CCNA Is it worth doing?

MunkyHed

Hi,

Has anyone done the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) course. I'm thinking of doing that or else the bachelor of technology in LIT. The cisco course is tempting me cos the btech is just too long!

JohnnyMobile

ive done the course intro and ICND but havent gotten round to doing the exam yet. Very worthwhile I learned loads.

I did the comptia Net+ first and found it helpfull

Superman

MunkyHed wrote:

Hi,

Has anyone done the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) course. I'm thinking of doing that or else the bachelor of technology in LIT. The cisco course is tempting me cos the btech is just too long!

well it is certified so thats never a bad thing!

MunkyHed

JohnnyMobile wrote:

ive done the course intro and ICND but havent gotten round to doing the exam yet. Very worthwhile I learned loads.

I did the comptia Net+ first and found it helpfull

Where are ya doin the course?

JohnnyMobile

MunkyHed wrote:

Where are ya doin the course?

I did it in globalknowledge up on mount st.
did the intro for 1 week then a few weeks later did the ICND for 1 week. was pretty good.

Gavin

Standard issues of a college edu versus a certification. With a CCNA you are locked to Cisco. With a college edu, you get a broad intro to everything and then need to learn the specifics when you get to a job.

What age are you ? If only young, don't be lazy and just do the bachelors. Can do the CCNA in conjunction with it if you want.

Gav

MunkyHed

Thanks for the help lads, i'm 24 at the moment and thinking of going ahead with the full degree, i'll be doing it by night and work will pay for half of it. It'll be a long haul but worth it i hope!
Does anybody know if these course fees are fully tax deductable, if they are i could get work to pay for the whole thing seeing as they'll get the money back??

JohnnyMobile

MunkyHed wrote:

Thanks for the help lads, i'm 24 at the moment and thinking of going ahead with the full degree, i'll be doing it by night and work will pay for half of it. It'll be a long haul but worth it i hope!
Does anybody know if these course fees are fully tax deductable, if they are i could get work to pay for the whole thing seeing as they'll get the money back??

I did that a few years back it wasnt fully tax deductable as I recall but I got a good few quid back cant remember exactly how much ... sorry.

I dropped out after 6 months... it was the most boring course ever. "Computing Degree". "This is an input device... it is called a mouse..."

I couldnt take it anymore.

John2002

Does the CCNA qualification become redundant after a few years? Like an MCSE in NT4.0 for example which has been replaced a couple of times.

JohnnyMobile

John2002 wrote:

Does the CCNA qualification become redundant after a few years? Like an MCSE in NT4.0 for example which has been replaced a couple of times.

CCNA is valid for three years but if you advance to CCNP etc you dont have to resit an exam

Stky10

The CCNP is only valid for 3 years as well. Then you have to resit it, and if
you pass it you are automatically recertified on the CCNA.

It depends on what you want from the CCNA as to whether you should
do it or not. It won't get you a highly paid job administering some corporate
monsters entire network. The CCNA is good for teaching you about IP
addresses, subnets, and some simple networking principals and protocols,
but other than that its worth bugger all.

Get the CCNP, and have some experience using the hardware in a
production environment and you should be laughing.

loyatemu

It won't get you a highly paid job administering some corporate
monsters entire network.

no but it may get you some lower level job that will be a foot on the ladder. besides you have to get the CCNA before you can do the CCNP anyway

Cerdito

Just took the exam this morning! Was actually much trickier than I expected but I passed , thank god.

In my opinion it is definitely worth doing....I started a networking/voice role 6 months ago with most of my experience in voice. I had feck all networking knowledge (ffs I didn't even know what a crossover cable was) The CCNA has forced me to get up to speed in a relatively short time.

I also found the material really interesting. It may be Cisco specific in many places (ISL, CDP, EIGRP etc.) but they also cover multi vendor solution such as 802.1Q and OSPF. It also covers general network theory which is applicable across all platforms.

Going to take a break for a bit and then start the CCNP! Good luck with whatever you decide.