Any CCNA certified people here? CCNP ... CCIE?

[DaveP]

I'm in my 4th and last quarter of Cisco Certified Network Associate training at the local technical college. Does anyone here hold a Cisco cert or are you currently working on one? I thought it would be interesting to discuss the experiences of those who have the certs and are working in the field or are preparing for the exam.

Tell us about your background, you current job, and how you broke into the field. Did you study independently or sit for the certification exam after taking a structured training course? Did you pass the test the first time? Was your certification welcomed by prospective employers? Did you have trouble breaking into the field and securing employment?

 

[DaveP]

I'm guessing no Cisco people are vapers (or no vapers are network people). I know we have network people here ... I've met a couple. I'm interested in hearing about experiences breaking into the network job market with little or no experience.

I'm a retired customer service engineer (tech rep for you old guys). After my early retirement, I thought about adding something to my resume in case I decide to go back to work. My job consisted of maintaining high end computer room and commercial print shop color and monochrome laser printers (60 ppm to 180ppm) that ran something in the neighborhood of 500k to almost 3 million pages a month each. These printers had servers running Unix command line and Solaris OS. I had to maintain the printer and server hardware and software as well as the connection to the network or mainframe (in conjunction with the local IT support staff).

I have connections all over town due to that involvement, but was wondering just how big a shock it is to enter an IT environment with no prior hands on experience other than what you get in the lab at school once a week or so for a year in school. Are you expected to hit the ground running or do you tag along with the vets for a while and learn their way of maintaining their network? I wouldn't expect anyone to let me configure their routers and switches without standing over my shoulder for quite a while.

Comments are invited.