If you think Cisco training might be for you, and you’ve no practical experience with switches and routers, it’s likely you’ll need a CCNA course. This teaches you the necessary skills to set up and maintain routers. Vast numbers of routers make up the internet, and national or international corporations with various different locations also need routers to connect their computer networks.
You might end up joining an internet service provider or maybe a large company that is spread out geographically but needs regular secure data communications. This career path is very well paid and quite specialised.
Getting your Cisco CCNA is more than adequate; don’t let some salesperson talk you into starting with the CCNP. Once you’ve worked for a few years, you’ll know whether you need to train up to this level. Should that be the case, you’ll have the knowledge you need to master your CCNP – which is quite a hard qualification to acquire – and mustn’t be entered into casually.
Proper support is incredibly important – look for a package that includes 24×7 access, as not opting for this kind of support could impede your ability to learn. Many only provide email support (too slow), and telephone support is usually to a call-centre which will take the information and email an instructor – who’ll call back sometime over the next 1-3 days, when it suits them. This is all next to useless if you’re sitting there confused over an issue and can only study at specific times.
The very best programs tend to use a web-based 24 hours-a-day service involving many support centres over many time-zones. You’re offered an interface that switches seamlessly to the best choice of centres any time of the day or night: Support when you need it. Find a training school that offers this level of study support. As only true live 24×7 round-the-clock support provides the necessary backup.
Each programme of learning really needs to work up to a widely recognised certification as an end-result – not some little ‘in-house’ plaque for your wall. If the accreditation doesn’t feature a company like Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco or CompTIA, then chances are it could have been a waste of time and effort – because it won’t give an employer any directly-useable skills.
Traditional teaching in classrooms, involving piles of reference textbooks, is usually pretty hard going. If all this is ringing some familiar bells, look for learning programmes that are on-screen and interactive. Many years of research has time and time again verified that getting into our studies physically, is proven to produce longer-lasting and deeper memory retention.
Top of the range study programs now offer self-contained CD or DVD materials. By watching and listening to instructors on video tutorials you’ll find things easier to remember via their teaching and demonstrations. Knowledge can then be tested by interacting with the software and practicing yourself. You’ll definitely want a look at some courseware examples from the school that you’re considering. You’ll want to see demo’s from instructors, slideshows and fully interactive skills-lab’s.
Often, companies will only use online training only; while you can get away with this much of the time, consider how you’ll deal with it if your access to the internet is broken or you get slow speeds and down-time etc. A safer solution is the provision of CD and DVD ROM materials that don’t suffer from these broadband issues.
A knowledgeable and professional advisor (in contrast with a salesperson) will cover in some detail your abilities and experience. This is useful for understanding your study start-point. An important point to note is that, if you’ve got any accreditation or direct-experience, then you can sometimes expect to start at a different point than a trainee with no history to speak of. Always consider starting with some basic Microsoft package and Windows skills first. Starting there can make the learning curve a much easier going.
By: Mr Jason Kendall