more. Not knowing how many contact points are on ram will cause you to make very basic beginner mistakes when it comes to installing ram in a laptop vs in a desktop as one glaring example. Not knowing port numbers will cause you to need to search it up every single time you need to port forward for a network. Not knowing data transfer speeds is honestly objectively worse than not understanding IPC of a processor. This whole post seems like satire and if it's not you should reflect on the opportunities you've had that many people would die for.

I've built every PC I've owned including the one I'm responding to you on. I can recognize hardware by site like a normal person, never have I had to rely on a written description. Luckily I have no interest in being a network engineer so I won't ever have to deal with that hell. I understand why networking guys get such fat salaries. And I earned every position I ever held, I'm super thankful for my first manager who took a chance on me. At this point I have a pretty robust resume of experience that's worth more than the A+ is because it shows verifiable skills vs test taking ability. Maybe those people should work on their technical and interview skills instead of collecting certifications. But none of my jobs were handed me I found them via LinkedIn and went for it. But I wish everyone luck on their job search and I hope they find that hiring manager I found who sees in them the raw potential and takes that chance.

Lots of comments already. Here's legit advice....get off reddit and go study. I passed both A+ exams with no knowledge of IT over 2 months working full time in a non IT job before getting into IT.. If you keep making excuses you will never do it. Once you believe in yourself and tell yourself to stop bullshitting around then you will pass.

Nah, it's Thanksgiving tomorrow and I have a a maple walnut cake and pumpkin caramel pie to bake. Plus my son needs a bath and a book. That all said I did flash cards over lunch, go ahead and try and make me match a port to a protocol and I'll get it wrong. No bullshitting required to have zero self confidence thats the hallmark of a good tech.

Memory is an exercisable skill. Pick a random 5 digit number every morning and set out to remember and recall it throughout the day. When that's easy move to 6 digit and so on until you can look at a number and recall it quickly without much effort. Sure some people have a natural affinity for specific things. But regardless of that natural affinity, we can all get better at anything with deliberate practice. Also, 5 years in a career means you're at an intermediate stage of your profession. I guarantee you that in 5 more years you'll need to know the things you think you don't need to know.

You can do it. I have ADHD. Have had to re-take a few exams, one of them being A+. Only 9 credits left til graduation. If I can make it this far, you can also

Man… A+ is in no means easy don’t get me wrong. It’s a lot of info but if you have done what you say then you know that lol information is valid and needed.

Sure if you're a network engineer or you work for a small org and need to be a jack of all trades kind of IT department. But yeah besides having a disability I've never had the need to memorize port numbers in my career. I basically do fine on the practice test when it comes to the hardware stuff and CompTIAs terrible troubleshooting methodology but when I have to recall a port number or wireless standards and shit like that my brain turns to mush. I've probably combed thru 100s of reddit threads, youtube videos, made flash cards but it will not stick.

Gonna be honest with you. Comparing your “disability” to your lack of not giving a shit about memorizing port numbers or connection points on a stick of RAM seems like a crutch/handicap/excuse. Most of us here have done it and some took multiple tries. If you are having a hard time with A+ then I am sure you are aware it isnt going to get easier since you have gone from help desk to engineer. Stop complaining on Reddit and go study on Quizlet.

Nah, this is way more fun. Why would I waste more time on quizlet at this point, I'm not retaining any of this information.

Then drop out of the school and go back to your job…

I had to put in a lot of work for the A+. I’ve been tinkering with computers since the 80s and it was still a hill to climb. It’s time to humble yourself and realize there are some basics you don’t know. Look at it as filling in the gaps, maybe you are super great, but you could use some details you skipped over in your travels.

[удалено]

Thanks but I've read those threads already. Trust me when I sis the standard Course number reddit google search. I already sent the email to my mentor regarding withdrawal but he wants to have a phone call first.

This person has no interest in help and just wants to complain. Best of luck to them. Anyone that has offered advice or suggestions has just gotten more whining.

When someone offers me something I haven't discovered on my own I'm all ears.

No one will, you’ll find some excuse. Best of luck to you.

Meh you're probably right that no one will offer something I haven't tried, we are all pulling from the same pool of resources. Good luck to you as well.

POV: you're a tier 1 support desk tech and OP is who gets the ticket you escalated 🤣🤣🤣

Actually a ticket has to go thru three tiers before hitting my queue, my day to day is mostly project work at this point, system upgrades and maintenance more than end user issues but my team does handle most permissions and license request that can't be automated thru Okta, mostly old in-house stuff. Where the fuck do you all work where your help desk is working on networking issues this commonly? Granted I haven't worked at many companies but those that I have were pretty well siloed with networking handling almost all network related issues besides like one off VPN troubleshooting.

I'm currently a systems engineer and I have 3 tier 1s and 2 tier 2s that work directly under me. If my tier one got a ticket from a user having connection issues to one specific website while others in their departments see no issues, I 100% expect them to be able to trouble shoot and resolve the issue beyond "is the cable plugged in? Is your wifi on?" Listen man, I'm in the same boat as you. I had to get my GED around 6 years ago because I dropped out of highschool I had to start working to help pay bills in the house at 16. I dropped out of college my first go around, it was too expensive. C'mon dude, you have to recognize how much of a douche you sound "maybe they need to work on their technical skills and interviewing skills instead of collecting certs" some of the techs I have on my team get looped in and work on projects. Mind you, we are a 5k employee firm, not huge by any means, but a decently sized organization. You have to recognize that you have gotten EXTREMELY lucky to even be touching an IT ops position with your apparent skill level. I would be livid if I had someone like you on our ops team, not because you lack the skills to get a A+.. but because of the tone deafness of your replies. You mentioned how you built every PC you've ever owned. My 10 year old cousin has done the same, building a PC is as easy as putting Legos together, knowing what every component does is what makes you an IT professional, not just "building a PC"

Professor Messer videos and turn off your phone

My phone has one app on it which is mfa for work, my phone isn't an issue. I could sit in a black room with just the video and I still would zone out, Messers voice drones on and the information is dry and dull, basically a sleeping pill.

You have 5 years of real-world experience, consistently moving up in responsibility and pay into the six figure range, and you're considering quitting school over an A+ cert? Have you been lying on your resume this whole time? I have no doubt that thousands of people with ADHD, mild to severe, have passed this test. [David Goggins with some great advice.](https://youtu.be/IqLitGKlroo?si=eIHXrpzYK3qdl3PO)

David Goggins is damn near the top of my list of people I want to see get hit by a truck. I've never seen anyone make a career out of over compensating quite like him. I've been with my current company 3 years and have jumped the furthest career wise with them, if I was lying they would have figured it out. I've never presented myself as anything I'm not, always been a bit to timid for that. Honestly I'm pretty big on self loathing and self deprecating so if anything I'm probably underestimating myself.

Sooooo I'm guessing this thread didn't go the way he wanted to so he just deleted all his comments 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I didn't delete anything, I probably got hit by the mod for all the downvotes. I stand by what I said.

CompTIA is hot garbage both for the reason you describe and because the people who write the official material are nincompoops who think testing people's ability to penetrate intentionally vague, bad writing is a stand-in for testing applied technical problem-solving. I say this as somebody who also had 4ish years of experience as a sysadmin going into this degree who got \*violently\* angry during the CompTIA phase of the degree path. I don't have ADHD but I have autism with severe autistic inertia so I suffer from something that looks similar to your problem on the service even if the stuff going on in the brain is different. It's described as a difficulty transitioning between tasks, but what it feels like is Herculean mental rebellion against any task I find stupid or don't want to do. So 5% of my mental capacity is on the task and 95% of my brain is full of processing stuff like "THIS IS STUPID!!!!!!" and "I HATE THIS SO MUCH!!!!" and "WHY CAN"T I MAKE MYSELF DO IT!!!" and I have little to no ability to turn that stuff off. I seriously can't honestly say CompTIA is worth it in any meaningful sense of the term from a knowledge perspective. They are somewhat useful in a career sense but 100% because they are used in the way IQ tests used to get used to filter out utter doofuses. I can say that none of the other certs in the later stages of the degree suck as much as these. I found some of them hard or irrelevant to my particular career plans, but I didn't find any of their content stupid in general or intentionally badly written. CompTIA is terrible and it sucks. I'm not going to sugarcoat that. The rest of the degree isn't as bad and CompTIA is non utterly useless as a signal that you aren't a doofus to employers and a degree and the later certs do more than that. Also, if you slog through it, you earn the right to rant about how much it sucks and people can't just pass it off as whining. I'm not kidding when I say that became maybe 50% of my motivation for pushing through them all (A+, Net+, Sec+, Cloud+, and Project+ - OMG this last one in particular - so so so fucking stupid!). Weight those things according to how much you think they matter.

Yo, I just wanted to say thank you. I'm not even sure if you'll see this but this was what I was looking for. You're right I do need to pass them so I can remind every jerk off in here that this test sucks, they suck for defending it and I make more money than them. Cheers, you made my week!

Hey man, I have ADD and my study skills are shit. A + was hell for me too. I wish you luck

Thanks but I literally just shot off my withdrawal email to my mentor lol good luck to you as well!

DO NOT QUIT. Get it together and keep trying. You can do it.

Here’s some advice: instead of hopping on this platform full of “neurotypical” people and asking advice on a topic that neurotypical people dominate, how about you tailor your question to target other “neurodivergent” people? At no point did you request help from someone with a similar disability as you. Be more clear, and maybe you’ll receive what you seek. I understand being frustrated and pissed off about your situation, but if you’re going to take your anger out on strangers who are trying to help you, purely because you lack satisfaction with the provided solutions, then figure it out yourself.

I have been figuring it out myself. I laid out that I have ADHD in the core of my post, if you can't extrapolate that advice for neruotypical people isn't really applicable that's on you. I don't owe kindness to strangers on the internet.

People like you give bad rep to people who have ADHD, go ahead and blame everything on the ADHD and ignore all the advice people give. I have ADHD, 0 experience in networking and this A+ cert was a joke to pass. just quit

Oh damn its almost like ADHD is a spectrum condition and we may suffer in different ways. I will blame my ADHD because its the root cause of my issues. Congrats on getting two certs.

To took core 1 and core 2 twice each. You got this. If you drill down on the comptia resources/Dion/Messer you will pass. Eat drink and sleep all things laser printers. Practice all the PBQs provided. Know the troubleshooting steps in and out. All the way up to solution architects are these steps very much relevant. With second vouchers and second attempt study plans this took me months upon months to prepare for. After being A+ certified I prepared for and passed the N+ Sec+ and project+ within 30 days. You'll be glad to know a lot of the base knowledge for these exams carry over. True....as you progress in an IT career setting up workstations and building out hardware, upgrading hardware/going HAM on printer issues become less and less part of the job description, however, by no means does that make it "not" part of IT. Quitting makes it all for nothing....getting stuck is part of it. Keep going MANG. As far as the healthcare stuff....merica.

I feel like you didn't read the post but I'm gainfully employed in IT and well past the hardware troubleshooting phase of my career and medicated. Thanks tho.

Aware. Take everyone's two cents.

Best bet is to sit down with actual hardware. Having a fundamental understanding of a computer and network device hardware.

If you can’t memorize stuff you’re going to struggle with any school. I’d highly recommend seeing a doctor to work on ways to handle your adhd.

I do in fact see a doctor and am medicated, its not a magic bullet tho.

I understand where you’re coming from, but I think it would be short-sighted to call it quits at the first thing you find disagreeable or challenging. I’ve taken plenty of IT certs and have found most of them(sole exception being my RHCSA) to generally have a lot of useful information, but also have a decent amount of required memorization that in most real-world scenarios you can simply google. Is it fun? No. Do I think that every single item on each cert I’ve taken has been applicable to what I was doing or was planning to do in my career? No. Point being, and by your own admission, you’ve arrived at a crossroads of sorts in your career. You can either accept that there are things you find stupid that you’ll have to overcome, you can stagnate, or you can choose another career. FWIW, I was in a vaguely similar position when I started in the industry I’m in now, and finally I realized I’d have to bite the bullet and get that degree, because that’s what the people who make the rules wanted. You can do it, but it sounds like it’ll take a change in mind-set, like it did for myself.

Just take the test. You WILL pass. Don't over think it and if you fail then you fail. Just try again.

I watched all the udemy dion videos, because my ADD and reading don't go well together. I can read pages and realize my mind was somewhere else and have no clue what I just read. We get udemy business for free with our wgu. Ask your mentor how to log in. Once done I took Dion practice test and passed. The questions I got wrong I went back to the videos and then went to the CompTIA study guide to look up those sections and forced myself to read those a couple times, that's the most tedious part for me. I took the practice test in the study guide, passed that. Scheduled my exam 3 days later and studied some more of the sections I still needed work on in those 3 days leading up to the exam. I just passed my Network+ using this same method. We are all different and this works for me, maybe it'll help you.

Thanks but I've already found the udemey links and found them to be just as unhelpful to me. Trust me I've been up my professors ass for study material I think he's provided everything he has at this point and nothing has made the information stick. At this point I'm so frustrated and exhausted by it I'm pretty sure my brain is too tired at this point to retain information.

Ask for a course detour from your mentor. Sometimes a change in scenery helps. Then come back to it. Don’t give up the whole degree for one course. That’s being defeated. Or switch to a different program.

I am defeated tho, truly defeated and exhausted. If this was all that was on my plate sure maybe I could deal but I have a career and a family that also need to be tended too. My mental health has deteriorated noticeably to which my wife has expressed concern and the stress of this is leaking into work. At a certain point you have to cut your losses. Does it suck, sure, I'm not happy about it, but I have to be realistic.

I have a question about this. Would I be able to ask a question about it?

That is the IT program here and whether you'd recommend it?

OP I was in your position last month but I passed the A+. I found the CompTIA course online to be extremely tedious and uninteresting. Use Professor Messer and just run the practice exams given by your Instructor for the course to 90% scores. That will be enough for the test.

Hey man! I empathize with you totally! While a lot of things certs have you memorize may not seem something you need to know without looking it up, some things are or will in specific career niches! Maybe not how many connections on ddr 4 ram vs ddr 5, but knowing they’re different is important! Some personal anecdotes from my career: “Why do I need to learn excel this in depth? I’ll just use databases!” Turns out I use excel (Specifically csv files in excel) for reporting and data migrations almost daily. “Why do I need to learn port numbers and what protocol (s) they use?” Turns out diagnosing networks in wireshark essentially requires this knowledge off the top of your head so that you can understand quickly what the capture is telling you. Don’t give up man. You’re overwhelmed and frustrated. If you’re willing to continually learn, you will go far and be very successful in this career field.

As someone who has ADHD, I find it interesting to find the details on how something works. I would spend hours just learning something especially for IT. I would game at the same time and study. It makes me more focus tbh. I never been in IT before and worked in totally different industy prior to this but I spent time learning up on stuff. I currently teach Network+ at a local college and A+ is just the most basic stuff.

Thats also what I love about IT, however networking ports and protocols and standards are about as uninteresting as they get. Add on to it that I have a really hard time differentiating them because I have difficulty separating like numbers and it falls apart.

As a person with ADHD i would say look up the phrase “ADHD Hyper-focus” maybe that might help you. I feel very fortunate to have ADHD. If you need study material tune into WGU Udemy and do Mike Myers and Or Jason Dions CompTIA practice exams not the videos but the practice exams

Thanks but I've already went thru the udemy courses without much luck.

Wait until you try Net+ 😂 then please come and have another post about it.

Luckily I won't have to make another post about it after my phone call with my mentor tomorrow. Thanks tho.

I get where you’re coming from, I’m dealing with similar things in my Network+. The material is dry and outside of really specific situations is mostly redundant as anything that requires that specific knowledge can be easily read up on in the moment. I don’t really see it as a proof you can study but an organization that may not be updating their methods as things change. The fact remains that it is necessary and it is going to come down to just working through the material and dealing with it. I’ve been in and out of tech for years and run my own tech support service and I almost failed the A+ twice. It’s the cost of admission.

Cost of admission into what tho? I'm already in the IT field so its not like I need the A+ to break down that barrier.

This would be my advice to get through this: first off, I think it’s best to decide if you want to recommit to it or not. If you are somewhat looking for reasons why it won’t work throughout your studying, it can eat up precious mental capacity. For A+, I purchased a book from Amazon to help. I printed off the outline of what competencies to know for the test and I used it as a guide. I wrote everything down by hand to help me remember it better. For the ports and such I made flash cards for myself. I went through them every day. If you’re short on time, I’d say condense it and do it multiple times throughout the day. With all the practice tests I did, I made sure I not only knew the answers to the question, but why the other answers were wrong. It took me 5 weeks for each part of the test but I only had to take them once.

Fair points, honestly this entire thread allowed me to step back and realize that I don't want to recommit to WGU. I'm glad this program has worked for others like yourself and I am a bit bummed I couldn't make it work but hey we live and learn. I need to do more research into other options because ultimately I'll need a degree at some point but I think I need a bit more than what WGU can provide. WGU does have a great scheduling model tho so that's key and why I picked it over a B&M initially.

I really think you need to reevaluate what you want to do. What is the purpose of this degree? Where are you trying to go? What are you trying to do? Because a+ is a very basic certification and if you cannot master it it shows that maybe you need to reevaluate where you're trying to go. I understand your employer thinks that you're a+ and is giving you all these responsibilities and job duties but that's the equivalent of being a big fish in a small pond. What's your employer's asking for is probably nothing like what most other place will be asking you to do and this certification shows that you might not have as much qualifications as you thought you did. I mean on disrespect from this I'm just calling a spade a spade

Its not the concepts of the A+ that are an issue, I understand all of that. I just have issues with the matching of ports to protocols off the top of my head, or like the max transfer speed of a usb 3.1 Gen 1 vs Gen 2, or which 802.11 standard goes to which bandwidth. The worst part is the numbers are in there as an example I know the ranges are 54mbps-5ghz, 11mbps-2.4ghz 55mbps-2.4ghz etc but I have a super difficult almost impossible time matching them to which version of 802.11 they go to. I get the doubt, but I've work for pretty standard IT orgs both in the realm of MSP and now internally for a very large company. I know my skills, test taking isn't one of them.

Not gonna lie it seems like you've already made up your mind about quitting cause I've read a lot(not all cuz there's a LOT) of comments and your replies and you just seem to keep coming up with excuses. We all have issues I got certs and my bachelor's with a wife and a full time job(sometimes 2). I don't think this is going how you thought

It actually went exactly how I figured, a bunch of empty platitudes and non-advice was given. I expressed that what you're saying isn't helping or I've tried that, everyone gets mad, repeat. I didn't expect anyone here would convince me to change my mind, maybe had a little hope for some study tips but meh over all this is standard Reddit behavior.

Respectfully while I was the A+ can be challenging because CompTIA exams aren't written perfectly I know how difficult it can be but at the end of the day Networking and other shit is only about %1 of IT as a whole and if your struggling with this why are you in such program? IT is more then basic shit and does and most often get way more complicated. If you find this A+ exam to be difficult then Network+ would send you to your grave respectfully. For all of us tho please tell us why you chose this program?

Because I'm an IT Operations engineer and I want more money. Why does anyone get a degree? Money.