Thanks, Brian, for the sound advice. I've just finished Semester 4 (though I got my CCNA a couple of months ago) and look forward to Sem. 5. As I've stated before, I'm going the Academy route for cost reasons, hands-on with an extensive lab but also to benefit from the interaction between other students. They range in experience from an experienced network consultant through guys and gals just a couple of years out of high school to people making a mid-life career switch. One thing I will add to your post is to stick with it, practice, practice, practice, do as much labwork as you can. If possible, work with xNIX -- the Academy program is expanding to include a Solaris cert which I'm very excited about. This will get you comfortable with CLI, scripting, and networking concepts like DNS zones, DHCP, routing daemons, mail daemons, processes, debugging and generally finding your way around a network.. Remember that a router is basically a dedicated computer. The broader the networking-related knowledge, the better. From my experience, employers don't necessarily want someone whose skills are too tightly focussed on one platform, not to mention that you won't be as effective in troubleshooting if all you know is the Cisco Way. And one last thing -- this is exciting stuff. It can be fun. Love the technology, people. (it won't love you back, but it makes your job a lot more enjoyable )
>>> "brian hall" 12/17/2001 7:48:19 PM >>> ----------minor snip-------------------------- I wanted it to be more of a heads up to all who are about to take on sem5 . Don't think of advance routing as a course to run through just to reach a designation of ccnp and hopefully ccie. It cant work for you that way. I bit off more than I can chew by spreading myself too thin . That will be remedied. They are good skills to master and will benefit for the obvious reasons. Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=29506&t=29212 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
