New To CCNA

TonyDuffy

Hello.

I'm new to the site but just looking to get into some chat with people who know what i'm looking to talk about

Anyway, I live in Scotland and i'm currentley an Comptia A+ certified , i've just applied to the University of the west of scotland to do a course on my real passion which is CISCO. ( CCNA to be precise ). I.T Support is not for me which is why i'm doing this course.

Also i'm only 17 , my course runs 2 nights a week for 3 hours and finishes in May 2009.

I'm just looking for some information on what i can expect in the CCNA course , how hard it is to pass? , how much effort and study time i will have to devote? And what are the odds of a company hiring an 18 Year old ( will be 18 when i hopefully get it ) CCNA and giving him 30k + a year.

Thanks

Tony.

nel

Welcome to the forums.

No offense but no one is going to give you 30k a year in that stage of your career.

Try the FAQ: http://techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7268

This will give you the advice for the labs and learning material etc.

Is the CCNA hard? well that depends on the person and there study methods i guess. But it one of the harder entry level certs out there.

As for a job - dont knock IT supoprt just yet. Thats where many people start and it can get you some valuable experiance. Also dont expect to just jump into a networking position. Its something that takes a lot of work, contacts and luck to get too.

Look for a junior position or possible in a data centre around your area. Although i have been in scotland over a year now and the amount of networking jobs are few and far between so dont expect it to happen over night. Best places for networking jobs are glasgow / aberdeen from what ive seen although those seems to be high up - and you get one or two in edinburgh now and again.

If you willing to move at some point there seem to be quite a few junior positions in southern england.

Good luck mate.

networker050184

How hard the exam is to pass is based on your knowledge. If you don't know the stuff it will be hard. If you know it it will be easy. It also depends on the persons ability to learn and retain information. Some people pass in one try after a little study and some people fail multiple times even with extensive study. No one can really tell you how hard it will be for you. Same thing with the time it will take. Each person differs, but a rough estimate would be about six months to a year if you start from the bottom (if you devote the time and effort to actually learn the material and not just memorize enough to pass the exam).

I'm not sure about the job market in Scotland, but here you will probably have a hard time jumping into a networking role with no experience, especially at such a young age.

You would be better off getting something entry level while you are in school if you are not already. You say that IT support is not for you, but it will be hard to make the jump you want without that type of experience under your belt.

Good luck on your study and career!

kriscamaro68

Well the course will be a good start but dont rely only on the class. Get some books Todd Lammle has a good one and the cisco press books are pretty good but dry. Also its awesome that you are starting off this young with this cert. but dont get your hopes up on making a lot this early. Yes you may have the cert but experience is key for a net admin or jr net admin position. most companys want 3 years exp just for jr position. My suggestion is get a part time or full time job if you have the time and do some basic tech work just to show that you have hands on. you dont have to do call center by any means but get into a local comp shop or in home tech support. Hope that helps.

TonyDuffy

guys forgot to mention i have been working in i.t support for 2 years now , with some networking experience , e.g building a cisco router for half the asda stores in the u.k.

So i'm not a total novice , i hear Aberdeen and London are good for jobs , what with all the oil rigs in Aberdeen using VOIP ( Voice Over I.P ) on the rigs etc. and obviously London for contract jobs etc.

I'm gonna study my ass of for this cause i want it so much. i'm sure this site will be very helpful.

Tony.

nel

TonyDuffy wrote:

guys forgot to mention i have been working in i.t support for 2 years now , with some networking experience , e.g building a cisco router for half the asda stores in the u.k.

So i'm not a total novice , i hear Aberdeen and London are good for jobs , what with all the oil rigs in Aberdeen using VOIP ( Voice Over I.P ) on the rigs etc. and obviously London for contract jobs etc.

I'm gonna study my ass of for this cause i want it so much. i'm sure this site will be very helpful.

Tony.

When you say two years experiance you mean in a place of employment right? Also asda is a pretty big company - i.e. owned by walmart. So have they not got guys to do this for them? Not that im knocking what your sayig but it sounds unlikely they would give someone around that age a task like that.

mikej412

TonyDuffy wrote:

I'm just looking for some information on what i can expect in the CCNA course , how hard it is to pass? , how much effort and study time i will have to devote?

If it's based on the Cisco Network Academy, when I took it they recommended about 10 hour a week additional work/study/lab outside of the class.

I took the previous version of the Academy CCNA Courses and I averaged 99% and didn't have any problem passing the old 640-801 exam. But a bunch of people did seem to drop out of the program (or decided to delay additional courses) after the first of the four courses.

freddy77777

Hi
I see you’re doing the CCNA at Bell College/UWS, you want to know about the CCNA course ect.
Well first you’re studying at the wrong college if you study the CCNA at Motherwell College you get a PDA i.e. a Diploma in Network Technology as well as the 4 semester certificates at Bell College/UWS you only get the 4 semester certificates.
The course is very difficult and the final test is 84% you will have to give the course a lot of study and time to pass.
The odds of a company hiring you at 18 with a CCNA are pretty good but expect the minimum wage or agency work. You have virtually no chance of getting £30.000
As for myself l have passed the A+ N+ and CCNA and l haven’t found any job yet apart from £6.00 per hour personally l would advise you to study something else

Good luck

gorebrush

I'm 25.

I have a Degree
I have an MCSA: Messaging
I have an MCSE
I have an MCTS
I have another MCTS
I have a CCNA
I have over 4 years experience as a Systems Administrator
I have over 21 years of non-formal experience

And I don't earn £30K

Seriously hoping for a lot at 17/18.

Best you can hope for, even with a CCNA is helpdesk level - it's where we all start these days unfortunately.

However, I'm at that point in my career where my wages should hopefully start accelerating nicely into the 30-40K bracket over the next few years.

totalfailure

gorebrush wrote:

I have a Degree
I have an MCSA: Messaging
I have an MCSE
I have an MCTS
I have another MCTS
I have a CCNA
I have over 4 years experience as a Systems Administrator
I have over 21 years of non-formal experience

And I don't earn £30K

I'm utterly amazed at that! There should be plenty of well-paid work for someone with all of those qualifications, credit crunch or not.

totalfailure

TonyDuffy wrote:

And what are the odds of a company hiring an 18 Year old ( will be 18 when i hopefully get it ) CCNA and giving him 30k + a year.

Not a hope in hell considering your age and lack of experience. The CCNA will be helpful getting you on to the first step of the ladder. But at your age, you're probably living with your parents so you are in a position where you can take the **** money so you can get on the ladder.

Too many people (trust me, I've met plenty of them) think that the moment you've walked out of the exam room, there's a nice £30k salary and a company car waiting somewhere for them! Even if they have no experience of working in IT.

cisco_trooper

totalfailure wrote:

TonyDuffy wrote:

And what are the odds of a company hiring an 18 Year old ( will be 18 when i hopefully get it ) CCNA and giving him 30k + a year.

Not a hope in hell considering your age and lack of experience. The CCNA will be helpful getting you on to the first step of the ladder. But at your age, you're probably living with your parents so you are in a position where you can take the **** money so you can get on the ladder.

Too many people (trust me, I've met plenty of them) think that the moment you've walked out of the exam room, there's a nice £30k salary and a company car waiting somewhere for them! Even if they have no experience of working in IT.

+1

Daniel333

CCENT and then your CCNA are great places to start out. But don't stop there you are going to need a client OS and server OS knowledge to get your foot in the door.

May I recommend these three certs,
MCP - Windows XP (70-270)
MCTS - Vista, Configuring (70-620)
CCNA

gorebrush

totalfailure wrote:

gorebrush wrote:

I have a Degree
I have an MCSA: Messaging
I have an MCSE
I have an MCTS
I have another MCTS
I have a CCNA
I have over 4 years experience as a Systems Administrator
I have over 21 years of non-formal experience

And I don't earn £30K

I'm utterly amazed at that! There should be plenty of well-paid work for someone with all of those qualifications, credit crunch or not.

I am based in the South Wales Valleys though... it is notoriously poor around here.

I'm just under the 30K mark (29), and still on probation (1 month to go!) hopefully should go up a few more soon

BigTone

Can you? Maybe, Will you? Not likely.

However, I forgot who had the formula, maybe JD or someone, but I totally swear by it. It involves a totally friend or foe element known as luck.

I got my break into IT when one day I couldn't stand my office administration job and after knocking out my A+ and net+ put a REQUEST into Craigslist and asked literally asked for someoe to give me a job.


Guess what? It worked. I got in at a pretty good company as helpdesk, our system admin is headed out the door (moved out of state) I'm on my way into that position, Have a great boss, a crazy IT team to work with, and I love it.

You can give it a shot, but go to college and get a degree. That is seen as a really big thing in employer's eyes too. But never forget about lady luck, she's always in your pocket.

dynamik

BigTone wrote:

However, I forgot who had the formula, maybe JD or someone...

Bingo

JDMurray wrote:

( Experience + Certs + Education + Who you know) * Luck = really good career opportunity

mamono

dynamik wrote:

BigTone wrote:

However, I forgot who had the formula, maybe JD or someone...

Bingo

JDMurray wrote:

( Experience + Certs + Education + Who you know) * Luck = really good career opportunity

+1

Slowhand

BigTone wrote:

Can you? Maybe, Will you? Not likely.

However, I forgot who had the formula, maybe JD or someone, but I totally swear by it. It involves a totally friend or foe element known as luck.

I got my break into IT when one day I couldn't stand my office administration job and after knocking out my A+ and net+ put a REQUEST into Craigslist and asked literally asked for someoe to give me a job.


Guess what? It worked. I got in at a pretty good company as helpdesk, our system admin is headed out the door (moved out of state) I'm on my way into that position, Have a great boss, a crazy IT team to work with, and I love it.

I'll definitely toss in a +1 on this statement. You have to go out and find work, in addition to working your butt off for certs. Ping your friends, your classmates, teachers, family, and whoever else you can find. Often times it's luck that lands you something good, other times it's having the right connections in the right place. My first two major IT jobs were both by sheer luck, (one was as a systems engineer for a datacenter/ISP, the other was as a sysadmin for a pretty competitive outsourcing firm). I'd been doing work at CompUSA as a PC tech before that, and a two-month stint as a helpdesk contractor, and I managed to get in for interviews and talk their ears off until they hired me. My next likely position will be through a friend that works as an IT Director for a video game company, he's been trying to get me hired for the past six months and I've got a phone interview later this week. I've also gotten some temporary work by putting up an ad on Craig's List every now and then. So do whatever it takes.

BigTone wrote:

You can give it a shot, but go to college and get a degree. That is seen as a really big thing in employer's eyes too. But never forget about lady luck, she's always in your pocket.

This is huge. Don't rely on your certs to get you ahead, a degree will take you farther and open more doors than you know. In the IT industry, the degree is often assumed. If you ever want to work outside the IT industry, a degree will earn you the respect you need to prove yourself in this new field. And if you're ever up for a management position, a degree can be the edge you need to be picked over other potential candidates. No matter what anyone says about "it's so expensive", "you'll be paying it back forever", or "I never got a degree, and I did fine", don't take their word on faith. Your chances of success will be higher and your path in life will be easier with an education to back you up.

Slowhand

JDMurray wrote:

( Experience + Certs + Education + Who you know) * Luck = really good career opportunity

I'm going to play Devil's advocate here, and add something to JDMurray's formula:

(Experience + Certs + Education + Who you know + amount of effort applied) * Luck = really good career opportunity

The effort-portion involving how much time you spend searching, how much time you spend tweaking and learning how to format your resume, how well you prepare yourself for interviews, how much time you spend finding first-rate references, etc. There's a lot to know, even for that early stage of the game, and sometimes the difference is made in how much you're willing to give to it to succeed. . . along with all the other factors, of course.

dynamik

First off, that's not playing devil's advocate.

More importantly, now that you went ahead and did this, tell me, where does it end?

(Experience + Certs + Education + Who you know + amount of effort applied + Making good eye contact with the interviewer and not constantly glancing over at the hot secretary) * Luck = really good career opportunity

nel

Making good eye contact with the interviewer and not constantly glancing over at the hot secretary

Ha!

phantasm

dynamik wrote:

BigTone wrote:

However, I forgot who had the formula, maybe JD or someone...

Bingo

JDMurray wrote:

( Experience + Certs + Education + Who you know) * Luck = really good career opportunity

Big +1 here. I'm 27, 5 yrs in the military, an A.S. degree, working on my B.S. degree and currently at my first IT position. I got lucky in that I had 2yrs experience in a sorta IT role at a major ISP/Cable provider in the U.S and landed a decent salary of around $34k before taxes. I have no certs and was hired based on the recommendation of a previous member of the company's IT dept. I got lucky, very lucky.

Kaminsky

dynamik wrote:

First off, that's not playing devil's advocate.

More importantly, now that you went ahead and did this, tell me, where does it end?

(Experience + Certs + Education + Who you know + amount of effort applied + Making good eye contact with the interviewer and not constantly glancing over at the hot secretary) * Luck = really good career opportunity

(Experience + Certs + Education + Who you know * amount of effort applied + -ve Making good eye contact with the interviewer and not constantly glancing over at the hot secretary ( if she too nice then screw the job.. get her number before you leave )+ -ve being confident - both when you do know and when you don't ... blagging is a skill that should be mastered ) * Luck = really good career opportunity

Remember, 2 years of bum on seat gives you the start of a carear. Any role afterward, apply the same rule to become an expert in that particular role after a couple of years .... ish !

JohnDouglas

You need to get lucky, that's going to be really hard over the next couple of years though. By luck i mean land a good contract. All you need is like £15/h and you'll be on 30k.

Personally, I'd get your certs, get some experience. Then, when things pick up in a couple of years, which they will, jump on the wave and head to london, get lots of contract experience.

That's my plan (not the going to london bit, i'm too old and too settled for that now!), be ready for the next time with some good understanding/certs and possibly some real experience in customer networks too if i can move sideways here. I don't really want to move into customer stuff now as i don't expect there will be alot happening next year. Best to spend time studying.

D-boy

I live in London and earn £29k doing desktop support. What credit crunch?!?!? lol

But I work in media so maybe it depends, what industry too....

laidbackfreak

D-boy wrote:

I live in London and earn £29k doing desktop support. What credit crunch?!?!? lol

But I work in media so maybe it depends, what industry too....

contradiction in terms.... work and media lol

serioulsy tho good palces to work if you can get in there....
london wages vary hugely depending on the sector your working in, job beofre this a well known ISP i was earning considerably mroe than now, but was a short term contract, my current role is for the NHS n pay is crap in comparison but it serves my needs for now and means im relatively safe from the effects of the current recession.....

ive a few friends working in the media and they are all worried !!