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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."
The CCNP was VERY hard to pass, and after getting it I landed the exact job I wanted within 3 days.
Having said that, I haven't graduated from college, but in my 3 years in school I built up my resume by working at the helpdesk and then as a sys admin. I don't think my career would be where it is today if I hadn't gone to school, even though all I really used were the contacts.
What do you define as "higher end"? Certain the CCIE is outrageously difficult (and outrageously expensive), but the CCNP? It might be harder than the CCNA or whatever the hell they're calling it these days, but I just can't seeing it be as hard as, dunno, DiffEq.
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.
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
I'm just about at six figures with no college but it's been a long hard road. I was one of those that took the leap to get a GED because school was too boring. I was doing technical support on my 18th birthday and looking at buying a Hummer H1 during the stock option days. Due to being young and stupid (collapse of market, no savings, no education and being laid off, all the latest toys, etc), I didn't have money for college and now I'm nearly 30 looking at going to college for the first time. The saddest part is - I'm going after a degree in something that I didn't even think of back in high school. On top of that, my current job has nothing to do with what I want my degree in other than I have experience designing software.
While I agree that people can do it on their own, it's much harder. I can't count how many times I've been turned away due to education. I have a home lab (CCNA, several boxes with different OS's, etc), my own personal technical library, am the family tech support dude, did 5 years of technical support professionally, have 10 years of development experience, etc - but corporations still see education as a requirement. I still say that I got REALLY lucky by getting my current job.
I talk with teenagers all the time that have the same problems I did when I was in school and the number one thing I say is to stay in, get your diploma and then go to college. You can always have your home lab and study on your own time - which includes the hard stuff from whatever your discipline is. After all that time, you should have enough experience that is hands on as well as the educational background.