My Personal IT Learning Journey

I am so much excited about "Learning in public" concept. Yesterday, someone asked me about this and said something which we all have heard many times that "Work in Silence and Let your Success make the Noise". I had no logical answer to that except my own experience which I shared with him, which I would share with you as well.

My personal IT learning journey was sort of triggered by watching a David Bombal video randomly on YouTube, in Jan 2019. Actually I was struggling with project (part of my Bachelor Degree in Telecom) based on Networking. It needed knowledge of RADIUS server, Linux and some coding stuff. And I had not much idea of any of these things. So I kept figuring out the things and somehow completed the project. But while doing all this, I was 100% clear that I have to learn Coding, Networking, ML, Linux and Cloud technologies. Then exams, internship and COVID, all messed up. Then I planned that now I will learn all that.

So as always, I made a super-exciting plan to cover everything in this year i.e. 2020-2021. And yes, by this time, I had procured all my devices etc and also joined lot of online platforms to learn nNetworking, Cloud and SecOps etc and earned some certifications. I do not want to defame them by mentioning here, but I wasted my hard earned.

But anyways, I did not lose heart and planned to start again. 😎

So again with full enthusiasm 😍😎 and to learn everything I bought annual subscriptions of CBT Nuggets, A Cloud Guru and Codecademy. I tried to convince many of my classmates and friends to start learning with me, but unfortunately they all had their own things to do. So I kept struggling alone. You must have figured out my mistake by now, like I was getting overwhelmed. Studying Engineering deree, then all these courses, no idea what to start, in what order etc. Then one night, I came across a session of Gul Iqbal's on CCNA. Something clicked or I don't know what I thought that this guy may help me. May be it was his high pitch voice or speaking in my native language (Urdu), I thought I should join them. So I joined.

Now things started changing gradually. I was studying full time, and attending classes from 8 AM to 3 PM. It was CCNA, MCSA and LINUX all three simultaneously, 5 days a week. Then I got to know that Jan 02 is the last date to pass for MCSA certification and it was also required at my goals (as most of the machines were Windows Server Network, so I gave my 100% towards that but did not passed all 3 exams. But cleared four Major Azure Cloud certifications.

Then I again got stuck in an important project at work for 2 months, so after that I again started for SecOps in March 2021. Thankfully, Gul Iqbal allowed me to discuss the live classes and parallelly I started utilising my CBT Nuggets subscription as well. This time, things were making little more sense to me and I covered both the programs in June 2021.

Then I started reading books as I heard from many experienced guys that books are must to pass the exams, which is true also. But my enthusiasm was dying and I was feeling sort of bored 🙄. As still, I was alone in my journey.😔 There was nobody with whom I could share what I was learning, what are the challenges I am facing, not even my small accomplishments etc etc.

Then 1 day, I came across "6 months to cloud journey" plan by Gwyneth Peña-Siguenza and Rishab Kumar and also this concept of "Learning in Public". I sincerely thank them both for sharing this as I do not know why and how, but this is working for me wonderfully. May be it appealed to me as it was starting of July and almost 180 days were left, like I thought I can still make it all by the end of this year. But more importantly I think its the details of the plan. Like what exactly you should do, what resources you should follow, what you can expect at every stage and what are the projects you should/could make. Really wonderful, you can check it out: https://lnkd.in/gXrt8e_b

So now as you may have seen in my regular posts that I am going through CCNA Official Cert guide by Wendell Odom, almost one chapter a week. I am also enrolled in CCNP batch, and attend those classes as well, twice per week. EIGRP, OSPF and BGP all going full-on. I am not there yet as you know, but I love when someone is talking about them.🥰 Pls do not get me wrong, but this is how I am😎. And also I am fully confident that very soon I would be well versed in these technologies as well. 👍

Some of you may think, I am still messing it up. But NO, its all good now. Everything is getting on track, day by day. Yes, it is true.

And the reason for all that is - YOU.

Yes, you all. Especially those who have given me valuable comments specially on linkedIn on my regular posts 😀. I am so much grateful to you guys that I can't explain in words.

When I was planning to start this "learning in public" thing, my frnds warned me that - "DO NOT DO THIS, YOU WILL MAKE FUN OF YOURSELF, and that too PUBLICALLY."

But I do not why, but I was having sort of clairvoyance that it will work. And it worked. Yes, It has already done its job.

I am feeling so much confident that I can't say. My time is getting managed properly day by day. I started with studying 15 min per day and now I am studying almost 6 hours per day. And its increasing day by day.

One more big thing I have done in last few weeks is that I have strongly motivated my very close mentor friend (Faisal Ahmed). So I mean to say, lots of lots of stuff going on, I can't tell you in words.

But I can say for sure that all this is happening because I am connected to you guys, I do not know you but I can feel you. I can feel that some of you relate with me and my situation. It's totally different experience for me. But it's awesome. So many many thanks to Gul Iqbal and Iftikhar. you can even see the genuineness in the faces of both of them. So I think, I should be grateful to them.

And I thought I am the only one doing this courageous act, but now everyday I am finding guys and girls who are practicing this, and they all are doing wonders. And it looks so cool too.

So I have written all this as a gesture of gratitude for all of you, knowing or unknowingly I do not know, but you have changed my life. Just by giving valuable comments and tapping on those like or love buttons. Hope you have read about that "Butterfly effect".

So big thanks for that. And also, if you are also stuck in your learning journey somewhere, try it. I can guarantee, you won't regret.

Life is a brief happening and its very beautiful.
So live it fully and enjoy every moment, even your learning.

Hafiz Muhammad Attaullah
attaullah@ieee.org
https://www.linkedin.com/in/attaullahshafiq10/