Slashdot Mirror
Is Network Engineering a Viable Career?
An anonymous reader asks: "I'm fresh out of high school and interested in getting a job in networking. One option is a degree in networking, the alternative I've considered is just getting certificates (CCNA/P, A+, MCSA). A large factor in my decision is which route is most likely to land a secure and well-paid full time job. I'm located in Melbourne, Australia and I don't have any local contacts in the industry who can advise me, and so was hoping some other Australian (or international) readers could share their knowledge and experience with these issues."
I'd recommend you go to school.
Whether you go for networking or psychology is up to you, but the people you meet in college and the opportunity to interact with the faculty is not an opportunity you should pass up... Assuming it's an option for you without too many negative consequences.
As long as people want to string devices together, network engineer will be a viable career.
Get a degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering, whichever you find more interesting. Then go do the job you want to do. I've never even heard of a degree in "network engineering," and the last you want on your resume is something that makes a prospective employer say, "What the heck is that?"
Or if you don't want a 4-year degree then go the certs route. But understand that by skipping the degree you're skipping a lot of non-computer knowledge that you'll suffer for and limiting your future job prospects. Guys with certs only get no respect. More often than not, its because they don't deserve it.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
It can be pretty hard to get your first job if you're trying to be a network engineer and you don't have any formal schooling beyond those 1 week certificate courses. While what you learn may not help you a whole lot directly with your job, it will help round you out and get you past the first layer of corporate HR.
If you know someone and you know your stuff sometimes you can skip that and go straight to work, and once you have 5 years of experiance under your belt that schooling doesn't matter quite as much (although it will stand out on your Resume when you decide to move on). Ultimately though, you're going for a job that traditionally requires a good 4 year degree, and you're going to really have to prove yourself if you want to try it without it.
I read the internet for the articles.
I've learned quite a few things in my days since college, and I've learned that what I thought I might want when I was younger has now changed drastically. Now, on to my point to assist you: I am currently clawing my way up the "Network-admin" ladder at my current place of employment, and I'm loving it. I would have to say though that before you can become a true network engineer (especially for a large company) you have to truly understand the business and get a feel for what direction you need to help it grow. I've done my share of PC admin, phone support, ACD server support and the like, and it's all helped to build my backround into a solid all-around good person to have around... and all of that background helps me in more ways than I can count when I go to troubleshoot a networking issue with something like Oracle etc.
:)
Once you get your degree (yup, go to college or some other form of post-high school training) then get your foot in the door somewhere doing something supporting the end devices first. It may seem like menial work, but you'll thank me for it 5 years from now....
Karnal
If you want to go into networking get your aaaociates in Network Admin. I got my associaties in Network Admin and my bachelers in Computer management and I make $50k a year right out of college for a public library. I say go for the associates in Network Admin
I am an aussie IT consultant currently working overseas.
I know the local market very well.
My email address is published.
Berny
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Get the degree. The contacts you make in University alone will make it all worthwhile. There are lots of resume bots that will reject you out of hand if you can't tick off the "degree" square on their form.
Certificates will help, but not too much. The A+ don't mean squat. A CCNA/CCIE and CISSP are the good ones to have.
Remember, the people that invented things like TCP/IP, Sun, Cisco and Microsoft all met at University. While some dropped out, they still attended and made contacts there. They don't call it BSD for nothing.
Charles
Network Integration Engineer
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Get an electrician's license instead. You're still stringing wires, but the pay is better and it's often unionized.
I went the certs route instead of a degree.
:)
For me, it has worked. Now granted, I've worked my bloody ass off for 10 years since getting my certs, but I'm just now moving into a Manager IT position.
The degree WILL get you respect that most cert-only guys (especially today) get - but bottom line, if you want to advance, if you're willing to work HARD, train, upgrade, etc, then the education you have is IMHO less important than what you are actually capable of doing.
Yes, its my 2 cents
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
...I can say: I don't think there's a future in it.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
If you want to be a network engineer, there is a solid niche for you to hang your hat in. Just make sure you're talking about the right career path. Cisco, Juniper, Foundry (yuck), these are vendors a network engineer works with. You set up circuits, run around data centers, chase ARIN for IPs, etcetera. MCSA is a systems engineering certification. It will help you if you want to do M$ stuff, but if you want to be captain telco/network, then it will just get in your way because people will assume you know how to solve Microsoft problems and force you to do so. That will distract you from being a hardcore BGP ninja or whatever. BTW, a solid network engineer in Los Angeles makes about 100k.
Go find someone with a Fortran Cert from the 80's that has never gotten a degree. Then go find someone with a CS degree in the 80's, that used Fortran heavily in their classes. Both have probably changed their skill sets drastically over 20 years, but I bet I know which one has the better job...
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Fuck that, and get a degree, young man.
If you want to have ALL options open and available to you, and not have to search for companies who dont care to know that you can demonstrate your ability to stick to something, succeed and overcome adversity. (like running out of money and ramen two days before finals, forcing you to sleep with an ugly chick for sympathy and a fast $20)
A degree will allow you, should you enter the field and discover it is not really for you, to do something, almost anything else, while finding out what you love.
College sucks on its best day, but nothing sucks worse than running out of options when you are in need. Unless you like sleeping with ugly chicks forever, GET THE DEGREE.
in canada.
not to bad, didn't take too long to get here (3 years from starting at the company)
I know several people who have been successful in the field and some went the cert route and others got their degree. The most important part of succeeding in any career is to stay active in searching for opportunities and then taking them. Generally, the best way to find those opportunities is networking - people, not computers.
If you think you might want to work at a large corporation, you might need the degree to make it past the HR obstacle. In addition, with just the certs you might be lower on the payscale than someone with the degree. That isn't to say you can't get promoted and eventually make more, but it may be a harder road. Most universities also have some sort of career center that can help to connect you with companies. If not, the professors probably have some connections. This makes it a lot easier to get that first good job and maybe some good internship experience. You can also meet some people you normally wouldn't, like CIOs and VPs that come to give presentations or former students who have done well.
I would recommend you go for the degree as that can serve as a better tool to further your career later. Remember, the degree might take 4 years, but you can then use it for the next 40. I know you might be eager to get to work, and don't want to put up with some of the boring classes, but you never know what you might learn or find interesting. There is a reason that the university courses take a long time - they teach a lot. (Or at least they should.) A degree also allows you to follow-up with a Masters or Ph.D. or even an MBA. You might not want to go into the business/management side right now, but you might find out that if you want to get promoted past a certain point you might need it.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
"Assuming it's an option for you without too many negative consequences."
Not TOO many.
You are better off working at McDonalds for the rest of your life.
I make ~$82K/annum doing network stuff. And reading slashdot
WHile I agree that the possesion of a college degree is the best way to go, saying the option "can't hurt" is hugely overstated. A lot of people that have a passing interest in computers go and get their degree. But guess what... they lack experience, and often find they DONT love computers enough to deal with all of the politics that come with it. In the end, they have a $40k loan to pay off while working as a cashier at McDonalds.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Four years ago I was in the same boat. Go to school or go after the certifications? At the time, I wanted the quick way - certifications. I could get them quickly and move on the greener pastures. My final year of High school I started the process of getting a couple of them trying to get a head start for when I applied to companies. Fortunately, someone talked me out of this path. I found a school known for its Computer Science program across the country. Since then I have learned more about programming and networking than the certification classes ever taught. Going for the degree teaches more than just computers. It teaches how to deal with different types of people. Do you have a crotchety old professor? How do you deal with him? Do you have a pushover professor? How do you deal with him? What about a drunk room mate, or loud neighbors? How you learn to deal with these people is part of life - because trust me - you won't like everyone you deal with. Your job won't just be computers. It will be how you deal with your boss, your coworkers and your customers. College also provides job options. At college you can get a job in an area that interests you. For myself, it was in the IT center of the campus. I've learned how to support a network with more than 20,000 users. Practical experience plus a degree is more useful to you than a sheet of paper that you have to renew in three years. Your certifications expire - your degree won't. Go for the degree. My experience landed my a $55K a year job upon graduation. What will your High School Diploma get you?
1) Get a network admin degree at a community college (this is cheap and courses overlap)
2) Get computer engineer degree at college
3) Meanwhile get your certificates (optional but helpful)
4) Get contacts while in college
First, you can get a decent job with just your certs, but you will have an easier job, have more opportunities, or get payed better with a degree. There are always exceptions to the rule but generally this will be true. The degree will provide more opportunities down the line.
Odds are, you just suck.
Certs are mostly just a big scam, except for some of the higher end ones. When we do hiring we never require them. The only person in our org that I know of who has any certs is the biggest fucking flake on earth and has no clue what they are doing. Their ass is getting fired within the year. It's people like them who have so demeaned the value of certs that they are meaningless.
I got a "network engineering" degree by going for electrical and computer engineering, then getting a job with the university network services department, a job I kept for four and a half years through college. Even though I was just a student aid, after that many years responsibilities can fall in your lap, and for a time I managed the university's DHCP processes (well, BootP back then).
When interviewing for jobs, I could analyze analog and digital circuits, interpret C and assembly code examples, and answer networking questions. My interview day at Adtran, for example, included three interviews: one hardware, one software, and one networking. The job I eventually took (not with Adtran, I didn't want to live in Alabama) was a networking technology group of general tech company. I still work there, though I've moved into an 80% digital 20% analog 0% networking position.
(Incidentally, all the digital now is VHDL, and all the analog is unrelated to the op amp / feedback analysis stuff I had in college. In fact, I use very little of what I actually learned in college beyond the basics. But, college taught me how to learn about engineering, so I can pick up new things as I need them.)
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Those who can, do.
Those who can't, get certificates.
Go to college and get an internship that will give you lots of hands-on experience. If you want to do networks, expect that as an intern you will start out doing the drudge work of pulling cables and filling in punchdown blocks. But you should also expect (and this should guide you in selecting which company to do your internship with) to eventually get to the point where you are configuring and troubleshooting the routers too. Learn to write (and debug) network applications on unix too, try writing your own ftp client or MUCH better some tool that will be useful in your intern job.
Don't know if this will be much help as I live in the US, but here goes. I flunked out of college after 2 semesters in college, so I have no real degree. Got my A+ (in 2001). Then for 5 years I cut my teeth in the screwdriver shops, and after some time, i arose as the go- to guy for nearly everything. I was going on- site and setting up small networks with commodity routers and nothing really centralized. At the same time, i was also taking on side work. You should have seen the look on my old high school friends' faces when I told them I was making $45/hr for side jobs(at age 22!) whilst they're all racking up huge tuition bills.
Only about 6 months ago did I really move up into a job where i'm working more on the backend of things, Cisco, Server '03, etc. It was something that I exposed myself to all along, as that was my ambition from the start, so I was ready when it was time. Now I'm at the point where I'm studying for my CCNA, and a wonderful thing is happening. The more I am learning about the underlying technologies that make networks work, the more everything i know makes sense. Why things are done the way they are.
As for you, definitely get your A+ to start. Early on, while I was getting ready for my A+, I also had a book for a Nortel Cert, but found it to be over my head, so you may want to hold off on the CCNA. Definately test the waters, and get books like the Cisco Press CCNA study guide. Also, at this point, you should be happy with ANY job you can get working with computers. I doubt there are many people 20 that could deal with or want to deal with the stresses and forced 24/7 availability Network Engineers are faced with. To want to be a Network Engineer is definitely a noble ambition, but it's not as easy as getting your CCNA and then people are knocking down your door with 50k/year job offers. There is A LOT, like a whole career's worth, that only comes with experience.
So yes, you can do it, but realize that like everyone else who goes to college or not, you have a lot to learn.
Essentially, though it may look good, it doesn't always mean you're actually good at what you are trying to do.
I'm currently taking a Network Engineering diploma. 2 year, polytechnic school. It covers a wide variety of things but Cisco is the core. We actually have a sister school in Australia, two of our classmates went over there last summer for three weeks.
The classes focus on a wide variety of things that would really prepare you to step into a position as a junior admin. Besides Cisco (CCNA and CCNP levels) it covers OS from desktop use to server, linux and windows, even spent a couple weeks poking around netware. Active directory, exchange, dhcp, web servers, wireless (access points and large bridges), fibre optics, perl, relational databases (isql), snmp, backup systems, voip (cisco) and a few other odds and ends.
Decent enough program, I've learned a lot. Give or take I'm in a position to write CCNA/CCNP, CWNA, A+, Server+, MCSA, and CVOIP, based on what we've actually learned. I'll probably write half of those. IBM has a NOC in town and hires a great number of our grads right out of the gate as junior network analysts. About 1/3 every year for the last 3 years or so.
I personally don't put a great deal of stock in certifications. However some places do. Its really up to you. You decide how you want to limit yourself. You can take the degree, or you can take the certifications, or you can do both. Doing one or the other will limit you for certain jobs.
In five years, people will just buy the equipment, hook it up, and press a button, and it will configure itself. There are products that are in the pipeline now that have this capability. Similar things are happening in operating systems. So do your best to get a good, general computer science education and avoid training that is wedded to specific types of hardware or specific vendors or operating system unless your goal is very short term. Even large organizations will rarely have the need for the kind of computer support staff that they all used to have. As you see, this shakeout is already happening.
On the other hand if your opportunity to go to 'college' is really only an opportunity to go to a trade school to get your foot in the door at a two year community college, I would base the decision on whether the school is free and your rent cheap. If you have to take out loans becareful. Weigh this very carefully. Many smarter people are self motivated enough to do better in the same amount of time teaching themselves. But the economic environment is also constricting and many larger companies wont hire people without at least a four year degree. This wasn't the case five years ago but now they can pick and choose.
Good luck. Its a jungle out there.
I'm a manager at a large telecommunications equipment vendor and I run a team that designs and transforms networks for large carriers.
Hiring is all about reducing the risk to my company. I have just a few hours to figure someone out in an interview. Anyone can put on a show for a few hours. Given two candidates that are equal except for a degree, it is much less risky for me to hire the candidate with a university degree.
A four-year university degree tells me something about a candidate. Committing to a four year program shows long-term planning and ambition. Completing a four year program in computer science or engineering shows excellent time management skills and a hard-working character.
Someone without a degree may have those same traits but they will have a very hard time convincing me of it. Like I said, anyone can fake these attributes for a few hours in an interview. But a four-year degree demonstrates that they are much more likely to have the traits I and my peers in the industry are looking for.
The other benefits of a degree are already mentioned in other posts. Never underestimate the power of the personal and professional connections you will make in university. No other forum offers the same opportunities.
Go to university.
college! My company recently downsized the I.T. department, guess which people are left. Not the guys with the certs, first question asked by HR was who in the department has college degrees. It didn't matter what the degree was in (mines in Poli-Sci) just that you had one.
EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
Through an odd quirk I ended up with several years of pre-engineering in college, but no degree or high-school diploma. I got a 'real job' and worked my way up from shipping lacky / errand boy / cable monkey to desktop support, PBX management, network / server support, and eventually network engineering (in title - I'm not a 'real engineer' and I know the title annoys those that are). I've never gotten a job without knowing someone on the inside, and have mostly worked in smaller companies, although my experience (nearly 20 years now) has made me think that smaller companies are much better (more cool tech work, less paperwork and fewer BS meetings). I once had certs - CCNA / CCDA /CCNP / CISSP / MCSE / CCSE (checkpoint) and some others, but every one has since expired. I'm still considering going back for a real degree myself, just to learn more about programming to better automate large-scale network management (scripting and such). I would expect you'll spend 4-5 years doing grunt work either in school or as a 'tradesman' going the certs route. Getting a degree will probably open more doors, but ultimately you'll be propelled (or limited) by what you can do and how hard you are willing to work doing it. I'm making about US$130+k gross as an independent consultant in no-where central US in a pretty cushy gig (for now), but I busted my ass for years to get here. One of the biggest challenges I had getting started was that few companies want to expose their critical infrastructure to an inexperienced tech, and getting experience is nearly impossible (or was then - I started before the cisco academy and most of the various certs were available - and didn't have the cash to take the few classes that were). I'd say that if you have the means, get a bachelors in something - if for no other reason than to learn how to think, problem solve, and communicate, and get a piece of paper that doesn't expire. Then, get your CCIE (and HATE that job posts will say "CCNA/CCIE required", as though they are equivalent - it's like saying "Brain surgeon wanted - must have first aid merit badge or PHD").
The other night I was talking to a guy who just graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a degree in CS. He knew pretty much everything I knew and more. The guy was in his early twenties and already making more money than I am. Because he has a degree, he has access to many more potential employers than I do. He also has the sort of "college" experience with projects and deadlines that employers recognize. I have the same experience from consulting, but a lot of employers are blind to real world experience. Their organizations have hiring guidelines, and 9.9 times of 10, those hiring guidelines will give preference to someone who has most of the skills and a college education over someone who has all of the skills and five plus years worth of experience.
I honestly think that the only reason I made it as far as I did is because I was in the right place at the right time. I was playing with FTP over SLIP connections at 14.4. I was playing with Slackware in the early 90s. I was going to LA 2600 and Defcon (since the first one baby!). Because of all that hobbiest "experience" that I had, when the computerization of the work place really blew up in the early to mid 1990s, I was in the right place at the right time. There were more companies needing competent tech people than there were competent tech people to fill the positions. I think that the situation is still the same with a lack of competent tech people, but now there are more formalized programs to provide training to those people, so employers expect more of candidates.
The final reason that I'd suggest college over certifications is that college will provide you with a much broader skillset. With certifications you will be good at one thing, or a small subset of things. With a college degree, and especially a CS degree, you will understand the big picture. You will see the entire system, from the lowest hardware level, to the highest application level. Corporations can use people with specific skills, but they want people who can see the big picture. People who can see the big picture eventually end up managing the people with specific skills. One of the largest reasons that I took my current position is that even though I'm earning less money, and even though I have less schedule flexibility, I do have a pretty clear shot at running the IT department in the next three to five years. I'm very fortunate. You won't find many IT directors out there without a college degree.
You can get it with both.
If you go out and do the courses you can get yourself a good job. If you go out and get a degree you can get a good job. Either one will help. Aus is an interesting market like that, you can get some good experience there (To a point) which you just can't get in other countries for different reasons; it's a cultural thing. But there are some jobs that you will go for (And this might not affect you for 10+ years) that people will want a degree for. I also know people who are still working in their 60s in the industry earning good money without them.
Take a look for my earlier comments, I know the market and am willing to talk to you on the phone.
Berny
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
depends, do you like pulling cable, rebooting routers at 4am, being on call, 24x7, doing entry-level tech support at ood hours, reinstalling network drivers, all just over entry level pay?
Network 'engineering' isn't engineering. go to school, get a real engineering degree.
Otherwise, you are a cable puller and router-rebooter, and those are a dime a dozen.
Want an engineering job, get an engineering degree. Otherwise, might as well wear the paper hat and trainee badge.
Hi,
I am in my early 30's and I am currently the most Senior Network Engineer for one of Canada's top 10 largest Financial Institutions (banks). My experience & advice differs signficantly from most people's apparent armchair advice in this slashdot thread. I seriously question how many of the user comments here are actually from "Network Egineers" as opposed to "Systems Administrators" which are often also titled "Network Administrators" but whose responsibilities are primarily managing server/software as opposed to managing switches, routers & firewalls.
In my 10 year career I've worked on over 5 different National and even International Networks (including Telco's & Cable companies), one of which I even designed from scratch, and specifically I've worked on some of Canada's largest networks (easily in the top 25 list). I'm stating this not for bragging rights, but simply to say that my advice comes from direct experience in the field.
Here's my advice to you:
1) Try before you buy - Above all else, you should choose this career path because you like the day to day work it involves. Money & fancy titles should be very secondary considerations. So if you are serious, by all means try it out, but possibly try to get some student co-op work or even some entry level work with a small company first, before you spend your parents life savings on a 4+ year education.
2) University Degree vs Certification - Believe it or not I have neither! Not a single cert (albeit I've taken over 10 different Cisco courses, a few Lucent courses, and even 2 or 3 Microsoft courses earlier in my career). Here in the West Coast of Canada experience is king!
2a)The problem with degrees & certifications: In my grade 12 highschool days (early 90's) there was no such thing as a "Network Engineer" degree. To this day, the local University only offers Computer Science and Computer Engineering bachelour degrees, albeit they did introduce about 5 years ago a 2 year diploma program for "Network Administrators + Security" (I forget the exact title, but it still wasn't purely network engineering). At the various jobs I've had, people who walk in off the street with zero experience just a bunch of fancy certifications or computer science/engineering degrees are often either rejected work or given only very entry level positions. Why might you ask?
Certifications: For the most part people who have lots of certs, have lots of theoretical knowledge but no PRACTICAL & REAL-WORLD experience. Try as they might, no certification test & simulation scenarios will ever perfectly simulate some company's network because they are all just so wildly different - so if you walk in off the street with a cert, you'll be expected to spend at least 1 or 2 years learning the network before you would be given any high level access & responsibility. On the plus side, one might argue that Certifications give you very specific training that can and often is key to understanding the niche job world that is network engineering. On the negative side many vendors (i.e. Cisco) still have courses that are 2, 3 & even 4 years outdated. I.e. The course material no longer reflects the actual products & services that urban city companies are purchasing & implementing. I.e. CCNA still teaches RIP, ISDN & Frame relay... all very much dead technologies here on the West Coast of Canada. Mid to Large companies are all running fiber optic links either switched or dynamically routed (OSPF) over ATM or MPLS Telco networks.
University Degrees: The problem with having a University degree is that graduates have almost no *** PRACTICAL *** knowledge of how basic computers or networks actually work. Ask a Masters Degree Computer Science graduate how to install a DVD drive in their PC and they will look at you with a "I don't have a clue" kind of look. Ask them to write a software driver for a DVD player and they will ask you "which language do you prefer I write that in?". Some of them can barely figure o
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
Certs won't do you much unless you just want to jump in ASAP. I took the middle route, got an A.A.S. degree while working over the phone tech support. With plenty of computer experience you can land these without a problem. After a year at that place I was doing customer ops and accounting, so I was off the phones and got my "customer service" experience and also tech exp. I left that job and now I am doing installs and traveling, getting paid pretty damn well and enjoying it still being young as #### and doing fun ####. It's better than sitting around in school dicking around until you're 22/23 before trying to start your career. You can be 20/21, still young, making nice cash, having fun, don't wait until 25 or so when all those young hot teenagers think you're old and nasty.
I believe the implication was that the said person dropped out and so never attained a degree.
But perhaps that's what people mean when they say college 'proves you can stick to something.' Basically meaning it filters out A) stupid people and B) people who refuse to put up with bullshit, no matter how many shiny things you dangle in front of them.
I don't know that it can't hurt. Ask the guy with an M.A. in History who decides he doesn't much care for writing books or teaching how much his $120k debt is helping him in his $40k/year job.
Look, and I mean this, if you spent 120K on a History Masters, and dont want a teaching job, not only do you suck, you swallow.
I mean, come on!
A little self-awareness maybe? "Hmmm, this History degree is getting really expensive; I wonder what I will be able to do with it when I am done, since I dont like to write or teach? Hmmm...."
Yep, that takes suckage to a higher level.
THAT is the person who goes to one of those MCSE bootcamps, and proceeds to screw over companies with his new 'expertise'.
Do everything. No, seriously.
... we'll see how it goes. Right now they're trying to lure me over to a lead programmer job ($75K) based on my project management, programming and scripting skills. The comp sci dept at the college is also asking me to teach some of their vocational networking/Linux courses, which also lines my pockets.
I started at a community college, getting an Associates in Network Administration. In the process, I got to know the professors and staff, which got me in as a lab aide then as a network tech. Transfered to my four year college and began work there on a degree in Computer Science and Engineering. Kept learning stuff on the side, took some vocational Cisco courses, Microsoft courses, etc. Didn't go as far as to get certs (although for giggles might get my CCNA). While still taking classes at my four year, got a job at my same community college as a Network Engineer. I may only be pulling down $65K (but with a government, union job and full paid benefits), but I'm only a short ways off from completing my four year degree. That coupled with 5+ years experience as a Network Engineer
But I probably would be still a starving college student at this point, had I not gotten my foot in the door. Many people have stated this already above, and they're right; take a low road to get your foot in the door and gather experience. Sure you might be dealing with idiot users and menial endpoint equipment. But it's like a rite of passage. Employers are more and more looking for a combination of considerable experience plus a four year degree and maybe a few certs before they'll take a gamble on you. So you have to make yourself irresistible.
Organisation / Organization, Civilisation / Civilization, et.c.
English / American.
I know this, and I'm not even a native english speaker...
I'm going to add my view as well anyway just for the hell of it. I had a job doing web programming back in 1999-2001, and then went out and started my own "company" in another area. I joined the Chamber of Commerce and got to know people in the area. Eventually I decided to get a "real" job and was hired into the company I wanted when they weren't even really looking for someone based on my reputation in the area. Having been in business myself opened up a lot of experience that you don't usually get sitting behind the computer all the time. Another thing to consider is what kind of company you want to work for. If you're looking for a smaller company where you can have more variety in day-to-day tasks and not so much of the corporate politics and such, a degree isn't required. It may help in some cases, but usually they will look more at experience (can he get the job done) than how much formal education you have. On the other hand, if you're planning to seat yourself in a larger corporation with lots of minions all over the place, the degree will almost certainly push you to the upper third of the list when they are collecting resumes. Personally, I went to community college for about six weeks before I decided to leave school and take a job offer, but my situation was not typical. Results may vary, void where prohibited.
So then you admit you were wrong and getting a degree actually can hurt.
My point was that here you are beating the popular drum and saying 'go to school, nothing but good can come from it'. So I just offered up a scenario where, clearly, bad things could come from it. The problem is guys who think maybe they don't want to go to school (like the OP) get bullied with the cliché you keep hollering at him that he's got nothing to lose when in fact he does.
Maybe he doesn't want a career. Maybe he's entrepreneurial. Maybe he lives a monastic life. Maybe he just hates school environments and dreads the idea of going through four more years of it.
If any of those are the case and he's not just another drone who can't stand risk levels any higher than crossing the street then why shouldn't he take an unconventional leap? Fortune favors the bold.
Listen carefully. Do I have your attention? Okay, here we go.....
Being stupid can hurt.
If you go to college, you can find out just how stupid you are, REALLY FAST.
Then you can quit, long before spending a lot of money, and get an MCSE and profit!
Now, was that so hard?
Clearly you're intelligent, you have a plan, you don't want to go to school. Try as hard as you can not to let them talk you into doing something you don't want to. The ranks of drop outs are filled with people who ended up wasting 2 years with nothing to show of it but some debt and bad memories.
If you don't want to go to school, don't. You would just be wasting time.
But again, you can't be sure if the guy's goals can be reached by going to college. In his situation it sounds more like a hinderance than a help. Not everyone should go to college. Especially people who don't want to go.
Maybe he'll get some certs, work five years, and decide he hates working in office environments. He'd be way ahead of the game going that route than getting a four year degree, then working five years and finding he hates offices. He'd have no debt, he'll have built up some networth, and he'll have done what he wanted, not what people warned him he should do less he tempt certain failure by !GASP! not doing what everyone else is doing.
Go get the degree. Just having the letters after your name is worth it to start, and the HECS fees won't hurt. At the same time, get a job at some corporate or small business as a part-time IT helpdesk or admin. The stuff you learn there will be much more useful than what you learn at Uni, but doesn't get your resume past the HR site filters.
Well, I'll tell ya. I worked hard for my CNE. I really did. I studied my ass off. It's nothing without experience, too, but the combination was valuable.
I say "was" because the CNE means absolutely diddly squat today. It's not the same world any more. I should probably not even have it on my resume. All it means is "old fart with old skills." The certs are a treadmill. Whatever is latest and in fashion is the one to tout. MCSE. yeah, OK. Fine. Cisco? Getting warmer. But the point is, what's next year? They are nore of a 'continuing education' upgrade kind of thing.
But a BSEE. That has staying power. The certifications mean you are a technician. The degree means you are an engineer.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Current insightful joke making the rounds of technical recruiters and some hiring managers is "How do you make a CCIE leave your front door?" "Pay for your pizza".
/. business shitheads, next time try a little testing - still there after preview, lets see what happens when I submit to my slashvertising overloards
Certs are there for getting your foot in the door when you don't have any other relevant skills. They show an employer you've got just enough basic knowledge you wont break his network, but not much more.
If you have any chance of getting into Uni, and you really want to work in the Engineering side of networking, go for a real engineering degree. If all you want to do is be on the Operations side, surviving from one pay stub to the next as a hell desk support drone, or maybe a NOC monkey, then take the easy road and grab a few certs.
The Network Engineers who actually design and build networks have degrees in Electrical Engineering, or maybe Comp Sci. They have the diverse base of knowledge to understand things like how bit error rates affect retransmissions, and what the speed of light is and why it can't ever be exceeded. When their employer needs someone to build and test a new satellite circuit or a trans-continental fibre ring, the only ones who work on the project have degrees. So even with all your certs, you'll hear their stories over beers, but you'll never move up to those projects without an otherwise worthless scrap of sheepskin in your possession.
this was going to be a longer, more insightful post, but there's a huge pop-up advert covering the whole right side of my browser that wont go away no matter what I do. it appears to be connected to a new slashvertising menu item on the top left. way to go
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
The degree is worth it. I first went to a technical school. Then decided I wanted to get a two year degree from PSU in networking. After my third year I decided to go on for my 4 years in college from seeing various friends graduating and where they were ending up. I lost quite a few credits in the move (and am now graduating with 140+ credits), but I did finish it in time. If you are like me a four year degree will not teach you a whole lot of technical stuff.
Being that you read Slashdot and probably can network computers and run 5 OSes on your computer at once you probably have a strong base of technical knowledge. I would say I learned very little and really only filled in my technical skills, but what I learned is invaluable. I learned that there is more to IT then setting up a router or configuring a computer. I learned how to handle IT and make it useful to people. I learned how to handle business. I learned to manage a project. I learned to learn.
I had a job interview for a BIG company that pays amazingly well in DC who doesn't even interview people w/o bachelor's. My interview started with the interviewer telling me that he went to PSU and that he thinks people from my major are the best things sliced bread. I landed a nice job with great benefits. I plan on going to grad school now for information security, which this company will pay for. I went from two year to 4 year to 6 year. Learning in IT is never ending the quicker you learn that the better. Certs will help, but nothing beats a degree. Most people with degrees will probably have the same certs as you anyways as they are really easy to get with a base of learning like a degree.
My suggestion go for 4 years and make the best of it!
and get a computer science degree if you want to work in the computing and network arena. if programming isn't your bag, look into an information services degree(usually a masters). i've been doing IT for the last 15 years without a CS or MIS degree(bachelors of science, industrial design), and most of the folks i know professionally don't have computer/network specific degrees or certs... we all learned from the school of hard knocks. what did help was the college experience and the ability to explore, make friends, have fun, get laid a by hot college girls(or boys) and generally fuck around.
on a side note: since your from down unda, you should know that you country has a pretty interesting tech history... one of the first ATT system 6 unix non-PDP ports came out of wollongong university.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
These "engineers" never seem to take their profession as seriously as those of us who have learned by "doing." I'm self-taught. I spend $3-4k a year on books. I have a personal lab that bigger than most of the networks my company works on. It takes a lot of work to keep up with this profession.
I'm not using my good fortune as justification for not getting a degree. I regret not having my degree. If I get the opportunity I will finish my degree (implying that I stop working 70 hour weeks). I'm also not saying that certs are worthless. Getting a CCIE is a hell of a lot of work and clearly demonstrates to your future employer that you've got skills. A CCNA or MCSE means that you can memorize answers from a book. I am using my own past as proof that most certs really don't mean anything or at the very least they must be concerned in the context of the person's experience. A CCNP and 10 years experience is good. A CCNA/P and no experience is a recipe for disater. It's experience that gets the good jobs.
Also, do not attempt to jump straight into systems or network engineering. You will become one of those many people that I tell horror stories about. No offense but no matter how skilled you think you are today you likely don't know what you think you know and I guarantee you that you don't know all the non-technical skills you must have to be successful. I strongly urge you to first spend a few years in support. This is an excellent way to make a few bucks in college. Get on your university's or college's helpdesk staff. This experience will ground your ego and connect you with the most important group of individuals you'll ever have to work with: your users. I can think of a dozen engineers off the top of my head who in the past month have clearly demonstrated to me that they either don't give a shit about the users their servicing or that they are simply unaware of the damage their actions cause to the support infrastructure. Spend a few years working support. I guarantee you that this will help you humble yourself and prepare you for becoming a success in IT. You can't jump right out and be a star. You haven't built the basic foundation on which to grow which will ultimately result in you crumbling.
While you're in college pay attention to the non-technical course. Yes, they're boring. No they don't rely on computers. Yes the professor is nearing triple digits. However most of these courses provide you the non-technical skills that you must have to be a success. I can't tell you how much I wish I'd not withdrawn from speech courses. If you can't talk to the customer a future employer won't have any use for you. I wish I'd paid more attention to my economics courses. Like it or not you have to have at least a basic business understanding to work today. Not only are most of these courses useful in the long-term but they also hold the key to you getting to do the fun courses. You have to keep up with the boring courses to have time for the technical courses.
You'd have to be high to ask such a question. Of course it is. Ever look on Monster.com, Dice.com, or any of a dozen other high profile job sites? Ever look through the employment section of the local paper? Is this really how lazy people are that they have to post to "Ask Slashdot" for the answers to the simplest questions? And how stupid must the site admins be to actually post this garbage?
Now I'm at the point where I'm studying for my CCNA, and a wonderful thing is happening. The more I am learning about the underlying technologies that make networks work, the more everything i know makes sense. Why things are done the way they are.
No disrespect to the career path you have chosen, but your statement there is exactly why people go to college to begin with. The whole point of college (done correctly) is to teach you those things. Had you gone that route, the jobs you have now are the sorts that you could be offered right out of school without much difficulty. (That said, if you treat college like a trade school, then that is exactly what you end up with. You have to go about it correctly to get offered anything better than crap jobs and you will have wasted an awful lot of money and have a miserable time.)
My very first job right out of school was doing top-level router support for 50k/yr (this was seven years ago, and things have only gone up since then), despite never having seen a router before in my life. OSPF makes a LOT more sense (and is much easier to pick up) if you have taken a class in communications theory and have received the general math and Engineering background every college gives you.
The advantage to the "Engineering state of mind" that a quality Engineering degree provides is that I could completely change my line of work tomorrow, and be fairly good at it (and be well paid); Say from networking HW support to computer storage performance tuning.
Now that you have been "in the trenches" a while, you might want to look for an employer that will offer tuition re-imbursement to go back to school. Lots of colleges now have degree programs for "non-traditional" students and you will probably find college a lot more interesting and useful now that you have some more "life experience" under your belt. You will likely discover that the things you do magically make a lot more sense (and will be easier) even if you don't take a single class directly applicable to your job. No, going that route won't be easy. It is tough to hold a full-time job and get a degree at the same time, but you may very well find the rewards to be well worth it. If you can get through the frosh Engineering "weed-outs" (usually Calc and/or Physics), you should do fine. (I know Calc was almost my downfall... I got a "D" in Calc 1. It was only b/c my frosh advisor didn't know what he was doing that they even let me take Calc 2 without repeating 1.)
The sort of things you learn by the end of your degree are things that simply cannot be picked up no matter how many O'Reilly's you read or vendor certs you have hanging up in your cube...
All that being said, college is certainly not for everyone, and there is nothing wrong with staying with the "in the trenches" route.
SirWired
P.S. "Computer Networks" by Tannenbaum (the Minux guy) is an excellent general college-level textbook on networking. (It was the book I read to prepare me for my job interview with a networking equipment vendor.) Favorite quote: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." Reminding customers of that one has saved my clients a LOT of money and heartache over the years. Also, "OSPF: Anatomy of an Internet Routing Protocol" by Moy is the way to go to understand how IP routing REALLY works. It's like the RFCs for RIP and OSPF, only in English. Lastly, "Soul of a New Machine" by Kidder makes just about everything technical seem less pointlessly insane/stupid. (Things still seem stupid, but you'll understand why after reading that one.) (That book is thanks to my Engineering and Society class.)
"Network Engineering" is by itself a rather encompassing term within which one would expect familiarity with layers 1 through 4 and a bit of the upper layers to boot. You, quite frankly, have a wide range of options open to you as far as career path:
1)RCDD/BICSI &c: Get a journeyman's electrician certificate and specialize in data wiring. More lucrative than you might think and doesn't quite require a college degree. A good wire/fiber guy is worth his weight in gold, in my experience.
2)Operations: Get your CCNA/P or like certificate and man a helpdesk. Low pay and low horizons. Avoid if possible.
3)College: Study something you are interested in and excel at it. CS and ECE are not the only paths, though perhaps the easiest, into a real career in "network engineering." I myself am an economics graduate which, at first glance, appears to have little to do with NE; economics is heavy on modeling, math and statistics, and analytical skills which dovetails nicely and you get a business background (something I do believe will become advantageous). College is a great place to participate in a ham radio group, concrete/paper canoe competition, and other associations and events that foster and nurture your inner geek. Many "NE" groups at universities hire a pool of students; seek employment with the university IT department part-time. This is a great way to really "learn" the day to day of NE and earn some coin.
I got 9 years this month doing "network engineering", and I love it. I actually am, perhaps the lucky one, since I did my first five years without a degree. Persistence, competence, and eventual promotion landed me a golden opportunity; my lack of a degree did hold me back from subsequent promotion thereafter. I cannot recommend this path to anyone as it required a fair bit of luck to pull off.
If you have the opportunity to get a college degree without breaking the bank I'd highly recommend it. Beyond the actual academic learning the social, intellectual, and general experience of university life can add real value to the degree and help you grow personally and professionally.
I fear far too many young people are beginning their careers, at least in the US, burdened by far too much debt. These are long term, and sometimes quite large, obligations; be wary and careful of how much, and particularly how you use, educational loans.
Great!
:-)
Lovely city, that's why I live here
We have a thriving user group community, with a large lug (LUV) and a big wireless networking group among others, get involved and you will get work out of it if you're good (that's how I got the job I'm writing this at).
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
You're obviously just trolling here. Since I, too, am a network engineer, I can say that there is a growing demand for people talented in networking. Communications technology is complicated and growing in complexity all the time. A person who can steer an organization in ways to avoid the pitfalls of the Internet is a hot commodity, and I don't see that going away anytime soon.
My advice to the OP is to keep your skill set broad. A CS degree is not a panacea, but it helps in this regard.
Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester NY offer a 4 yr degree and a Masters in "Applied Networking and Systems Administration". Many who have graduated from there end up w/starting salaries approx $50k usd w/a 4-yr and w/a masters above $70k usd. I think that's pretty good. You be the judge.
Am I the only one who thinks the title of this thread is stupid? Of COURSE network engineering is a "viable career." That wasn't even the question.
Getting TO THE QUESTION:
You are always, always, ALWAYS more employable and more promotable (not to mention more PAYABLE) with a bachelor's degree than without. It is ALWAYS worth getting a bachelor's degree. I might go so far as to say it's also always worth getting a master's degree too, as MSs are becoming the new BSs.
+++ATH0
Raw intellect, creativity, and motivation aren't measured via any piece of paper
Of course not. They can, however, be measured by your attitudes toward that piece of paper.
What you choose to tell me on your resume tells me a lot about what I can expect if I hire you. I once had a Senior Network Engineer applicant with a list of about a dozen certs including Kentrox CSU/DSU configuration. Of all the things he could have told me about himself, that made the cut. For those not in the know, CSU/DSUs are trivial devices. Its like putting "Certified toaster repairman" on your resume. Worse, really: its like putting "Certified Krups Toaster Repairman" on your resume, implying that you'd need more training to work on another brand.
Needless to say, he didn't get the job. I don't need someone who felt he had to go to school to learn how to configure a CSU/DSU.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
1) A college degree
2) Certs
3) Knowledge of East Indian languages/dialects
4) A passport
Companies are sending network jobs overseas. Once you're done building the network locally, you'll be out of a job unless (see: Just in time employment) you can move to India.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
"Agreed. Go to college. You'll make some great friends, you'll grow as a person (in a good and fun way), and you'll make some significant contacts that can help you get a great job."
And the "free" music is not bad too.
The thing about administering and engineering networks and systems is that they always change and always require someone with experience if they have any bit of complexity at all. There is no cert that makes you a sysadmin or network engineer.
The reason you want to get a degree is because it maximizes the number of options you have in the future. Maybe in 10 years you get tired of blowing your weekends coming in to the corporate server room to mount server racks and dress-back cat5 cable. Maybe you want to be the guy saying "hey do this for me while I'm at the golf course this weekend". Unless you're extremely ambitious, you can't just make that hop without the degree.
Now some people will try to make this a bigger deal than it really is, because quite frankly experience trumps everything. Its very plausible that you can go get that degree after you've been in the work-force for 10 years, and then future employers aren't gonna give a squat that you JUST got your degree as long as you've got it and the experience.
The hard part is that in 10 years you might be married with kids and be stuck with responsibilities that make it much harder to get the most out of college (though it can be argued that the only thing worth getting out of college is the diploma itself). Really, if you can afford to go, you might as well do it earlier as opposed to later. Unless you have some crazy ADHD or are just too immature to pass your classes, the sooner the better.
imo
Protector of Capitalist views,
Meorah
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/education/
"This section presents data primarily concerning formal education as a whole, at various levels, and for public and private schools. Data shown relate to the school-age population and school enrollment, educational attainment, education personnel, and financial aspects of education. In addition, data are shown for charter schools, computer usage in schools, distance education, and adult education."
This is the 2007 statistical abstract.
I wouldn't be surprised if Australia didn't have something similiar.
Which is why he should find a University which offers a co-operative education, or the very least, has internship/work/study programs with local businesses in his field. I walked out of college with 2.5 years of real experience by the time I received my BS in Computer Science. In fact, I had a full time job BEFORE I even finished my degree because the company I had done internships wanted me working for them (they even hired me as if I had my degree, even though I had 12 credits left to take). Basically, this is the kind of school which gets you the contacts that you need, gets you real world experience, and puts your foot in the door at a local company all at the same time. Hard to beat that... plus, you get a degree.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Professionals without a university degree will often have to be better, smarter, and work harder to get to the same place as someone with a university degree. This tends to follow an exponential curve -- the higher you're reaching, the harder it gets per step.
If you are better, smarter and harder working, this will not be a problem for you. But often, the person with the degree will bump up against a ceiling s/he can't push through that quite frankly an individual with a university degree of the appropriate level will sail right through.
I've worked in industry without a degree. I've done the whole six-figure-no-degree thing. After a few years of it, I'd saved up a bunch of money, went back to school in Fall 2002... and I'm currently about 6 months away from completing my masters degree in ECE.
Here's really the trick: How far does your ambition extend? Will you be happy being a network engineer forever? Or will you want to move up and out towards the CTO/CIO position? Most established companies will be very hesitant to consider you for a position like that if you don't have a university degree -- you'd have to be a total ninja. Hell, even with just a bachelors, they'll often have to think long and hard about putting your name into the hat.
If you're happy with your career peaking at mid-level to upper-mid-level/lower-upper-level network engineering (this being about where you start to crack six figures USD), AND you are smarter and harder working than your average Joe, then by all means, jump right in. If you have higher ambitions, either expect to kill yourself clawing up the ladder only to find a near impenetrable ceiling, or expect to have a degree -- preferably a graduate one -- at some point in your career.
Now, aside from the purely career advice, allow me to tell you a little secret about a university degree: If you do it right, it makes you smarter. I was always smart. But working on my undergraduate computer engineering degree and my master's in ECE has made me smarter. I know that out of high school, (at least in the US) a lot of stuff they teach in math is useless to you -- but that all changes when you get to mid-level and above calculus, probability theory, and fourier (and related) transforms. All of the sudden, math becomes eminently useful. I was far and away the best tech guy out of 40 in my company -- and we had a STRONG industry reputation for top notch technicians -- but all this math has made me far and away better than the guy I used to be.
I would recommend that if -- and only if -- you can be happy going to university, then you should do so. You will be smarter for it. If you can't be happy doing it, you'll probably just flunk out and even if you don't, you probably won't get the value out of it that I have. In that case, just go get a job. If you're smart and don't take on too much debt, you'll have another window to go to university in a few years if you change your mind.
This is the essence of the whole discussion distilled into two short sentences and it bears repeating
OK that should do it.
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Get the degree in any way you can. Certs can wait for later.
You CAN get a well-paying job without a degree, but you should aim higher than that. Don't be so tempted to join the rat race. I don't have a good opinion for people whose only aspiration in life is to get an income, marry, have kids, and then die in oblivion. As a young adult you should aim high, and this means being ambitious and trying to do something meaningful with your life (such as: becoming a scientist or artist, starting an innovative business, or doing something remarkable). Money is a vehicle for success, not a measure of success, so don't think that a well-paying job is the best you can get or that your self-worth is dictated by your income. Have a (realistic) ambition and work towards it in the long term.
Some people believe that if you get into the university and you don't get a PhD and a research career then you are a failure, even if you managed to find a well-paying job in the industry.
Other people (particularly managers in the industry) believe that whoever isn't into the industry has failed miserably in their lives, even if they work as researchers in universities.
You have to understand that universities were not designed for getting you jobs, although they can help with that a lot. The primary and traditional purpose of the university system is to facilitate the creation of researchers, scientists, scholars, and educated people, with the ultimate goal being the progression of knowledge, science, and the arts.
In the same manner, the job market is definitely not designed to give university graduates an income. In a job, you sell your skills, not your knowledge or your education. Furthermore, most companies couldn't care less about the promotion of science and the arts.
Although these two worlds have different objectives, they are often inter-related in the modern era: We see universities changing their curriculum after industry input, and companies requiring university degrees in order to hire you. This happens because education does have a positive impact onto one's abilities and aptitudes, and many of them are transferable to the workplace. This inter-relation is accelerating today mainly due to the emergence of the knowledge worker and the great advancement of science that has turned uneducated people unable to function in our society. Guess whose achievement is that.
But don't let this inter-relation fool you: Deep inside them, universities sincerely believe that the industry is a place for failed people, and companies believe that universities are inherently inferior. School and university are two different worlds in war with each other (school trying to promote knowledge, industry trying to get more workers at a young age so that they can pay them less).
Universities have changed our world for the better: Graduates engage in research and advance our knowledge of the world every day. When you go to your cubicle to write some boring Java or COBOL for a banking application that your employer wants to sell for a profit, a researcher in the other side of the world is working hard inside their laboratory trying to figure out how they could make the machine you are programming to learn by itself without human intervention (and when they succeed, and they eventually will, you may be out of a job).
Skills and jobs are ephemeral. Knowledge is eternal. If you just know how to write some Java, you may get a job now but when Ruby comes in you may be at risk of getting fired unless you update your skillset. If you know the fundamentals, however, and in computer science this means being a good mathematician, you'll be in such a position to quickly grasp any new language that becomes hot in the industry (of course, a good mathematician or computer scientist has more interesting things to do than fixing an employer's network or writing business applications in Visual Basic, but the important thing I want to stress here is that
Please specify which university in Australia offers this co-operative style education.
Yep! I know ....boring Work harder etc. I was thinking more on the lines of work harder for yourself. You are the only one that's going to look after your self so do it well. Personaly from my experience of the degree system (UK) I would say this:
... Remember that you have 5 ish years now to do it so don't bust a gut.
a) A get a Job, preferably relevent and preferably will allow you time off for courses (paid/unpaid)
b) Get on a part time degree course( Choose what you want)
c) Take certs
d) Now you have money coming in a degree in a few years and certs and EXPERIENCE that the monkeys coming out of Uni' wont have..What a package!
In these discussions, if someone's certs expire, they can just renew them as desired.
When I was investigating U. options in 1993, I thought about the durability of knowledge. I ended up going with an Accounting degree, instead of a pure CS degree. Why? At the time the PC landscape felt very unstable. Windows 3.1 and Mac System 7? A Gigabyte was serious storage.
I didn't have the vocabulary at the time, but I caught on that the degree depends upon the years it encompasses. A course period in CS from 1993-1997 would have been a disaster. While the standards boards have added their shares of new guidelines, Accounting has a durable core of concepts.
I graduated in 1997, Received a gift Win98 machine in 1998, broke the "no experience paradox" with some of the fast money flying around in 1998-1999, and started life.
A couple years later in 2001 is what I consider one of the important CS years. Windows XP and Mac OS X emerged, and Linux had collected some time for itself to establish the very basics. A CS degree taken starting in 2001 would be far more useful in 2005 for the comparable time spent.
I think we're at another junction. Mac OS X has long since polished itself, Microsoft is making a triple-or-nothing stand with the 2007 lineup, and Linux has seriously made a name for itself as a noticeable third. Intel's 45-nm process Quad coree chips are due out this year.
I think a CS degree starting NOW, and following the trends today would make for a truly powerful degree.
I would guess that Certs might have been a way to go in 1993, but I think today's degree is the better option.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The technical data you learn in a certificate program has a half-life of about 18 months. That's when you will have to learn something new. The generic skills you get from a good university program will be useful for the rest of your life. The first 2-4 years are purely about your technical skills, the next 30+ will be about your ability to interact with people, communicate, and learn. The lack of a university degree will make any upward mobility 10 times harder.
Good Luck,
-c
In response to may of the posts demanding that this young man go to college first, the only valid reason anyone is listing is to meet people and make connections. Is that what college has become; nothing more than a gigantic circle jerk?
I attended college for 3 years before dropping out. All things considered, it was a glorious waste of my time. Yes, I was studying CS.
Now that I'm a network admin for a growing company (one of the largest in my state), without a degree, I can honestly say that I did NOT need a degree to get where I am today. I may go back to school at some point, but it will be to persue an MBA, not a CS degree.
Go to school for CS if you enjoy eating ramen and competing with kids from Asia who have no problem whatsoever being unscrupulous to get ahead. If you want a challenging career in network engineering/administration, go to work first, then to school later.
And for all you people knocking the CCNP track, you should know that it teaches more than just how to configure proprietary devices. It may have only been 6 weeks of classes, but I learned more in those classes than in 3 YEARS of college. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
BTW, where are these schools that offer network engineering degrees? The colleges in my state think a degree in IT means you should be an expert in Microsoft Office.
Go to school man. I had a similar path where I knew a lot after high school, even more than teachers and doing server managment, work on the side for web design and network setups, etc. Going to college not only puts you in the ranking with college graduates but you almost cant get a job without a degree. I am in my senior year, now I am out looking for a job and a minimum is a 4 year degree for most. I am starting to take certifications which some say are over rated but they again are buzz words in a resume. YOu just need to be able to apply what you learn and use it, not just be able to know what the book says when troubleshooting.
Bryan
You're in high school. Now is NOT the time to think about what you're going to do as a career. People will tell you it is -- they'll all have technical undergraduate degrees. You are robbing yourself of a huge chunk of life if you approach the world this way at your stage of life.
Go to college. Pick a non-tech degree. THEN CHANGE IT. CHANGE IT AGAIN. FART AROUND. Find out what you like. Learn something about literature, math, physics, chemistry (in moderation), the social sciences and the humanities in general. THEN if you really want to major in some technical thing, you might decide to do that.
But if you're a computer guy, you'll be doing computer things with the other computer guys even while you study philosophy. You'll learn way more by doing and talking with people who take classes then by actually taking them. The pace of CS classes are aimed just a little ahead of the slowest people (the F's who'll leave) -- they're way behind someone who has a natural affinity and who's doing computer work, anyhow, because he loves it.
Make friends, make contacts, learn about girls (or boys or whatever) and grow for four years. Those contacts will help you later on. Nurture them.
Get an on-campus job in the computer vein. Aim for academic computing -- the central guys, not the computer store or desktop support. Establish good relationships with your employers and faculty members.
Then, when you're done, you'll find that you can get a job through your contacts, both on-campus and graduated. You won't need or benefit from the main application process at most companies -- you'll use your network of friends to get into job interviews with people who can really evaluate your skills (meaning you'll skip past the screeners who know nothing about the job, but look for a degree).
Yes, your first job will pay less because you don't have a technical degree. After changing jobs twice, it won't matter. You'll have caught up. You might go back for a masters, anywhere in this process, and that masters can be in a tech field. In most cases, this is not cost effective.
Get a real degree from a real school (aim high, aim for a name, transfer to a better school if need be) and you'll do just fine. It's about who you know and what you can do, and, most crucially, your EXPERIENCE, not your degree. A degree will bump you in salary, but has much less of an impact than your previous earnings history. One or two job changes (don't change without working somewhere for a year) will completely negate that, if you're good. And if you're not good, you'll be happier doing something else, anyhow.
You've asked a bunch of computer people how to approach life. Look at all the answers and imagine the people behind them. Who do you want to be? No, not what job do you want to have, WHO do you want to be? Take a year to decide on a first answer even to that.
(Oh, and don't get an A+, or Network+ or other easy to get cert, unless its a path to a hard to get cert which you'll actually aquire. Baby certs only 'prove' you don't have experience. Go ahead and get a CCNA, if you want, because it'll only take you a week of concerted studying to get, but don't put it on your resume until you get a Cisco cert one above it.)
I'm surprised that no one mentioned that to be a "Network Engineer" all you need is a hack saw and a bottle of glue to cut and paste "the tubes" together...
I've read through this entire thread... Almost everyone says go to school first, then maybe grab a cert. (I'm simplifying of course)
This is what I've done. I'd love to get a job as a network engineer... So I in May I'll be graduating with my degree in Computer Systems and Network Administration from Michigan Tech University, it's a four year program that's pretty new ( I'll be the in the 3rd graduating class). I've been working with Cisco routers since my 2nd year here and I love it. True, we mostly have 2500 series in our labs, but that is slowly changing. I've worked with OSPF and BGP, of course they're not the huge networks you'd see in industry, but I do have the experience on the devices, albeit in a limited sense. I went out and got my CCNA last semester without much trouble.
I've also worked for three years with the university IT department, I basically maintain a database of all the network jacks on campus along with doing various wiring jobs that come up when other staff is out of the office. I've also held a job at a place that does support desk for area wide schools. So I've done the helpdesk thing as well and I know that I'm ready for a little more than that...
But my question is how do you get that first job? I've looked at monster and careerbuilder and applied to tons of network engineering jobs... but no replies... Everyone wants 5+ years of experience, which I can understand, but how are you supposed to get that experience?
How do you get your foot in the door?
CCIE + voice is worth "$160 - 200K per year" according to Computer World last week. There are supposedly only about 400 guys with that level of knowledge in the world. Which would mean I would be worth a whole lot more than $200K if I had that level of knowledge.
Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N
A degree is much more valuable to an employer then a couple certs
and is for life. Certs come and go.. Before you graduate college
get a couple certs to help you get a gig, but graduate first!
Mike
Speaking as someone who has a few (now expired) MCSE & CCNA certs, and a B.S. from a State U. I would say: forget certs AND school, and open your own business.
Don't get me wrong, college was a blast, but I've been kicked in the pants twice by higher education- being certified right at the tail end of 1999 (before the bust), and then graduating into the robust job market of 2005. Call it poor timing, or just plain old bad luck.
Start your own business, learn to read, and network with competitors and other professionals in your field. These days, some guys I work with are HS drop outs, others have advanced degrees (PhD/MBA/MS), and I find myself learning different things from all of them.
On the other hand, my wonderful 6-week certification "training" has rotted out of my brain long ago. And the only thing I learned at state school was how to build a bong out of old Romen noodles.
Like I said, it was a blast- but not worth the $30k in loans I'm repaying now. (IMO)
Oh, and on second thought- my A+ cert will never expire. But don't expect to get a lot of attention for an A+ cert (I've never had a client who even knew what it was, and most employers don't do a lot of work on DOS these days, strangely enough.)
barack to the future?
6 or 7 years ago - the answer was:
Get the job - because in 1999, salaries were great, and if you could turn on a computer, you were hired, most places.
Now, the climate is different. I put off finishing my degree, and frankly, no matter how good (effective) you are, there are some career paths, and opportunities, that are just blocked, period. Call it "ignorant HR policies" or prejudice all you want, but without a degree, you will not command the salary you deserve, nor will people take risks on you, and you'll end up with less interesting work.
Get the degree first. Whatever it takes.
Then get a job.
And if you want certs, most places will finance it for you. Then you'll have the best of both worlds.
The arguments people are making about making contacts are fine and dandy - but you'll make those in the professional world too. And, while everyone makes some contacts in school, not everyone makes contacts that will lead to anything. The contacts I made in college probably enable me to score a nickel-bag, but that's about it.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Back when electricity was new, (and the electric companies were fighting between AC and DC,) companies would have "directors of electricity," much like companies have directors of IT. Now that electricity is standardized, companies just call electricians on an ad-hoc basis. Major electric companies hire engineers to design their transmission networks.
The same will happen to networking. It'll get to the point where it "just works" when you plug your computer into the wall. People who design corporate networks will gradually merge with run-of-the-mill electricians.
On the other hand, people who design large-scale networks; much like the people who design large-scale electric transmission networks, will be in demand. In order to do this, you'll need a degree from a good university, and plenty of experience. You might also need some practical experience as well, from related engineering and non-engineering fields.
No, I will not work for your startup
I have a friend who did that. BA and MA in History. Now he's a pilot in the U.S. Air Force. They liked the fact that he had an advanced degree, and didn't much care what the field was in.
The last place I worked, our network admin had a BA in education, with a concentration in social sciences. Did as fine a job as any network engineer I've ever seen.
Another guy, great storage systems engineer, but the company said they couldn't promote him any further (and no raises) unless he had a degree. Not really fair or sensible, but that's the corporate environment for you.
The degree opens doors, and teaches you skills that can help in any job. It's worth it.