CCNA , CCNP , MCP CCIE

[cpars]

Looking for some serious input from some of the professionals here. I am going to make a career change in the near future and going to start training classes soon for what I believe to be a good field of study. We have a local training business/school that offers classes on the courses/certifications listed in the title. My question is ; are these qualifications sought after enough to make a career change.

I am not looking to get rich, just very tired of building for 20 years now and have really enjoyed my hobby of building, overclocking computers etc.

here is a link to the site

 

[FFC]

Aim hiigh. Go for CCIE and pick up the others along the way. It may take a couple of years but at least you'll be learning something new. Lots of the skills and knowledge you pick up will be generic rather than cisco centric which will be very useful. If possible to get employment looking after a network beacuse the practical experience is invaluable.

 

[Daniel]

Hmm.. I'd recommend not going that route, not that training place anyway. The problem is if you have 0 experience in networking that trying to shovel feed that much info down you throat in the time they are claiming is next to impossible. They might teach you how to take the tests but that is it. Even if you manage to do that then you will still not really have an idea what you are doing but you will just have some letters after your name.

Look at the times they quote, 8 nights for 2000 professional and server combined, that just really isn't enough time unless you already know the product and are pretty much taking a course just so you can ace the exams. And the CCIE in 40 hours? From what I understand the CCIE has a 5% passing rate out of people that go for it, and it is very expensive just to go take the test in the first place, there is no way you can do 40 hours of instruction and go for the CCIE it would be like throwing money out a window.

My suggestion would be find a local community college and see what they have to offer, some places might have a crappy program but the one near me was very good. I was able to learn a lot of the stuff quite well over a period of time for a really reasonable price. I took the mcse in 98 or 99 through one, I even had some experience already but we had in class time of over 380 hours over 4 months of work there, plus time in study groups and at home. But when I finished I felt a lot more comfortable with the material than someone who had just studied the answers for a week or 2 and went in and passed.

The best bet really is knowing someone and getting a foot in the door somehow and getting them to pay for training after that. The sad part is that is getting harder and harder to do in this market. I spent awhile on the phone yesterday talking to a recruiter, not even one that is searching for me but just a friend so he was being totally straight up with me and let me tell you it is a way different market now than it was 2 years ago, or even one year ago. Not to scare you but just being honest.


Edit: just double checked, it is 40 hours for the CCNA and CCNP and 72 for the CCIE, small point cause either is too short but wanted to make sure.

 

[Nutz]

I agree. Unless you already know the material and wanted to "study-up" for the test you'll gain very little from those courses. They're basically a crash course in how to pass the tests, not how to be a network professional.

 

[Saltin]

CCIE in 72 hours.... yeah, right.

If you want to get into the network backbone stuff, do the CCNA as a starter
If you want to get into OS's and Network Administration, do the MCSE.

The most important thing is that you enjoy whatever it is you are taking, it makes it a million times easier.
A steady pace is the best pace. 3 weeks per MCSE course/exam is plenty of time if you have 8-10 hours a day to put into it. That would make for a total of 21 weeks, with every third weekend completely off to just chill out. That's how I did it anyhow, and I found it quite manageable.

 

[cpars]

Thanks for all the repies and input. The general thoughts are as I was told by my sister last night who is a programmer, she also suggested a slower start at the community college. I had questioned how I could cram that much info in that short amount of time and you guys have answered that one...they are just preparing me for the tests/certs and I need experience. My experience is limited to home networking with a few pc's and a router on XP at present.

I really appreciate those who took the time to reply.

Maybe I will look for mcse at comm.college for starters.

By the way I just got in from working in the rain, d@mn construction

 

[err]

Well, I would say that it depends on where you would like to work.

If you want to work in corporate network, shoot for MCSE 2000 and learn all the MS junk like xchange, Sql, sms, isa, and the new .NET platform.

If you want to work in large ISP or network backbone company, go for cisco stuffs. Learn switching, routing and firewall. Firewall and network security is the big buzz nowadays, so if you think this is your field, go for it.

If you want to work for large Internet company and maintain their web farm, learn more Unix stuffs and load balancer / network security stuffs

If I were you, I'll follow your heart and interest. It is useless to try to get CCIE if you're not happy with what you're doing.

Good luck in whatever you choose

err

 

[ktwebb]

doh