I am thinking about enrolling in a CCNP non-credit track at a local
community college. As this is non-credit, it's considerably higher priced
than standard comm college classes - approx $5600 for the 4 CCNP track
classes. It's Cisco cirriculum and they have a pretty extensive lab facility
(but then so do I, at home). It's taught by an instructor that I respect
very much. I had him 8 or 9 years ago when I was first starting my education
for a career shift after 15 years in a crap job in a different part of the
technology field. He's a great instructor that takes a sabbatical
periodically to work as a network design contractor for a major telecomm
company in my geographical area. He then comes back to teach at the college.
He stays current with changing technology. So much for the particulars of
the school, at least as I see them.
My question is not about the quality of the class. That's strictly my call
and I'm sure it will be top notch as far as a class like this goes. My
question is more "how far do classes like this go in the first place?".
What's the general feeling about the basic intrinsic value of this type of
quasi-boot camp style training. While this is not a true boot camp per se -
it's taught over a period of roughly a college semester with a week or two
breaks between the 4 modules - it's still fairly intensive training. How
valid is training like this from some of the more well known training
mills - Global Knowledge, etc? I guess wondering whether in the opinion of
the folks that have been around for a while, generally are these classes a
big waste of $$$? Am I just throwing away five grand and change? Are these
types of classes generally teaching a test or do they teach actual usable
knowledge or mabe both? I hear these advertisements for schools touting "Get
the equivalent of 2 years of real world experience in 6 weeks"...blah blah.
Call me crazy but I've always been of the belief that it takes you roughly
two years working in a field to get 2 years experience in it. I took a
couple of ju co classes and spent lots of personal time studying to pass my
CCNA and MCSE. No boot camps or expensive training classes but then it took
me a couple of years to get them both. The junior college classes helped but
it still took a lot of digging on my own. I really don't want to be another
year and half or two years finishing my CCNP too. With all that I seem to
have to keep up with in my job it'll take me that long. I'd also like to
spend more time working with Cisco security but finding the time learn it on
my own, along with the hundred thousand other things I just have to stay
current on, is the trick.
For the last three years I've work as the network admin for a small dot com,
am CCNA and MCSE (woo hoo), do all the router and switch config and
monitoring, security and firewall work, I'm the Veritas guy, the Windows
guy, one of four Linux/UNIX guys here along with the half a million other
little administrative pains in my a#$ that fill my day. Before this current
job I was an NT admin at a large midwestern bank. Most of what I know I've
just dug out of books on my own - definitely the slow way to go for me as I
have to try to keep current on about 2000 different things or so it seems.
The world of technology that I'm exposed to at my current employer is pretty
small and I will never see some of what I'm learning for the CCNP tests
here. I have another personal agenda for this training in other prospects
for employment. I'm not doing it for a raise at my current position as my
current employer has never acknowledged any cert anyone here has. I'm doing
this for me but I don't want to think I'm moving forward when in fact I'm
just p---ing away a bunch of money for nothing. I'm paying for this training
myself. The company I'm with currently has no training budget.
Sorry about the length of this. This feels more like it should have been be
a whining letter to Dear Abby ("Make my decison for me, Abby") than one to
the cisco study group asking for the experience of folks whose opinions I
value. Bottom line is what is the general consensus towards the intensive
CCNP, or for that matter, CSS1(CSSP) or MCSE or any other of these types of
classes? Good? Bad? Why? If this is a poor choice, then what's a better
way? Obviously I'm not asking about my specific school. I'm asking about the
concept of this type of training in general. I know that for you guys and
gals 5600 bucks is pocket change but for me it's almost a full week's. : )
I have no doubt that I can learn this stuff on my own but I already spend at
least a couple of hours a day reading on all that I have to stay current
with. Maybe I'm Forrest Gump but teaching myself protocols that I don't see
used on equipment I rarely get to work with just ain't real easy for me. Do
these schools really help or are they just bank account vacuums? Any
observations are appreciated.
Thanks.
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