Should Software Engineers Seek CCNA's?

kernel2 asks: "I'm in the software engineering profession and some of my friends are about to enroll on a CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Administrator) course and are egging me on to join as well. I'm trying to decide whether I should do the course or not. On the one hand it might help me understand networking (especially in bigger corps) better and that is something I love (networking). It might also help me diversify and improve my chances of landing a job in these strained and difficult times (and that's primarily why my friends are doing it). But wouldn't it look odd on my CV? I mean why would someone highly interested in software (with a Software Engineering degree) do CCNA?"

Comments

Good Luck

[JM Apocalypse]

In the past few weeks, I have tried to get my CCNA twice. I have experience one major problem, though. The curriculum that I took a course on is not properly aligned to the test. So, when I took the test, I was not adequately prepared for it. I took the version 2.2(I think) curriculum, and most of the stuff on there is on the test, with a few huge exceptions. One thing to watch out for: zero-subnet. I had no idea what this was, and it seems like the new (v3.0) curriculum doesn't fix this. It has a short section on it, but it fails to say if it only affects the first and last subnet, or just the first one, and their glossary fails to cover this subject. ** sigh **. So, let's describe to you my misery. The CCNA is scored out of 1000 points, with a 849 to pass (or a little below 85%). So, I went in to take the test, and somehow managed to get a score of 847. I don't know how I did it, and it seemed astronomical. Then, two weeks later, I went in to take the test again. The computer that I used was much faster, and I was sure that I fixed some of my problems, and found out (I think) what zero-subnet is. So, when it came time to reveal my score, I stared in horrible mortification: I got the same exact score.

Yeaaah.

I have until early-to-mid December to pass the test before it changes for the new curriculum, but I am afraid to take it again because I might get the same score ... and then I think that somebody is trying to tell me something.

That's my story -- has anybody else had any similar experiences?