ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
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I want to start working in IT and have no qualifications other than an HNC in admin and IT which is crap.
Groupon are doing a deal for these Cisco Network Courses, does anyone know if they are worth doing?
The courses are CCENT CCNA CCNP CCNA Security and Cisco Voice
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willay
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Organiser: South East, National Events
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Registered: 10th Nov 02
Location: Roydon, Essex
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CCNA is the starting point, do you have much knowledge of IT?
Best advice I can offer is get a job at whatever level you can, try to avoid tech support roles as you typically won't learn much
Fiddle at home, play around with everything, get some working knowledge of it.
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VrsTurbo
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Registered: 8th Jun 10
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That course is ok but it's about 12 years old.
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ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
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im pretty decent with computers, built my own and know a little about networks through messing about at work and college. I work in an admin role at the moment and ive been applying for pretty much bottom level IT jobs and not getting anywhere as I dont have the experience or qualifications. saw this deal for £99 for all the training then id have to pay for the exams probs around £500 - £600 for them and thought it'd be worth a go but dont wanna spend that money to get nothing out of it
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VrsTurbo
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Registered: 8th Jun 10
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I bought it when it was last on. You'll need some Cisco boxes to fully understand.
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pow
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Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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CCNA is a good point for learning how more than your home wireless network is configured and works. The principles still are the same to this day.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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You'll never get a job with CCNA and no experience.
Get a job in a lower level role, the company might even pay for a decent course and not the groupon one.
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pow
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Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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I did 
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Steve
Premium Member
Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
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as said get some real world experience, courses are worthless, guy i know is MCSE trained and yet doesnt know how to change his password. As mad as that sounds its 100% truth
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pow
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Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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Russ
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Registered: 14th Mar 04
Location: Armchair
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andrew
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ
andrew
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Nismo
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Registered: 12th Sep 02
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IMO my experience is worth more than qualifications but they do help.
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Kyle T
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Registered: 11th Sep 04
Location: Selby, North Yorkshire
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quote:
Originally posted by VrsTurbo
That course is ok but it's about 12 years old.
 The CCENT and CCNA courses are updated all the time. The certification only lasts three years if you don't follow it up with another certification in the cisco track or do a refresher because the content changes.
I did 5 years of IT before starting CCNA learning, and to be honest I'm embarrassed when I look back at my lack of networking knowledge at the start of my career. Understanding how data moves around is critical to most areas of IT so I'd highly recommend anybody serious about IT reading through the CCNA material even if they don't ever sit the exam.
CCNA can be sat in two exams which cover ICND1 and ICND2. If you pass ICND1 you gain the CCENT certification first, then it becomes a full CCNA when you pass ICND2.
CCNA Voice, Wireless and Security contain the entry level information for those areas.
CCNP requires CCNA before you can sit the exam, and is the next level of switching, routing, security, wireless, etc depending on what exam you sit.
As said, experience is everything - but it's shocking how many people can fumble their way around active directory and call themselves IT when they don't know what a subnet mask does, or what a default gateway is used for.
Lotus Elise 111R
Impreza WRX STi
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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A thing I've come across recently even with Cisco qualified 'experts' and even Cisco themselves is that it still doesn't mean they have a clue. Dealing with voice guys who barely know what a network is and having an argument with Cisco support on the phone because I had been explaining the difference between a 100 megabit link and the data moving at 10 megabytes a second.
The qualifications look goodish on a cv. Mean absolutely nothing unless it's someone with the intelligence and experience to go with it.
[Edited on 06-10-2012 by John]
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VrsTurbo
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Registered: 8th Jun 10
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For £100 is decent enough to get you started and learn the basics of it all. That's all I'm saying.
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Aaron
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Registered: 9th Aug 04
Location: Cottingham, East Riding
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Get hold of a decent spec computer/server and start playing with servers in a virtual environment.
VMWare is free, and you can get ISO's of the OS's you need to faff with, even on a trial basis if need be.
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Gaz
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Registered: 24th Aug 03
Location: Widnes, Cheshire
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From my experience, Qualifications mean fuck all in the bigger companies, its about worming your way in through the nucks and crannys into the role you want.
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Wrighty
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Registered: 28th Feb 04
Location: Howden
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quote:
Originally posted by John
A thing I've come across recently even with Cisco qualified 'experts' and even Cisco themselves is that it still doesn't mean they have a clue. Dealing with voice guys who barely know what a network is and having an argument with Cisco support on the phone because I had been explaining the difference between a 100 megabit link and the data moving at 10 megabytes a second.
The qualifications look goodish on a cv. Mean absolutely nothing unless it's someone with the intelligence and experience to go with it.
[Edited on 06-10-2012 by John]
Same with everything though, you could have loads of certs but unless you actually practice what your certified to do on a day to day basis how do you expect everyone to know everything 
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Some of the guys I'm dealing with do it for a living. If it's not on the cisco step by step instructions they've got no chance.
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Gaz
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Registered: 24th Aug 03
Location: Widnes, Cheshire
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Thats an extreamly valid point too John, In IT the text book is not how companies actually set up their network/systems, this is due to a lot of reasons, be it the infrastructure not being 100% right for the task in hand, the engineers lack of knowledge and "bodge" mentality or even as silly as a cost cutting exercise.
In the "real world" it's about problem solving, thinking out side the box and using common sense.
I have to deal with a lot of Off-shore engineers and they simply don't have a clue because the "Dummies guide to..." book doesn't tell them the answers the customer requires.
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pow
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Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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You've got to know how it all works, how to basically configure it etc, but I always refer to google when I get stuck on the command I want to issue!
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