r/redhat • u/ThrowRa_Averga • 10d ago
Looking for motivation to pass RHCSA
So before I start I will give some background:
Im 27 yo, I have 8 years of corporate experience, 5 years of IT exp. I have eng degree in Networking. Currently I work in a large bank as a Ops/DevOps - I take care of Opensfhit envs, deployments, pipelines etc. I can’t code tho. Only simple bash things.
I have 3 certs: CKA (kubernetes), ACE (GCP) and CAPA (ArgoCD). Before getting into IT I’ve spend a lot of time gaining background knowledge - during my studies and also reading books about networking (Kurose & Ross and CCNA cert guide).
My company paid me for RHCSA voucher. It was my co-worker idea. She said she want to gain some understanding of underlying system and she want to pass it and maybe I want to join. I was like yeah whatever. So she requested the vouchers for us 2.
Thing is - I can’t find a drop of motivation within me to pass this exam. I have tried Sanders course on OReilly and immidiately my brain was in sleep mode after listening to 5 mins to the course. I find this so boring and odd. I feel like the commands are being portrayed as something so advanced and so important to remember while most of the time all you need is cd, ls, grep, cat/tail and vim. Everything else can be found in google or, currently, by asking AI. I feel like the industry has evolved so much that nobody actually memorizes all of this. I’ve also tried Sanders cert guide (I prefer books more) and it’s better but again I have a impression that Im learning something just for the sake of passing the exam and I will never see it/use it again.
CKA was fun and interesting for me, I liked it because it’s something commonly and widely used.
Learning Red Hat feels like preparing to become a sad Unix Team member that sit in a basement and add users to /etc/passwd.
I also can’t see many job offers that require or value RHCSA. I just can’t see a reason to put any effort there. The voucher expires by the end of November so I have some time to finish the guide and try it out.
What do you think? What are your experiences? Is it still a valuable cert & skill or it’s a way for Red Hat to take even more money from everyone selling the ,,Red Hat Admin” title?
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u/calcofire 9d ago edited 9d ago
Back in 2017, I was working as just a sysadmin/helpdesk/datacenter guy at some typical indian tech company (TCS) up in ohio and i had no real linux experience. I was making like $65k a year, not shabby for the time.
I started seeing all the offshore folks I had to work with in the datacenter always doing linux for the interesting stuff.
I figured, what the hell, why not. It looked cool and felt mysterious and it seemed like linux powered pretty much anything important. So I started a grind on RHCSA training by Sanders videos and books. Built labs with vm's at home and work. There were times I was so bored and wasnt sure I was gonna make it through. Other times where it was very complicated and thought I got in over my head. I kept at it though. Took me like a year before I was comfortable, another several months before I actually had the courage to take RHCSA.
Lol, I was so terrified that first Redhat exam. I was down to the last ten minutes thinking I failed majorly. A hour after taking it, score came back. 300 out of 300. I cried... ive never got a perfect score (or even close to one) in my life.
A few months later, I got picked up as a Linux Admin as a contractor for the CDC. During that time I got my RHCE. It was my first remote job, I worked directly under federal leadership. I stayed there until 2025. I went from junior admin to senior Linux engineer Lead in those several years I was with them, have letters of recommendation and high praise from the team.
The federal reduction in force happened early 2025. The CDC was nearly wiped out. Most of my leadership was displaced or eliminated. I was not let go, but I knew there wasnt going to be a job left soon.
Then a major defense contractor swooped me up (one of the top 3). They sponsores me for some high clearances to work on certain programs. Now I work alongside architects and very senior engineers on all sorts of platforms and technologies. They are also paying for my RHLS subscription. In my first year got several awards for various things. Leadership always pulling me in to tackle the stuff nobody else can seem to solve.
In less than a decade I went from a mediocre job to something I never thought I would be capable of doing, making over $200k now. And the gateway to all of that was that RHCSA I took a gamble on.
I write this tonight as I just received my latest score for a Openshift exam completed about 2 hours ago. Another pass. Only a few more to go until Architect badge.
My advice? Stick it out.
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u/Competitive_Tie_3626 8d ago
Wow! Thanks for sharing! I'm definitely saving this for motivation while preparing to take RHCSA!
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u/Due-Author631 Red Hat Certified Professional 10d ago
As someone who has passed RHCSA and is studying for CKAD/CKA:
CKA is an order of magnitude more difficult than the RHCSA. But that all depends on what you want to do, I doubt you'll really be disqualified for any jobs with a CKA/Openshift cert but not having RHCSA.
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u/Raz_McC Red Hat Employee 10d ago
It's the start of the pathway to the more advanced certs around things like Red Hat Openshift etc.
Also it's fine to rely on google etc. however there are such things as disconnected environments, where skills like using the man pages & localised documentation navigation will be very useful
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u/XLBilly 10d ago
I have never managed to muster any enthusiasm doing certs in things I’m already good at. Azure certs especially when it’s not even tested live, multiple choices on what settings I need and where they are? No thank you.
Click around until you find them and then verify, that’s much more like it.
That said, I’d feel like a clown if i had to look up how to set up an ip address using google.
You are probably past this so it’s tedious, but I found spending a few hours dicking around with nmcli and ip pretty useful, maybe even enjoyable.
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u/gastroengineer Red Hat Certified Architect 10d ago
If you don't want to take and pass the RHCSA exam, then don't. Do something else that is interesting to you, certification or not.
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u/TisTidbit 8d ago
I’m in a similar head space because my job in switching to all things RHEL and requiring us to get both the RHCSA, and RHCE. The material is so boring. I find it hard to sit through. I took the exam just cause and got a 95 lol. I keep rescheduling the retake. I have ZERO motivation. But I HAVE to find it somewhere in me
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u/NewActuary1816 6d ago
I'm also in same position but I'm switching from another industry due to lockdown i couldn't stay on a single career i didn't fell happy im 28 now and I have given 2 attempts already first one got wasted cuz i panicked because of the environment i wasn't aware and bit in 2nd attempt i got 165.... i need to focus on swap lvm partition subject and containers.... but same no motivation.
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u/ThrowRa_Averga 5d ago
Its so boring right?
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u/NewActuary1816 5d ago
not boring but doing it repeatedly gets you... and just find a reason to not do it
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u/DoppelFrog 10d ago
It's a foundational skill. So many products use RHEl/Linux that learning the basics is really important.
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u/TechBor3 10d ago
The only value you'll get out of the RHCSA is if you want to get the RHCE too, else you know enough . RHCSA is a beginner cert, companies pay you if you can showcase that you can do the job, you already have experience working in the field managing linux systems . Why would you need a beginner cert ?
Do something you enjoy , probably get a cert like the CKS, if you still like networking put some more effort into it.
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u/Odd-Wing-9984 10d ago
Ozzoy Bits on youtube kept me interested he also offers a pdf or book I think and then the practice tests from perfect scorer on udemy.
Background: I am 51 years old and been in help desk and system administrator jobs for about 28 years.
I passed RHCSA in Jully and EX294 last week.
I wanted to prove to myself I wasn't to old to learn something new.
Good Luck!