IT Certifications... or Schooling (Which is more important)

[forced14]

Not sure how many networking guru's are out there that have alot of experience, but I just finished NNT at SAIT, and I was wondering what is more important in the long run. The way I see it, I can go for a CCNP which is not so far off, and continue doing Cisco certifications, and eventually go into some security certifications for things like auditing and such. However there is a new bachelor degree coming out in the next several years BSc of Internetworking which I am also interested in taking, but not sure if it is a waste of time if I have those certifications or not.

What have you guys found successful?

--forced

[Xtrema]

BSc of Internetworking? By SAIT?

Any degree coming out of SAIT isn't BSc. It's BApp as in applied degree. If you don't have a degree already, get it. It's better than a diploma. But it won't be treated as a real university degree.

Cisco cert is a good path. It's not like a dime a dozen like MCSE. But your field of work is narrower since not many can afford Cisco gears but everyone can afford a Windows Server.

[rage2]

1. Get your foot in the door of any company
2. GET EXPERIENCE even if u get paid shit to start.

See this thread, starting at my post here:

http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread.php?s=&postid=1558125#post1558125

If you really want certifications for whatever reasons (I personally think *most* certifications are scams) most companies WILL pay for you to take the course and the exams as long as you pass.

[forced14]

Actually SAIT is trying to switch some of its applied degrees over to fully recognized degrees, it was announced in 2005:

2005 Annual Report (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:dyjr9hdAyLEJ:www.sait.ab.ca/corporategeneral/pdf/annualreport.pdf+Bachelors+of+science+in+internetworking+at+SAIT&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=4)

Scroll down to page 3 of the report

"The
Institute’s baccalaureate degree proposals will be in
disciplines where SAIT has existing expertise and where
there is demonstrated demand. Initial program planning is
in Bachelor of Business (Information Management),
Bachelor of Engineering (Petroleum Engineering) and
Bachelor of Science (Internetworking)."

However getting off topic there. I looked at the link you posted rage2, and I understand that experience is far more important in the IT industry. I have already started getting experience in the field, however not much cause I have just graduated, however 2 or 3 years at this one place (Contract work) will at least get my foot in the door. And I am for sure going to work towards certifications.

I did not realize that this was sort of a duplicate to some of the posts made later on in that "Am I getting played" thread, thanks for the heads up and indication.

--forced

[bspot]

Some places, such as oil companies, throw a lot more money at you if you have a degree and a lot more doors are open.

[bspot]

Some places, such as oil companies, throw a lot more money at you if you have a degree and a lot more doors are open.

[sputnik]

A CCNP is fairly useless without any real-world experience.

You are better off finding a job that uses your CCNA first and then worry about certs later.

[forced14]

Originally posted by sputnik
A CCNP is fairly useless without any real-world experience.

You are better off finding a job that uses your CCNA first and then worry about certs later.

I am at a job that uses that already, im writting it in two weeks, and I have already written my BCMSN and BSCI ( I did not know the CCNA was a prerequisite for the CCNP :( ). Some of the guys im working with, that have already been there a couple months or a year, are preparing for their CCNP exams, and seeing as my schooling trained me for it, it should not be a problem to get.

However I am also looking at the CCDA/DP eventually.

--forced

[mushi_mushi]

Im also looking to get my foot in the door. I know experience is probably the best asset a candidate can possess but its difficult to gain experience without some type of education, and in many cases they go hand in hand. Right now im trying to get a couple of certs under my belt, got the A+, going for the network+ and MCSA. Im not sure what kind of impact these certifications will have in terms of getting an interview or a job but I think it would be difficult for me to land a tech job with the work experience I have now. (Superstore and landscaping)

Anybody who knows how to use a computer knows there are things like testking out there that virtually guarantee a passing grade for almost any computer certification. I studied for my A+ and will agree that I learned alot about nothing. Most of the knowledge you attain is easily forgotten unless you put it to use. Alot of the things you have to learn is just useless memorization, I can't see much of this stuff being put to use in any practical terms. I agree that alot of the information is not very important and can easily be found on google.

I read the thread about devry and all I can say is im happy I didn’t go there. As far as getting an education, I believe its an investment in your future, so I would want to invest in something that actually can be applied to what I do outside of the classroom, something that’s has value, not only to myself, but to my employer.

For those of you that have your own business or are involved in the hiring process where did your employees get their education(or what program did they graduate from)? I know that alot of you will probably say education is secondary to experience but certainly the thousands of people enrolled in post secondary aren’t doing it for shits and giggles.

[GTS Jeff]

Originally posted by rage2
1. Get your foot in the door of any company
2. GET EXPERIENCE even if u get paid shit to start.
Yep, that's pretty much it.

If you're a fresh grad with no experience, you can expect to work jobs paying $15-20/hr...if you're even lucky enough to find someone who will take you in.

When I scan through resumes, I basically ignore the education part and look at the highlight of skills and work experience.


Originally posted by rage2
1. Get your foot in the door of any company
2. GET EXPERIENCE even if u get paid shit to start.

See this thread, starting at my post here:

http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread.php?s=&postid=1558125#post1558125

If you really want certifications for whatever reasons (I personally think *most* certifications are scams) most companies WILL pay for you to take the course and the exams as long as you pass. Yep, that's pretty much it. Except that certifications do matter in some IT fields...like if I see CCIE, then I'm like, "whoa baller." Sometimes employers will use certifications to weed out lots of applicants too, so it's not a bad idea to have them around.

[forced14]

Yeah the getting work experience is no problem for me. I have had about 3 years desktop service experience with the same company all the way through (started in high school), and now im working on getting networking experience and I know it will take a couple of years working in the networking field before it starts looking good on the resume. Either way, making around 20 an hour is good for someone who is 19 and already out of college.

--forced

[rage2]

Originally posted by mushi_mushi
Im also looking to get my foot in the door. I know experience is probably the best asset a candidate can possess but its difficult to gain experience without some type of education, and in many cases they go hand in hand.
Not true. The IT sector is so hungry for good people, you can get away with having ZERO education. See my post further down.

Originally posted by forced14
Yeah the getting work experience is no problem for me. I have had about 3 years desktop service experience with the same company all the way through (started in high school), and now im working on getting networking experience and I know it will take a couple of years working in the networking field before it starts looking good on the resume. Either way, making around 20 an hour is good for someone who is 19 and already out of college.
3 years of desktop service? Man you're wasting your time, what the hell are you doing staying at the lowest IT rung for so long???

The more I read these threads, the more I realize that most people are NOT motivated enough to push themselves harder, seek endlessly for new opportunities, and go further than others. They just sit back and go with the flow and get stuck at dead end jobs. So here's rage2's guide to IT success with zero education. A history lesson of what I did. I've given this advice to others and they've applied parts or all of it with great success.

I'll start with grade 12. I took 4 spares in the first sememster, which allowed me to work full time for the summer after grade 11 until second semester of grade 12 (about 7 months). During this time I was working as a busboy. I noticed that the restaurant manager whenever a menu item changes, or a special comes up, calls in a point of sale "expert" for $80/hr to program their POS systems. So during non busy times, I busted out the manual and read it on the shitter. Next thing you know, I was doing all the programming for them, saving them $80/hr (they hire me at what $7/hr at the time).

With this experience, I started undercutting the "official" service guys and began programming POS systems for restaurants for $40/hr. I was saving the restaurants more than half. For a 2 hour job the official vendors would provide, I was able to do it in 1 hour. Pretty soon I was a lot of restaurant owner's best friends.

From here I decided to start selling computers out of my car. My rep was getting pretty good and I was being referred to by the managers I help out, so my customer base began to grow. I started providing on site service for free for people that bought computers off me. After a month of happy computing, when they ran into problems, viruses, I try to help them over the phone, and if that failed, onsite service at $50/hr.

That's part 1 of the story. About 18 months, and a lot of experienced gained. I would say the basics of my troubleshooting skills lies within these 18 months while I was in high school.

The next 2 years were my U of C years before I dropped out. Mostly getting drunk and playing big2, going to karaoke, so I'll skip that section entirely :rofl:.

OK so after I was done, I put an ad out in the computer paper (thanks to ScCab) and began selling computers out of my car again. Same business idea as before. Customer base grew again. One of my customers was a bigwig at a local oil and gas company, and I ended up being the official supplier for home systems because of my service and fast troubleshooting skills. I started dabbling in networking at this point, learned everything I needed to know, setup client side VPN connections, home networks, etc.

One of the people that worked there, his wife worked at an accounting firm and needed someone to manage their network. That's how I got started into network management. Learned everything there was to learn about domains, security, auditing, everything that a small/mid sized firm needs to know. People started hearing more about me, one guy that's faster and cheaper than the competition. Pretty soon I was managing networks for car dealerships, all the way to small/mid sized firms with 100-200 employees. No education. No certification.

That's part 2. All that happened in about 2 years time.

So basically, in 4 years, I was able to go from a busboy, to a high demand uncertified network guru and was making about $70k/yr working out of my car and the back of my parent's photo store (that's where Beyond Computing was located).

Part 3 of this story sucks, it starts off with an audit and a $65k fine lol. I'll skip that part too. Lesson learned here... if you run your own business, HIRE A BOOKKEEPER. FILE TAXES WITH AN ACCOUNTANT. Don't do that shit yourself, one small screwup gets mighty expensive lol.

So anyways, part 3. At this point, I wanted to learn new stuff, so I got into hacking, learning how exploits work, reverse engineering, and all sorts of other fun stuff. My buddy ran CyberWAVE, and was having problems with a hacker doing DOS attacks on him. With my help, I was able to track down who was responsible, and worked with the FBI to catch the guy. With the evidence I helped collect, the culprit was sent away for some time. At around the same time, Replicon was just starting out. They had their servers hosted at CyberWAVE and was begining to hire people. CEO asked owner of CWAVE who he knew that knows a lot of random shit and can do a lot of random shit. I was recommended, and I joined because I wasn't happy with being audited and rather work for someone to avoid tax issues in the future.

I was hired in 1999 officially as Tech Support. From there I moved into tons of roles, development, support manager, sales engineer before finally settling down in IT. Now I run the IT department. During my 7 years (so far) here, I've had job offers from companies that I had to deal with, even with Big o' Microsoft.

So there you have it. Anyone can do this if they put enough effort and heart into it. I personally know of at least 5-10 guys who followed a similar path. As long as you're willing to learn all the time, you can do the same shit too.

</motivational_speech>

[forced14]

3 years of desktop service? Man you're wasting your time, what the hell are you doing staying at the lowest IT rung for so long???

Yeah the reason I WAS in desktop support was because I got the job through a high school program at the end of grade 11, and then just continued to work there while I finished up College (Really easy job that paid good while going to school). However, once I finished SAIT, I got out of that job and I am now working at a job which uses what I learnt in SAIT, even though its level 1 network support, its experience and for the year or two that the contract lasts, it will look good on the resume, and I am learning a little bit while im here.

However I am still part time at the company I am doing desktop support. I work 12 hour days at the new company, so I have some days off where I can just show up and make money doing desktop support.

However... Sounds like you are in the position to hire people! Are you looking for any Cisco guys! :D :D

--forced

[Genjuro]

I'm sorry but CCNP? do you even have your CCNA first of all?
I finished my Network Technician course 2 1/2 years ago at SAIT (before they changed it to "NNT") and after the practicum I finished off my A+, Network +, MCSE, CCNA and got a job working for Ticketmaster Canada as an Information Technology Representative. This is basiclly the lowest IT job in the company because the lack of exp i have, not the education. no doubt I am quickly moving up though not because of both, but how hard I work, how much I "please" clients, and how much of a people person I have become.
before I was hired into the company, I was told by the IT Director of canada (the same person who interviewed me) that they chose me over people who knew more about Technology but because of my social skills and the will to learn. (the education from sait had some to do with it of course since i did pass a couple tests they had me do.)

To answer your question about what I have found successful is: not being a complete nerd and having a social life, try to dip your hands in every possible part into IT as you can. that includes networking, hardware, software and security, and try to get as much experience from a company that has nowhere else to go but up. find that company and work your ass off to show that your are worthy. paper is paper.. dont worry about certs that much unless you are required to have it.

Rage2, pretty cool story. I have a couple (not of me really.. yet) that I could add sometime as well, but it basiclly ends off the same thing im trying to do.. work hard and dip into everything you can.
hope that made sence..


:D

[Genjuro]

Originally posted by forced14


Are you looking for any Cisco guys! :D :D

--forced

not to bash you or anything, but what you learned in Sait's cisco course is not really enough to put into the real world. there is SO much more, you will be shocked. the stuff i have seen in my company is completely unbelieveable. so yeah i guess your doing the right thing in asking for positions in the section you have most interest in... so nevermind heh.... just remember that in IT, you can never know everything.

/edit sorry double post..

[forced14]

Originally posted by Genjuro
I'm sorry but CCNP? do you even have your CCNA first of all?


I have already written my BSCI and BCMSN, and I write my CCNA in about two weeks. I should have written the CCNA about a year ago, but did not want to write it because I did not think it was a prerequisite for the CCNP. Now that I know it is a prerequisite, I am writting it in the next couple of weeks.


Originally posted by Genjuro
To answer your question about what I have found successful is: not being a complete nerd and having a social life


haha, not sure if this was directed at me specifically, but the reason I have already written some of my exams is because we spent two months for each CCNP exam in school (covering the content that would be discussed on the exam) and
I just happened to go write the exams after we were finished that part of the class. As well, there is plenty of time to read at work while its not busy, and they would like me to get minimum my CCNA. If I get CCNP, in a year or so I can probably move up to a level 2 position. So there is reason for the certifications. The subject content for the CCNP relates to the level 2 position.

As well, I would not mind getting into the security side of things, such as auditing. At least that way im not going completely into one side of networking, but have a little knowledge in one or two more other areas.


Originally posted by Genjuro
not to bash you or anything, but what you learned in Sait's cisco course is not really enough to put into the real world. there is SO much more, you will be shocked.



Yeah I agree with you there, I know we barely touched on most things, and I was really wanting to get away from ISDN, thought it was fading out. Got to this job and its still used alot, as well as VPN, Which I wish they had taught us ALOT more on VPN, but they barely even discussed it. This is one of the main reasons im pursuing certifications, because it makes me go deeper into some of the technologies which we touched in class.

Thanks for the insight, it helps me out to hear about what has worked for everyone, and what has not worked.

--forced

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by rage2
So there you have it. Anyone can do this if they put enough effort and heart into it. I personally know of at least 5-10 guys who followed a similar path. As long as you're willing to learn all the time, you can do the same shit too.

&lt;/motivational_speech&gt;

Don't forget Rage2, not everyone is as gifted as you. Some need to hide behind their certs. But you're right, the brightest IT guys I ever met don't bother with certs. As long as you're confident, can read and know you shit, you'll be fine in IT.

[Genjuro]

Originally posted by forced14


haha, not sure if this was directed at me specifically

Not at all. Just stating that I've seen many people out there who eat sleep shit any type of tech and are either completely in their own world and not care about anything in real life and others like Rage who are cool and stuff... :thumbsup:

but thats besides it.. and i see your point though.
let me tell you about one of my co-workers. the dude started out in the phone room/call centre. showed interest in PCs and such while working there then got into the networking... next thing you know, he is IT Manager for western canada and 1st of the network operations centre for canada... want to know how many certs hes got? None. but the guy can program any cisco series router out there by head... oh and hes cool as hell lol. this is all probably in a 5-7 year span though..

anyways, i have no point...

[rage2]

I'm not gifted, just a hard worker. Anyone can do what I do if they work hard enough IMO.

[redline]

Originally posted by rage2
I'm not gifted, just a hard worker. Anyone can do what I do if they work hard enough IMO.

I agree, hard work and the right attitude will get you a long way, and I hire poeple for IT in a oil and gas company (manage the Dept.)

The last two people I hired for helpdesk jobs, had zero to little bit of experience, had a basic understanding of computers and willness to learn and do what they were told, and GOOD customer service skills. (something that lacks in this field)

that being said, all the top people under me have degrees and and diplomas.

But for those of you take anything cisco, total waste of time for a junior person, dont waste your money!

Dont expect to work on servers in six months and put in the time doing the dirt work and it will pay!

[///|ndy]

Holy shit rage, quite a colorful life you lived so far.

The thing is you probably got started at the right time in IT, you saw the opportunity and took it. Even with hard work, if the opportunity doesn't present itself, or the person is too dumb to spot it, they won't get to where you are.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by rage2
I'm not gifted, just a hard worker. Anyone can do what I do if they work hard enough IMO.

Working hard doesn't work in IT if you're dumb as a rock.

[PaleRider]

Originally posted by rage2
I'm not gifted, just a hard worker. Anyone can do what I do if they work hard enough IMO.

hard workers with the right connections. great story!:clap:

[rage2]

Originally posted by PaleRider
hard workers with the right connections. great story!:clap:
The moral of the story is, I made my own connections. I don't think I was lucky or anything, just that I worked my ass off, and did enough good work that people took notice.

[Genjuro]

I think having a good attitude and personality should be added to that Rage. it goes with every job out there. no one wants to work for or with an asshole.