CCNA vs Bsc

Skilldibop · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:10

Which do you think is the best thing to do after A levels? Which do people find most useful or attractive as an employer or Employeee.

I know what i did, and what my mates did, but my brother is heading the same path as me and i'm wondering if i should convince him to do a CCNA after A2 as his college does it and his computer science lecturer is the CCNA tutor. Also he's entitled to do it free if he's under 19, afaik. I got it free, but that was at another college.

Also any other comments about education for a career in IT are welcome, this is something that's not often discussed amongst wide range of users, beginners and seasoned IT pros.

T180985 · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:14

Depends what he wants to do but imo university is overated, i would get the CCNA then go for a CCNP might also be worth doing a MCP just for an extra qualification

Skilldibop · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:31

That's what i did, less the CCNP because it's too expensive and the best/cheapest place for me to do it is UCL. My mate is at uni in his second year and he knows a fair bit about programming but not a lot about the practical stuff. He wanted me to teach him how to set up WPA cos he'd been earning a bit of cash doing odd jobs and only ever used WEP.
Infact he said "can you teach me the other protocol" so not only did he no know what it was but he didn't know what it did either.

While he was doing that i went and did a CCNA and got me 2 jobs, the second pays more and is more cushy

Burbleflop · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:32

Speaking as an employer, CCNA's are so common now that I largely ignore their existance on a CV. I don't see many people who have progressed along the Cisco certifcation router past CCNA, but those people that I do so I'm much more interested in.

As far as degrees go, it's the same story really. I'd much rather employ someone with experience over someone with bits of paper.

A degree is often seen as a good way of getting into a company but if I were faced with someone with experience or someone with a degree, the experience would win.

As far as your brother is concerned, having no experience (in employment I mean), I'd go down the CCNA router and work up through the Cisco courses.

zetec452 · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:39

I think doing a degree will give you a broader scope in which you can work. As stated by other people experience wins hands down. But I would say that experience with a BSc would be favourable over a CCNA. Mainly because the CCNA courses have been offered out at any which college lessening its value.

Skilldibop · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:41

Good to see i didn't make a hash of things for myself either

When i got this second job i hadn't actually finished CCNA it was mainly some experience and the fact that i put down in my CV exactly what i could do. not like "i've worked with computers before", but "i've built them, networked them, file shared, VLAN'd, domained, workgrouped......" Also mentioned the fact i'd been using PCs since i was 7. Which is now 12 years combined experience (11 when i started). Thus i'd used nearly all Windows OS versions and had learned things hands on as opposed to from books.
I thought that kinda stuff would sell me better than 3 letters after my name.
Added to that the fact my school arsed up my Alevel royally and i came out with only a D in computing. (tho tis kinda obvious as i had a good physics teacher and got a C, physics needing a similar brain but lots harder.)

Skilldibop · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:45

Mainly because the CCNA courses have been offered out at any which college lessening its value.

True, but if you get it surely your just as good as someone who did it elsewhere??
although i agree for what might be differeing reasons. A lot of colleges do it full time making it quite easy to acomplish. Where i did it in term times 4hours a week on a saturday morning. due to the fast pace you had to understand things as opposed to haveing things drummed into you through repetition.

T180985 · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:47

I have nearly done my MCP and plan on doing the CCNA next then progressing to the CCNP, a guy i work with has all three and he was saying how he had quite a few job offers when he was looking at changing jobs. Would completely agree with experience being the most important thing, i also have been using pcs since i was a kid and i think that helped me get a job and i dont even have any qualifications yet

Skilldibop · 25 Jan 2006 at 14:04

hmm, i did a thing that was like a combined course. It took you from A+ through Net+ MCP in XP server+ and all eventually adding up to an MCSA. But i got bored and went for a full time job instead because A+ jst seemed to be legacy stuff and even the "new" things were at least 2 or 3 years out of date.
MCP isn't awfully good tho cos it's quite OS specific. If your employer uses something else it's pretty worthless.

T180985 · 25 Jan 2006 at 14:08

yea thats true about the MCP but as i mostly do support it comes in handy, just need to get some cisco stuff done so i can actually be considered an engineer lol

Skilldibop · 25 Jan 2006 at 14:26

Do a Server+ if you want to be a network engineer CCNx's don't look much at servers. Tho like an MCP you do a server plus in Server 2000 or 2003 or NT.
One tip i stand by in my short but colourful career to date is:
To begin with get a Net admin job assisting in running a network. If your lucky it'll be nice and diverse or rapidly expanding. I wouldn't go for field engineer. I did that, and without experience it's very very hard. Unless you've seen or looked at the many ways of doing things it's very hard to drop yourself into the midst of someone elses network and try and make head or tail of what's going on.

V-Spec · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:57

I wouldn't say there are any hard or fast rules on employment at the moment, things have shifted a bit towards more people who have experience rather than certs/degree.
I've been doing nothing other than Cisco for 6 years, and the great thing about certs is the rate at which they change, degrees still teach 10 year old principles and stuff which isn't used at all, pro certs are always changing to reflect the state of the industry - ok you get people who braindump with no experience, this does devalue the cert to some people, but for the people who have CCNA and a few years relavent experience, they get jobs.

The problem is, Networking in medium to large networks is extremley complicated, I don't see how anyone, having never worked in I.T before can just say they want to work in networking, its best to start from the bottom doing desktop support as you build the cognition to see how everything fits together properly, instead of being thrown in at the deepend and not understanding the big picture and where the network fits in.

If you want to get a technical job in networking the best thing is to get some experience of working in I.T whilst doing the CCNA, therefore you are killing 2 birds with one stone, working towards a cert whilst getting experience, if you go and do a degree you'll

A. Be learning technology which is very old and not needed today

B. Some unis teach the CCNA as part of the Bsc, but why not just do the CCNA far quicker and save the £1000's of debt.

C. Degrees have been extremley devalued over the years, with the government trying to push for everyone to go to uni and do anything, just to have a degree.

At the end of the day, if you go for a job with all the certs under the sun but no experience you'll not get a job, experience always wins. So far i've done the CCNA and the CCNP, due to take my CCIE Written exam in June, from then i'll have 7 years experience and will probably go contracting.

Skilldibop · 25 Jan 2006 at 16:33

Probably one exception to that would be MCSE as a work placement of i think 6months minimum is a course requirement. MCSA + experience and some exams = MCSE or from what i gathered while i was interested.

V-Spec · 25 Jan 2006 at 22:23

The thing is, a lot of people hear about the CCNA and Cisco world of networking and instantly think thats cool and they wanna do it, and they go off to uni/bootcamp and get all tied in... Then they realise it wasn't exactly for them, or wasnt what they expected, A LOT of people look into the basic CCNA Intro books and give up because it aint a walk in the park.
I teach the CCNA part time and the courses generally start out with around 8-10 people, im down to 3 on my current course because the others have lost interest and have realised its not for them.
Fact is, if they'd saved all the time thinking about it and just started reading the book which costs all of £30 they would have quickly realised that they liked it or not. You can do the CCNA in 3 months of hard study, for the cost of 2 books and some practise exams, why spend £1000s when they only teach whats in the book.

Ricochet J · 25 Jan 2006 at 22:37

V-Spec said:
You can do the CCNA in 3 months of hard study, for the cost of 2 books and some practise exams, why spend £1000s when they only teach whats in the book.

I'm doing it in 2 years

However bear in mind i'm also doing other A Levels and my teacher is rubbish

Skilldibop · 26 Jan 2006 at 11:16

eXSBass said:
I'm doing it in 2 years
However bear in mind i'm also doing other A Levels and my teacher is rubbish

i'ver never met a bad CCNA instructor, unless they're not a certified CCNA instructor and jsut a computing teacher standing in.
where you studying it?

Skiddley · 26 Jan 2006 at 12:19

I've got both, and did them one after the other (CCNA etc after graduating). Definate opinion is to get a CCNA during summer break at uni, I.e., in parallel.

I think a degree is immensly valuable, not just in terms of prospects but in the personal and social development that you go through as a consequence. Its value largly depends on what uni he is considering too, if its some two bit Poly, who knows - maybe the debt it isn't worthwhile.

If it gives my opinion any more credibility I'm a CCIP well on the way to CCIE.

Si MPS · 26 Jan 2006 at 12:26

I'll be honest, before i came to uni all i wanted to do was some form of networking job (i do BSc Computer Network Tech, final year) and i'll be honest, it's something i'd least like to do now.

University isn't just about the degree, remember that.

Skilldibop · 26 Jan 2006 at 12:46

I didn't say "Uni" i said "bsc" i.e a degree in computing/computer science.

(i do BSc Computer Network Tech, final year) and i'll be honest, it's something i'd least like to do now.

that just says to me that your course is so boring that it's put you off. one thing i have noticed is Pro courses are far more practical and hands on, and often far faster paced. I enjoy networking and i've done several professional quals and i still enjoy it.
But the topic was the useful content of the courses when unleashed into the real world. In my personal experience the people i know doing technical degrees know less after 2 years full time than i do after 1 year doing 4 hours a week whilst working.

V-Spec · 26 Jan 2006 at 14:30

I met a guy in my last job who had a degree and was talking about Multicast, IGMPv2 enhancements, PIM and CBT... Going on for ages about various ways it can be used, when I asked him what kind of box he'd configured it on, he had never been near a router. Seems like a waste of time to me