Two minor obstacles...

[tcpip]

Well, my CCNA exam was this morning. No, I didn't pass. The computer crashed just after I started and so I had to wait an additional fifteen minutes for a restart (by which time I was getting tired, having been up since 3am). I also had the misfortune of discovering a couple of days ago that the main text I had been using for preperation, CCNA Exam Cram, is universally regarded as a piece of shit and add like to add my weight to that assessment. There are huge sections of the course which are largely ignored (particularly router configuration, OSPF, NAT and WAN implementations) and regrettably were significant parts of the exam I just took.

The beneficial upshot of all this is that I've realized that I (a) don't really like vendor certifications or (b) fact-based exams in general. I don't really want to have to remember that the default Administrative Distance for External EIGRP is 170, whilst it is 90 for internal IGRP and all other protocols are somewhere in between. That's what technical manuals are for - to store facts. Give me universal qualifications (whether it is TAFE or university) that are longer-lasting and projects instead.

Also there is the minor matter that network engineering and systems administration are not one and the same. I think I would go batty if I spent all my life dealing only with routers, switches and cabling. Although it is oft-maligned, I actually enjoy the technical support and training side of being sysadmin. It deals with people and fundamentally, I like helping people. The other option is, of course, programming. Contrary to popular belief, although programmers do spend a long time alone hacking away at code, there is such a thing as a community of programmers and they do share a lot of knowledge with each other.

Other minor obstacle of the week is called my supervisor. Oh yes, he likes my PhD. According to him, it's the first time he's seriously had to consider the suggestion that there are technological means for democraticisation. He says that it's a unique contribution, a goldmine of information that includes the most critical issues of the topic available. It is an extremely important and valuable text which needs to be expressed in the best possible way... And therefore (you saw this coming, didn't you?)... can you do a rewrite? *sigh*

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Do you think you'll sit the exam again or has the experience of cramming all those twiddly facts into your head soured you on the possibilities of it as a career path?

No, I don't think I'll sit the vendor-exam again. I should have listened to the comments that longi made some time ago. They are designed so people fail multiple times (2-3 is typical apparently for the CCNA), they require recertification after a short period of time (3 years), they're fundamentally restricted ("What Cisco/Oracle/Microsoft etc says is true and there are no alternative interpretations") and at the end of the day, they're boring.

Now, if there's a half-decent Uni/TAFE course out there instead...

[paula-angela.livejournal.com]

and at the end of the day, they're boring

Sounds like high effort for low return. And no where near as useful as a driving license.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The pay is good for someone who has a CCNA - like $65K+. But not having a CCNA is not a restriction to doing network engineering.

I was actually thinking the same thing you on the way home... For all the effort that one puts into it, trying to get 849/1000, the return is actually very low - an pricey, proprietory, temporary qualification...

I mean, what would Bob say? It's all very anti-slack.

[zey.livejournal.com]

Agreed on that score. The MCSE certs are worse for that. Very short expiry times and many exams to pass to get them in the first place. You could so very easily end up on an expensive treadmill.

That was the main reason I was happier to go with the Solaris certification. They never expire, but, it's tied to the version. Pass the SCSA for Solaris 7 and that's with you til you die. That said, I still haven't gotten around to finishing up that (1/2 done) and we're up to Solaris 10 these days...

Careerwise, there are plusses and minuses to both TAFE and uni. TAFE can be a bit of a mixed bag: there are some great courses out there and some utterly abysmal ones. Either way, they're not as well recognised with recruiters as compsci degree holders.

OTOH, at uni you'll get a lot of largely irrelevant theory by people who've never/rarely worked in the real world and most compsci degree holders need to be retrained anyway when they hit the workforce to do actual IT job related things.

On the job IT experience is really the best teacher though. You're already on the right track by taking on consulting work.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*nods* You are absolutely right. When I was saying TAFE courses, I was thinking of the more serious ones with a strong practical orientation, like the Cert IV... WRT to uni courses, yes they are theory heavy but the advantage of that (and there is only one), is that they can be quite flexible as well - and it's research/project orientated, which I like.

The Solaris certification much better than most on the vendor specific path. Apparently there's a GNU endorsed Linux one as well these days.

On the job IT experience is really the best teacher though. You're already on the right track by taking on consulting work.

*nods* Much more enjoyable as well.