fxhans21: Thanks for the feedback. A lot of people I've been asking both online and offline tend to recommend self study at this stage. With A+, it seems very doable. With network+, I guess I could buy some cheap PCs and network them. I found a website which offers free study guides for IT certifications I'll start going thru their guides this weekend. If I really can learn all the skills without having to go to a physical education provider, it will be much cheaper in the long run.
No problem.
Just a word of warning when going for online study guides (I've removed your link from my quote because I'm not sure how legit that site is, I'm kind of out of touch on that side of things):
Be extremely careful avoid any site that claims to be a braindump or a replica of the actual exam or anything like that if/when you are caught, Prometric & Pearson (the two main companies that oversee most of the IT certification testing) can assist the certification vendors to void certifications, it happens and it's time, money and effort down the drain. Recommend you take a look at a site like http://www.certguard.com/information.asp (I remember this site from a few Microsoft presentations back in the day) on the things to watch out for/avoid.
I've seen some odd things happen around vendor certifications, some I still can't believe myself.
(Edit: I'll take Tim's word that it's likely Legit ;))
I agree with most of what others have said.I'm in networking also done system admin in the past. Have studied both at Computer Power and Christchurch Polytechnic.
I did Computer Power Dip in Network Engineering from 2008 to 2010.Pro's are staff care about your studies, workstations and labs were up to date and always worked.Most of the course work was relevant. Flexible study options, I was full time study for 4 months then I landed a full time IT job and switched to part time/night studies.
Cons: Self study course work can be hard to find motivation especially if your doing part time study at night, after 8 hours work sometimes you just feel like going home.Some of the tutors have no knowledge on topics you maybe studying and have to call over another staff member, this was even worse when I did CCNA as none of the staff had CCNA or studied for it so it really was self study.
My advice, decide whether you want to go down the Networking or System Admin route, if networking do CCNA, if Sys Admin do MS Certs and don't worry about the CompTIA exam's.I'm not sure of your experiance or current job but your first IT job will be helpdesk or support type role, you may get lucky and get a Junior Networking or system's role but don't get your hopes up and think you will land a Engineer role earning 90k, everyone starts at the bottom.Also only spend 1 year in a helpdesk/support job, 2 years at the max, try not to get into a comfort zone.
Would I recommend Computer Power ? Yes. Also if you wanted to save money and not get a student loan you could always buy a cert book, setup a virtual lab, watch some youtube tutorials even use CBT nuggets or Train signal and do it all yourself. If your doing CCNA I would be more than happy to talk to you about it and how to prepare for it.
I agree with most of what others have said.I'm in networking also done system admin in the past. Have studied both at Computer Power and Christchurch Polytechnic.
I did Computer Power Dip in Network Engineering from 2008 to 2010.Pro's are staff care about your studies, workstations and labs were up to date and always worked.Most of the course work was relevant. Flexible study options, I was full time study for 4 months then I landed a full time IT job and switched to part time/night studies.
Cons: Self study course work can be hard to find motivation especially if your doing part time study at night, after 8 hours work sometimes you just feel like going home.Some of the tutors have no knowledge on topics you maybe studying and have to call over another staff member, this was even worse when I did CCNA as none of the staff had CCNA or studied for it so it really was self study.
My advice, decide whether you want to go down the Networking or System Admin route, if networking do CCNA, if Sys Admin do MS Certs and don't worry about the CompTIA exam's.I'm not sure of your experiance or current job but your first IT job will be helpdesk or support type role, you may get lucky and get a Junior Networking or system's role but don't get your hopes up and think you will land a Engineer role earning 90k, everyone starts at the bottom.Also only spend 1 year in a helpdesk/support job, 2 years at the max, try not to get into a comfort zone.
Would I recommend Computer Power ? Yes. Also if you wanted to save money and not get a student loan you could always buy a cert book, setup a virtual lab, watch some youtube tutorials even use CBT nuggets or Train signal and do it all yourself. If your doing CCNA I would be more than happy to talk to you about it and how to prepare for it.
Hi Zilvia,
Thank you for sharing your experience. I've started some self study for Comptia A+ material at the moment using free study guides on the net. Thing is, I'm not sure whether I should go the A+ then Network+, or just shoot for CCNA. To be honest, I need to learn the basics, even with A+, there's a lot of things I didn't know when I went thru the study material so I think I'm not ready for CCNA yet. I'm a complete newbie to the world of IT (apart from having been a typical end user :) )
And I'm not sure whether to go for networking or system admin. Could you advise me of the job prospects, pay and long term career viability for both?
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