A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Certification

Computerworld - A time-honored tradition among technical people is to use percussive maintenance: When a piece of equipment isnt working properly, give it a good whack.

As I headed into a week of intensive technical training, I felt as if I were the faulty piece of equipment and thought the instructor would have to hit me over the head if any information was going to sink in. I worried that I wouldnt be able to switch gears from my politically impossible management role to learning about command line interface, the final leg of my journey toward the Cisco Certified Security Professional certification. Much as I was looking forward to achieving my goal, I was scared as well. The material was supposed to be highly technical. In fact, the training had been rescheduled three times because students kept dropping out, leaving the enrollment below the required minimum. As it was, because of a no-show, there were only three students.

A Rocky Start

I fell behind immediately, because the other students finished their lab work well ahead of me. I was the old lady between two fresh and extremely bright young men.

It wasnt a great start, so after the first day of classes, I took stock of things and thought about how to set a better course for the rest of the week. The first thing to deal with was the fact that I was the only woman in the class. Well, thats nothing new. By this time in my career, I should be used to standing out in a field thats dominated by young males. Nonetheless, I am often surprised at how my presence affects others. They are just not sure how to behave toward me. I know that I have to be the one to set the tone and reach out first.

My second task was to squelch my self-doubts, which can be legion in certain circumstances. Most of the time, I have total confidence in my abilities. But from time to time, I forget all my accomplishments and start to feel overwhelmed. I had to gather my thoughts and convince myself that there was nothing in the course that couldnt be mastered by someone as dogged as me. I would just have to focus and block out everything else.

The next morning, I woke up ready to rock n roll. I arrived early to class and began working on the lab assignments ahead of the lecture. I finished my work early that day and felt as if I was in the groove. My feelings of inadequacy had been banished, and I attempted to connect with the other two students and the instructor. It was amazing how easily they relaxed when I did. They figured out pretty quickly that I was just like them in many ways and had the same goal: technical network security expertise.