2021 was an interesting year to say the least. I had some big plans for career progression and a handful of certifications to knock out along the way. I wanted to get both CCNP-W exams done (ENWLSD and ENWLSI), start playing around with Python, and get the DevNet associate taken care of to launch into network automation. The CWAP was a moon shot target for the end of the year/early 2022. After that I would look to make a career move into WiFi full-time. As they say, reality gets in the way sometimes and only one of those goals was crossed off the list. It is important to remember that it’s OK to “fail” at these sorts of things which is a big reason I mostly “write goals down in pencil”. At the end of the day they are just goals, don’t beat yourself up too much if you don’t hit them all. Projects ramped up at work, some disappointments left me disillusioned with an exam, and personal stuff slowed me down quite a bit. That didn’t mean the year was a waste or that I didn’t see any progression.

A busy year at work

The first year of COVID saw a ton of projects put on hold due to the potential risk to infrastructure stability during a pandemic. Once we had a better understanding of what we were facing as a country and a hospital system, the floodgates were opened up. We had a big backlog to get through plus everything planned for ’21. Some of these ended up being quite the mental drain and I just didn’t have the drive or capacity to open up a book at the end of the day. It seemed like one thing after another was last minute or on a very short timeline to begin with. One of my largest projects was bringing a new tower online at one of our hospitals. We dropped in nine 9410s, a pair of 5520s, and an additional 150 APs to support ~100 new patient beds. With all of the supply chain struggles and COVID restrictions it dragged on. This project ended up being a lot of fun and a huge pain all at once. It definitely felt good to get it done and it is probably the one thing I’m most proud of so far in my career. Less so for the complexity and more so for the community impact.

Frustrations with certifications

On the certification front I had some fairly ambitious goals. I was coming off of my CWDP in late December 2020 and was able to roll that momentum straight into the ENWLSD. I passed with flying colors in March. That exam was really straightforward and accessible after the CWDP. Honestly, it may have been TOO easy for a CCNP level exam. If you’re thinking about targeting it, maybe go get it out of the way before Cisco figures that out and makes revisions. I kept pushing to finish my CCNP-W track with ENWLSI and absolutely bombed it in August. This was very demoralizing after spending hours upon hours studying. Without getting into too many of the details (NDA and all that) the OCG (and frankly some of the blueprint) really didn’t line up well with the actual exam.

I vented on Twitter and /r/networking and found that I was in pretty good company. Most people found the exam to be troubling from an expectations perspective. The OCG was woefully inadequate making things much worse. I had been passing my Cisco Press practice exams in the 80% to 90% range setting me up for a false sense of security. I got frustrated early in the exam and things unraveled from there. My score report is below, needless to say, it was rough. I ended up walking away from that one unsure if I would ever sit for another Cisco exam because of how frustrated I was.

Taking a break

I put the ENWLSI book on the shelf and haven’t looked at it since. I did not even crack open the DevNet Associate book and I didn’t write a single line of Python in 2021. Things were pretty crazy around here with an insanely busy year at work, both kids in school, extracurricular activities for them, my wife ramping up from part-time to full-time work, and just the mental drag that has been the last two years of living in a pandemic. I let myself relax for a while which was a great decision. It was a very good season for me personally. It really is important to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Grinding all of the time is hard. I’ve spent the last decade chasing certifications, promotions, and that next raise because I started this career later in life. I had to play catchup. I honestly don’t think I’ve taken much of a break from pushing for the next thing since I started in 2012. The rest was long overdue and I plan on working that in more over the next few years.

A new gig

There was one pretty unexpected win that came in November. Through some discussions and a possible opportunity outside of my org, I ended up landing on the wireless team here at my current employer. I had been having conversations with leadership about this for the last six months and we were trying to put together a road map to get there. Staffing in a very large organization is complex and slow but a window opened up and I was able to get placed on the team. I officially start with them in the new year and I’m really looking forward to expanding my wireless experience.

Looking forward

Even with the job change, I’m not going to stop pursuing progression. After taking all of that time away from certifications, I am feeling much better about jumping back in. A common piece of advice among those who eventually did pass the ENWLSI was “Pick up the CCIE-W v3 book”. I purchased that and started on some Anki cards this fall and will ramp up heavily in January. The plan is to finish the ENWLSI and then get after my CWAP. As for DevNet Associate, I think I got caught up in that whirlwind. Although it does look very interesting and there’s a ton of use for automation in my job, I’m going to focus on settling in over the next year. I’ll approach automation again sometime in very late 2022 or early 2023 if, and only if I have the capacity to do it right. Like I mentioned above, I’m going to slow things down a little and focus more on other aspects of life outside of work and career.

I hope everyone had great Christmas with family and friends. Here’s to a happy and healthy 2022!

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