I was just wondering how many people in this community are in the networking field. I think it'd be kind of cool to start a discussion topic for it if there were enough people either moving up in certifications, working on getting one, or have just been in the field awhile. ^.^

One definitely has been certified (anyone care to guess who? I mean, you'd never be able to tell from his name *cough* CCNA *cough* ), another one or two I think I remember reading have it. Another two are studying for it/recently got it.

Of the certs, Cisco certs are some of the few still worth getting. Experience is always favored over certs and the only real value of certs in most situations is so you can put them on your resume to get past the automatic resume screening keyword searches. The certs themselves are fairly useless as aim towards getting you to pass a test more than anything. Some employers and companies are catching on and blacklisting some certs/penalizing resumes overfilled with certs.

-- my two cents

Edit: Oh, as to myself: don't have any cisco certs though I do find networking a highly interesting field.

Never been too fond of Cisco, had a few semesters in college with Cisco classes and often the information is invalid since they seem to be still teaching 5 - 10 years old material and the tests are worth little when you're told you can search online for the answers since "learning IT is learning information gathering" yet you can find those tests with the correct answers online. I understand that you should perhaps get to search the internet for forums or information to help you with some of the answers but when they can't be bothered to write new tests for each year and whole classes of students are just going "derp" during tests blindly following sites that show them the answers question for question then something is wrong. I myself always tried to be as honest as possible with my schoolwork and avoided those sites but it's aggravating to see students around me playing CS or browser games in classes and then pass the tests without really knowing any of the answers.

I realize those people hit a roadblock later down in the road but it seems like a lot of wasted effort for teachers if they just bothered to work a little harder on updating their coursework and even just re-wording the questions a little bit so students couldn't just copy-paste the questions into google (you can't right click with a mouse in tests but keyboard commands still work) to find themselves the answers.

I took the CCENT in January. I plan on taking the CCNA in June or so. I am enrolled with the CIsco Networking Academy at my community college.

On the topic of networking, I feel like I should probably take the Net+ certification as well. It renews the A+ for life.


Edit-

http://i438.photobucket.com/albums/qq102/Starforce9/PANO_20120322_132259.jpg (taken using the Galaxy Nexus Panoramic view)

I'm enrolled in a Cisco class in my current school as a Junior and it isn't graded or managed as you explain. It's quite fair for everyone. The class is partnered with the Cisco Network Academy, but we rarely do things with the online material because there are definitely better resources for learning than it. I do a lot of learning outside of class, though.

I'm scheduling for my CCENT as soon as I can get an agreement on changing the keyboard layout for the exam at my local testing center and then taking the CCNA a few weeks after that. Then to begin studying for my CCNP this summer. ^.^

@DEFRON: Do you keep up with networking a lot still or do you just kind of sit on the sidelines for now?

I took some CISCO courses back in high school but due to the circumstances did not get as much out of it as I would have liked and it frustrates me to this day. I did take and pass the Network+ pretty easily same with A+ though Linux+ was tough. I will be taking my Security+ within the next month and hopefully my Microsoft MCITP certs, or at least some of them, over the summer. One downside though to taking the Microsoft ones is that I wasted thousands of dollars on college courses because the instructor chose to not do any real teaching. I self studied for all the above tests so what is a few Microsoft ones, though if it has questions anything like the TestOut LabSim study courses and materials I will be opting out of them.

Networking is interesting to me but definately gets way to tedious at times. Give me some servers to work on and I am fine, but throw large networking issues at me and watch them go almost nowhere fast.

I'm pretty much the opposite, but just mainly because I have no experience with servers. Planning on buying a machine to make a server for fun this summer maybe for that reason. That and keeping most of my files. I'm quite good at troubleshooting in general and it applies to networks, as well. The best thing is to just not get overwhelmed. Kind of wished I had a militaristic background just for the sake of having really good leadership/organizing/planning quickly skills to apply to my career. Haha.

I don't even know what you're asking. I can get along fine with my work switch and PBX for what I need, play with iptables, and do all I need with various open source router firmwares and router OSes. Even migrated an active directory to a new subnet (in the middle of an office move. Never again. Never again)

I just have no need for the certs so I don't spend money on them

You said you just thought it was an interesting field, so I wasn't sure if you just kind of liked reading into it or actually did things with it. Didn't mean to offend if I did so. Are you just the general IT at your work?

You didn't. I just honestly didn't understand what you were asking at all

One man IT dept present and accounted for.

I have a question that you may be able to answer, DEFRON, or just anyone. What would be some good ways to get experience? Are internships the suggested route to go or? I have one more year of school left, as I'm graduating next year, and I'll have at least my CCNA and the knowledge of a CCNP if not the actual cert. Without experience, though, it won't mean as much.

I'm hoping to maybe befriend the network admin at the school I'll be going to(I'm going to the local university's collaborative program for my senior year) and convince them to maybe shadow me under them or something for work experience. What would be the best way to go about it if that doesn't work out?

I personally say Internships and helping out people with their network problems is a great way.

I was an aid for my high school's tech department this year and it really helped me understand what its like to run a network for 1200 people. A lot of it was redundant work, such as documenting and archiving acceptable use policies for every student. But some of it was a bit more fun for me atleast like, setting up a new computer science classroom and choosing where to place the network drops.

Hold up.


CCNA's name means something.

Derp.

But the people to help out for it to count toward work experience.

Go around wifi wardriving telling people you just broke into their network and you'd like to fix it for them.

(that actually does work, so long as you don't actually break into their network until after you're given permission, solely for proof that you could)

Really, though, internships are nice, small businesses are nice too, which you can maybe get consulting gigs for if you pitch yourself good. Maybe even a hired-on job. Public schools generally need helpdesk people which is a way to start.

What actually counts as work experience? What can I do and write down as experience on a resume to tally up to a year and etc? I have a home lab that I work and experiment with everyday as well as real equipment in the school I currently go to since I'm friends with the network administrator and IT people there. They send me around the school with a couple friends of mine even to either run cable or fix a printer or a machine or do a punchdown. Then the labs I do in class with multiple routers and switches. Could I put any of this down on a resume and it count?

If you did work where you would feel confident listing the person you did the work for as a contact, I'd say you could list. Just list it as something like "IT consulting xx-yy" unless it was stuff for family/friends.

My resume is woefully out of date because I'm not in a situation where I'm worried about losing my job and I'm not looking for a new one while I'm getting my degree.

I'd also suggest internship. In any career, it's almost always a chicken and egg issue.. can't get a job without experience, but can't get experience without a job. Internships tend to help you by-pass this issue and if through your school, is always a great reference. You'll want as much experience in your field as possible - it'll always give you a leg up. (I know nothing about networking, btw, just saying this as a rule of thumb in general.)

When I read Defron's post I actually said "ohhh...". I don't really think about people's names. lol

My friend is but he was only on this board once to get onto the Minecraft server
Maybe he'll join back if I tell him about this thread...

...Wait I have a CISCO certificate I'm sure, yey this thread is for me

Yep, I'm working on getting my CCNP at the moment, as soon as I can scrounge up some money (or even better, get a job and they can pay for it ), though I might have to do a bit of revision, it's been a few months now since I've used Cisco gear, haha.

GNS3 is a great bit of software for anyone studying networking, though you'll need to find your own IOS images to use.

This thread should be interesting , I am currently working on my CCNA work at college and also linux based webserver management. Hoping to take my CCNA exam soon then work onto the CCNP work, for people interested in configuring routers and switches you should download cisco packet tracer, its a lot of fun to use! (can be a little buggy) especially with my frame relay work and PPP

Yey this makes no sense to me

Haha ! your a programmer ! the stuff you do makes no sense to me at all

All I remember from class is the mesh connection and the 'bus' one. Oh and that you should listen to me when I choose NTFS

mesh and bus are network topologies , and i did choose ntfs just not the quick format .... >.<