Question on Courses

kafifi13

Guys,

Got a quick question. passed my Intro yesterday and trying to see if my company will send me away to a training course for the ICND. It's a five day course that many training companies offer such as Global Knowledge or Skyline Technologies (Where Wendal Odem teaches). It might be a little hard to get this by the company since it will cost close to $3,000. I did the intro on my own. Do you think that because i've come this far i should just do it on my own and save the training for something more advanced like CCNP/CCVP or should i just try and take this chance to get free training? I was thinking that i can possibly get them to just buy me equipment and i can again learn on my own. I've never been good in a classroom but i've never done a classroom on something i like such as networking. Let me know what you guys think.

thanks

Cucumber

Personally I would not go for the course option; I would rather try to talk my boss into creating a Lab. Any company should have a lab where engineers try stuff before making changes to production networks.

However, If you go for the course make sure to read a book before attending class, write down any question you have and either have the instructor answer them or solve them while doing some of the courses' labs.

This is why I dont like attending cisco courses (I took a handful back in the day):

Way too expensive.

Usually you have to share your lab equipment with other dude, so you actually participate in half of the labs.

The time is too short, when you are still trying to understand a topic, a lab must be done.

I personally highly dislike cisco's power point presentations; almost useless as instructors have to draw stuff on the board to make a point. And the course manual text is rather cryptic, so after the course finishes it is easier to read a book you buy than reading the course manual again.

The only advantage of a course are the direct questions that get answered by the instructor until you are satisfied, albeit if you attend the course to learn stuff from scratch you will not have any particular-important-meaningful question to ask. The instructor can also give you up to date certification exam tips, like what technologies are no longer in the exams and stuff.

BTW, I would stay away from Global Knowledge.

Paul Boz

That's a complete and utter waste of money. It shouldn't cost any more than the Sybex 5th edition CCNA book and the internet.

kafifi13

Thanks guys. That's kind of where i'm leaning towards. I figure with the lab equipment i can keep myself and always use or have upgraded if i decide to do CCNP.