Cisco Networking Qualification?!?

[KH85]

is having a Cisco Networking Qualification a good idea? this will cost me about £1000 for a 2 year course (2 nights a week) and after the 2 years i am a fully qualified Cisco Networking summin or other (cant quite remember the rest) if i do the course i will have the qualification at the age of 20 which i think is quite good for a 20Year old 🙂......

i will also get letters after my name (CCNA - I think)

thanks in advance

KHGamez / Couger

 

[Lord Evermore]

If you think that having CCNA after your name is going to get your a 100k a year job (in whatever currency you like) then you're mistaken. Companies aren't just hiring people because they have certificates anymore. It is nice to have so that a prospective employer has an idea that you know some things, but the CCNA level is the most basic Cisco certification, and is close to becoming a "paper cert" in some ways. 1000GBP for 2 years of classes doesn't seem like all that much -- 12 week courses for things here in the US cost that much and those aren't even really good courses; I'm not sure I'd be confident that this class you're taking is going to truly teach you the things you need to know to be competent, rather than just teaching you how to pass the test. (And over the course of 2 years at only 2 nights a week, it'll be pretty damned easy to forget stuff.)

I think you might be better off trying to get a low-paying job in which you might get some experience with networking and Cisco stuff, and then use self-study to polish off the things you didn't learn too much about.

Oh, and I didn't vote because I can't unconditionally choose any of the options. 🙂

 

[KH85]

Thanks for your input.

so you are saying that it is not really worth the paper it is written on? at the moment i am doing a Computer Course (which i find to easy) but i am going to stick at it because i quit my last course last year. I was looking to do ao Networking Course but i thought that CISCO was a good qualification!?! i dont want to do this course because of the letters of because i think i would get LOADS of money. it is because i am interested in Networking and would like a job in it. if i did go for a low paid job then i wouldnt get this qualification unless they are willing to pay for it OR i did it myself after work. and the money would really suck. but if i did this course surely i have a better chance of getting a better job and getting the experience that i need to get a GOOD job 🙂

KHGamez / Couger

 

[dexter333]

Cisco is trying to make the CCNA cert more valuable again by introducing a new/harder version of the test. They're dropping IPX and some other stuff, but adding a lot of stuff from semesters 1 and 2 of CCNP. Heh, $1000? I'm paying like just books for my CCNA academy, it's at my college heh.

 

[jorken]

Lock yourself in your room for a month with a couple books and a couple of routers.

 

[Soybomb]

As evermore said a cert isn't guarentee of anything including a job or high pay. But if you're truly interested in the field it can be a good way to get your foot in the door. It might give your resume the edge over another person's. Certs work best with combined with experience in that particular field, I don't necessarily think its a bad way to give yourself a slight edge, you need all the help you can get with the job market like it is 😀 I don't see why it should take two years though. Find something thats over in 6 months or less even if it means nightly classes. Your knowledge will be more current and its not worth 2 years of waiting. At least to me...I don't have one yet 😉

 

[Saltin]

A cert is always better than no certs, everything else being equal.