My CISSP experience
I provisionally passed CISSP on 29th November, 2017 on first attempt. I have been in the cyber security field for over 8 years and I knew it was necessary for me to pass the exam at some point, even though it looked insurmountable.
In May 2017, a junior colleague of mine passed the exam to be an associate and was so much celebrated in my office, and at that point I said to myself,” if he can do it, I can do it as well”.
I started studying for the exam at the end of August 2017, I disciplined myself to make sure that I studied every day, for minimum of 3 hours, and 6 hours on estimate over the weekends.
I also joined groups on Facebook, (Niloufer and Luke’s pages), as well as Telegram Group. I was participating in most of the Facebook questions posted, and followed the rationale behind the answers and made sure I understood the concepts as much as possible.
Niloufer reached out to me a couple of times to confirm how I was doing and when I was going to take the test, but I wanted to make sure I was hitting 90% in CCCURE and Sybex practice test before I would register for the exam. I finally registered for the exam sometimes in November, and I was contemplating rescheduling at some point, but Niloufer encouraged me not to postpone, and I decided to take the bull by the horn.
I took 2 weeks off from work to concentrate on studies, and I used the last 3 days for revision. I slept early the night before the exam and I got to the center about 45 minutes before the exam. I took my time to read the questions, and flagged a couple of questions I was not so sure of. I finished the exam in 41/2 hours, and eventually changed 2 questions, and submitted. I went to the front desk for my result, I got the folded paper, and tears rolled down my cheek as I saw the word “congratulations”.
These are some of the study materials used:
Sybex 7th edition Sybex practice test Cccure Cybrary videos Mcgraw CBK tests Different resources from study notes and theory Fadi Sodah process guide