Just curious to know if I am the youngest?????

MentholMoose wrote: »

Congrats on doing the CTT+. It seems like you did it for a good cause, so even though the cert won't impress college admissions departments, the volunteer work should. Also thanks for posting your CTT+ videos, I may do the CTT+ myself, and nobody seems to put their videos online.

Waste of time...save your time and money.

MS

seanchen

JDMurray wrote: »

I am not aware of the CSU or UC school systems accepting any IT certifications as actual transfer credit. Many community colleges do offer Microsoft, Cisco, and VMware courses whose credits may transfer to CSU/UC universities, but these are units acquired by passing courses and not by getting IT certifications. Check with an enrollment adviser for UC Irvine or CSU Fullerton before making assumptions that you can trade certs for units in the CSU/UC system.

And you can save a lot of money if you stay at home and go to someplace closeto you, like UC Irvine, rather than go to a university were you will need to rent a place to stay.

This is pasted from Certiport (the company that admin. MS Office exams)

Will my school recognize the ACE credit recommendation?
A: ACE reviews and recommends examinations for college credit to the ACE Cooperating College Network. Each cooperating college or university considers ACE credit recommendations, but independently decides whether to award credit. While ACE cooperating colleges give considerable weight to ACE credit recommendations, each institution, and in many cases, each academic unit and/or department within an institution, sets its own policies for granting credit. If your college or university is not a member of the ACE Cooperating College Network, it still may consider awarding credit based on ACE college credit recommendations

In UC System, Berkerley accept it. 5 miles from my home, Coastline Community College accepts it.

JDMurray

So you can be awarded 2-3 semester hours in a special subject area for each Microsoft exam you have passed? That's not much credit considering how much the MS cert exams cost, but if you would be getting the certs anyway then it's better than nothing. I was thinking that transfer credit could only be awarded by taking Microsoft Official Curriculum classes, but it looks like certifications obtained through self-study are worth something too.

Some people on TechExams should be interested to know that classes taken at Global Knowledge, Learning Tree, IBM, and Oracle (Java & Solaris certs) count for college credits too.

JDMurray wrote: »

So you can be awarded 2-3 semester hours in a special subject area for each Microsoft exam you have passed? That's not much credit considering how much the MS cert exams cost, but if you would be getting the certs anyway then it's better than nothing.

I would say it depends. If you are going to a school (community college) whose cost per quarter hour is say like 45 bucks, you don't save that much money (125 per MS exam vs 90-135 for 3 credit hours). However if that makes it so you can get out of a few classes than I would say it is worth it. My school honored my CCNA by giving me 28 credits (CCNA 1-4). That knocked a year off of my degree.

JDMurray

I was looking at it from the $26/unit we pay at community colleges here in California.

JDMurray wrote: »

I was looking at it from the $26/unit we pay at community colleges here in California.

I pay about 45 here. Man that's a great deal for you guys.

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

I would say it depends. If you are going to a school (community college) whose cost per quarter hour is say like 45 bucks, you don't save that much money (125 per MS exam vs 90-135 for 3 credit hours). However if that makes it so you can get out of a few classes than I would say it is worth it. My school honored my CCNA by giving me 28 credits (CCNA 1-4). That knocked a year off of my degree.

Im no expert of the American College system but I find it amazing that a CCNA is equal to an entire year at University. I wouldn't knock off a year for the CCIE. It is a vendor qualification at the end of the day and not an education in networking architecture or fundamentals to purist University standards. A bit more of that at University would help engineers understand state machines and hardware queuing mechanisms much better!

Turgon wrote: »

Im no expert of the American College system but I find it amazing that a CCNA is equal to an entire year at University.

You're right, it's not. However, the Cisco Academies do offer a series of classes that would span a year if I'm not mistaken, and those would amount to about 16 hours of credit, which is about 1/2 of a 30 credit year. However, those courses do not guarantee a CCNA. The one academy that I'm familiar with also does a similar 4 course program for the CCNP. From what I've see of both of those certs, and what I've read from you guys here, spreading them both out over 4 courses seems a bit overkill. There might be some mapping of credits for certs based on how the academy program is structured, but honestly each institution is going to have quite a bit of leeway in terms of how many credits they offer for a cert.

Not only that, you can also earn college credits from training providers. For example, one large training provider that I'm familiar with will let you earn 3 college credits if you pay an extra $300 and attend their week-long CCNA boot camp.

Turgon wrote: »

I wouldn't knock off a year for the CCIE. It is a vendor qualification at the end of the day and not an education in networking architecture or fundamentals to purist University standards. A bit more of that at University would help engineers understand state machines and hardware queuing mechanisms much better!

Totally agree with you here, as long as it relates to the degree that they're earning. Can't see knocking off a year for someone who gets a CCIE (or any other IT cert) and wants a political science degree.

People are interested more in shortcuts and checking the degree box than they are in actually becoming educated and knowledgeable. Those chickens are coming/will come home to roost when people realize that all of this money they spent simply earned them a useless degree that no one respects.

MS

Turgon wrote: »

Im no expert of the American College system but I find it amazing that a CCNA is equal to an entire year at University. I wouldn't knock off a year for the CCIE. It is a vendor qualification at the end of the day and not an education in networking architecture or fundamentals to purist University standards. A bit more of that at University would help engineers understand state machines and hardware queuing mechanisms much better!

Built into the Associates program I am in is all 4 of the Netcad courses. They are 7 credits a piece and span 4 quarters. They have to be taken in order as well. So by not doing it, I got out of 28 credits which is about 1/3 of the degree. So not literally a year off but a years worth of time I can spend on doing other classes (and other tracks).

There is a "networking theory" class but it is very low level (maybe Network+ level). This is an A.A.S so it is more about job preparation than education really. They have a similar track for Microsoft called Network Manager. It is basically the MCSE (or MCITP:EA, although I am not sure they have switched) plus 60 other credits. If you do the MCSE or MCITP:EA you get about as many credits off as well.

When I go for my BSCS I doubt that my certs will mean anything to anyone.

eMeS wrote: »

You're right, it's not. However, the Cisco Academies do offer a series of classes that would span a year if I'm not mistaken, and those would amount to about 16 hours of credit, which is about 1/2 of a 30 credit year. However, those courses do not guarantee a CCNA. The one academy that I'm familiar with also does a similar 4 course program for the CCNP. From what I've see of both of those certs, and what I've read from you guys here, spreading them both out over 4 courses seems a bit overkill. There might be some mapping of credits for certs based on how the academy program is structured, but honestly each institution is going to have quite a bit of leeway in terms of how many credits they offer for a cert.

Not only that, you can also earn college credits from training providers. For example, one large training provider that I'm familiar with will let you earn 3 college credits if you pay an extra $300 and attend their week-long CCNA boot camp.

Totally agree with you here, as long as it relates to the degree that they're earning. Can't see knocking off a year for someone who gets a CCIE (or any other IT cert) and wants a political science degree.

People are interested more in shortcuts and checking the degree box than they are in actually becoming educated and knowledgeable. Those chickens are coming/will come home to roost when people realize that all of this money they spent simply earned them a useless degree that no one respects.

MS

It would appear so. I have always said that certification and education are different and both are important. We have one lad who cleared his CCIE at 19 whilst working for his brother's IT company. He is now studying for a Degree in Engineering in a Scottish University and I doubt he's been given any credit for his certification. Which for me is the way it should be. I work with a guy with Masters in Mathematics who loves boxes and would happily spend 30 hours a week on them. No Cisco qualifications but his education and aptitude means he brings a lot to the table in terms of logical understanding of protocol mechanics and standards.

Turgon wrote: »

It would appear so. I have always said that certification and education are different and both are important. We have one lad who cleared his CCIE at 19 whilst working for his brother's IT company. He is now studying for a Degree in Engineering in a Scottish University and I doubt he's been given any credit for his certification. Which for me is the way it should be. I work with a guy with Masters in Mathematics who loves boxes and would happily spend 30 hours a week on them. No Cisco qualifications but his education and aptitude means he brings a lot to the table in terms of logical understanding of protocol mechanics and standards.

Engineering is one thing. But if his degree was in "Network Engineering" (IT) you don't think the CCIE should count for anything? You don't think most CCIEs have a protocol and RFC level knowledge of networking (as told by Cisco)? Don't you think that should translate to something?

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

Engineering is one thing. But if his degree was in "Network Engineering" (IT) you don't think the CCIE should count for anything? You don't think most CCIEs have a protocol and RFC level knowledge of networking (as told by Cisco)? Don't you think that should translate to something?

In a word no. At least not for me. Having the CCIE would help the student get through a fair amount of some of the coursework without difficulty Im sure, but even the CCIE doesn't cover some of the fundamentals of networking very deeply or well. Stallings and Stevens are two books that spring to mind that are stuffed full of things that the CCIE glosses over or bypasses completely. This is not a good thing as today's networkers are expected to know layers 1 - 7 very well. Take ACE modules as an example. I would bet that a graduate with a degree in network engineering and no Cisco exposure would hang in better on the class than many CCNPs without the classical degree training. I know, I've attended the course.

Turgon wrote: »

In a word no. At least not for me. Having the CCIE would help the student get through a fair amount of some of the coursework without difficulty Im sure, but even the CCIE doesn't cover some of the fundamentals of networking very deeply or well. Stallings and Stevens are two books that spring to mind that are stuffed full of things that the CCIE glosses over or bypasses completely. This is not a good thing as today's networkers are expected to know layers 1 - 7 very well. Take ACE modules as an example. I would bet that a graduate with a degree in network engineering and no Cisco exposure would hang in better on the class than many CCNPs without the classical degree training. I know, I've attended the course.

I suppose. I've worked with many CS students and grads who didn't understand ip addressing or very basic networking concepts and such. I will agree that networkers need to know all layers of the OSI very well but at the same time with differing job roles, you may get an engineer who only works on layer 1-3. I know a network engineer who works for a very large managed services provider who didn't know much about the higher layers (a little less than CCNA level).

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

I suppose. I've worked with many CS students and grads who didn't understand ip addressing or very basic networking concepts and such. I will agree that networkers need to know all layers of the OSI very well but at the same time with differing job roles, you may get an engineer who only works on layer 1-3. I know a network engineer who works for a very large managed services provider who didn't know much about the higher layers (a little less than CCNA level).

CS students and grads who dont understand ip addressing or very basic networking concepts are either not being taught the stuff at college, or not paying attention in class, or simply not very bright.

The guy you mention who knows little about the higher layers isnt about to lose his job and that goes for a lot of other people. But the bright futures technically belong to people strong in layers 1 - 7. The intelligence going into devices is impressive. Latency is just one concern, stickiness is another, but there is so much more. In high volume trading environments you need deep packet inspection skills and extremely strong layer 4 - 7 capabilities. This was something emphasised by our instructor, the need to get hot on post layer 4 knowledge and network capabilities, proxies, redirectors, accellerators, reverse proxies, F5 loadbalancers etc etc etc. It came as no surprise to me as I was aware of this years ago in the environment I supported. We developed trading software for Bank of New York to name but a few. But its becoming mainstream now. The problem is, a lot of Cisco qualified people can't get up and draw a TCP state diagram much less make sense of a firewall log. Our network guru ran snoop on UNIX boxes back in 2000 and had papers on tcp intercept by his desk. Pushing packets just isn't a big money earner anymore. As one agent told me in 2003, lots of people can do BGP, what about content switching and specializations. Since that time I have seen security and voice oversubscribed by people who do it badly. They ain't the holy grail today either. 1 - 7 is.

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

Engineering is one thing. But if his degree was in "Network Engineering" (IT) you don't think the CCIE should count for anything? You don't think most CCIEs have a protocol and RFC level knowledge of networking (as told by Cisco)? Don't you think that should translate to something?

When Turgon and I were in college we had to walk 5 miles each way to and from school everyday, in the snow. It was uphill both ways....

Just kidding there, but the point being, I tend to chuckle when we see posts on here about people looking for the quickest route to get through undergraduate studies, with that quickest route usually involving some amount of credit for "life experience" or a prior certification. I've seen several of these threads where people will say something to the effect of that because they work full-time, that they don't have time to attend school in a traditional sense and should therefore get credit for their work and certifications that are earned.

Like many of the people on here, I worked full time+ and attended school, both undergraduate and graduate full time+. I also completed undergrad in less than 4 years, from a good school. That was what was required at the time because there wasn't all of the credits available for certifications and life experience. I don't want to speak for Turgon, but I suspect his experience and opinion are similar to mine; what you do to earn a certification or what you do in your job a very different than what you do to earn a proper education.

At the moment, the http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/62596-education-point-should-i-bother-2.html thread is driving me crazy. I think the person is receiving really bad advice that isn't accounting for all of the factors that affect someone's career.

MS

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

I suppose. I've worked with many CS students and grads who didn't understand ip addressing or very basic networking concepts and such. I will agree that networkers need to know all layers of the OSI very well but at the same time with differing job roles, you may get an engineer who only works on layer 1-3. I know a network engineer who works for a very large managed services provider who didn't know much about the higher layers (a little less than CCNA level).

Just to add to what Turgon is saying, this is one of my favorite books about networking:

Amazon.com: The Early History of Data Networks (Perspectives) (9780818667824): Gerard J. Holzmann, Björn Pehrson: Books

You won't learn that stuff in any Cisco-related study....

MS

Turgon wrote: »

It would appear so. I have always said that certification and education are different and both are important. We have one lad who cleared his CCIE at 19 whilst working for his brother's IT company. He is now studying for a Degree in Engineering in a Scottish University and I doubt he's been given any credit for his certification. Which for me is the way it should be. I work with a guy with Masters in Mathematics who loves boxes and would happily spend 30 hours a week on them. No Cisco qualifications but his education and aptitude means he brings a lot to the table in terms of logical understanding of protocol mechanics and standards.

Completely agree...rep given.

MS

Turgon wrote: »

CS students and grads who dont understand ip addressing or very basic networking concepts are either not being taught the stuff at college, or not paying attention in class, or simply not very bright.

The guy you mention who knows little about the higher layers isnt about to lose his job and that goes for a lot of other people. But the bright futures technically belong to people strong in layers 1 - 7. The intelligence going into devices is impressive. Latency is just one concern, stickiness is another, but there is so much more. In high volume trading environments you need deep packet inspection skills and extremely strong layer 4 - 7 capabilities. This was something emphasised by our instructor, the need to get hot on post layer 4 knowledge and network capabilities, proxies, redirectors, accellerators, reverse proxies, F5 loadbalancers etc etc etc. It came as no surprise to me as I was aware of this years ago in the environment I supported. We developed trading software for Bank of New York to name but a few. But its becoming mainstream now. The problem is, a lot of Cisco qualified people can't get up and draw a TCP state diagram much less make sense of a firewall log. Our network guru ran snoop on UNIX boxes back in 2000 and had papers on tcp intercept by his desk. Pushing packets just isn't a big money earner anymore. As one agent told me in 2003, lots of people can do BGP, what about content switching and specializations. Since that time I have seen security and voice oversubscribed by people who do it badly. They ain't the holy grail today either. 1 - 7 is.

I mean I have read what you are said before about learning networking vs learning cisco networking. I think though that today's cert crazy world, learning theory isn't advantageous as getting the cert and learning vendor specifics in the long run. I know that in the long run learning the theory will help but it is easy to be short sighted.

eMeS wrote: »

When Turgon and I were in college we had to walk 5 miles each way to and from school everyday, in the snow. It was uphill both ways....

Just kidding there, but the point being, I tend to chuckle when we see posts on here about people looking for the quickest route to get through undergraduate studies, with that quickest route usually involving some amount of credit for "life experience" or a prior certification. I've seen several of these threads where people will say something to the effect of that because they work full-time, that they don't have time to attend school in a traditional sense and should therefore get credit for their work and certifications that are earned.

Mind you I am doing my 2 year degree. Someone here posted that it isn't even really a degree so why should I care?

All jokes aside I am not looking for a get rich quick scheme to get through school. I plan to get at least a Masters and JD and I know I will be in school for quite some time after this degree. I also don't expect certs to pave the way for my non IT oriented studies. Hell, I don't even expect to retire in the IT field so I need to get a holistic education that will cross over into many other aspects of life. I basically have two reasons that education is important to me. The first are very personal and would require a lot of explanation but in short I want to surpass all expectations people have had of me. The second is that I feel I must surpass my father who has his MS in Chemistry and will probably have is PHd in Education and in Chemisty eventually.

eMeS wrote: »

Like many of the people on here, I worked full time+ and attended school, both undergraduate and graduate full time+. I also completed undergrad in less than 4 years, from a good school. That was what was required at the time because there wasn't all of the credits available for certifications and life experience. I don't want to speak for Turgon, but I suspect his experience and opinion are similar to mine; what you do to earn a certification or what you do in your job a very different than what you do to earn a proper education.
MS

That's very commendable and respectable.

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

I mean I have read what you are said before about learning networking vs learning cisco networking. I think though that today's cert crazy world, learning theory isn't advantageous as getting the cert and learning vendor specifics in the long run. I know that in the long run learning the theory will help but it is easy to be short sighted.

Sometimes even dual CCIE's are regarded as nothing more than glorified NOC Engineers. Vendor certification has it's place but is actually no substitute for experience and education. The demands on the top networking professionals are very high these days as is the competition for those jobs, and to be honest you are just a likely to find someone with years of classical education and unix background in those architect roles as you are CCIE's. For me certification has got too hung up on features at the expense of fundamentals which is why people have problems with reg-ex for bgp, hardware queues in qos, multicasting, loadbalancing and a myriad other things. While things have moved on it all starts with the basics. Radia Perlman didn't have a CCIE when she wrote her thesis and the features being developed on the machines we use are coming out of computer science. We don't have to be rocket scientists but deep and wide reading either through self study or through education is very beneficial. Even basic mathematics isn't strongly tested in the vendor tracks which I find baffling because if you blow your policing parameters on a service provider network 5000 telephones might suddenly stop working properly and the SLA breech could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Add to which a vendor of any flavour could be thrown into the mix at anytime. At that point the world cannot wait two years for you to munch your way through a certification track to expert level. You will have to engage with that technology and make different implementations of protocols and mechanisms play nicely together. Reliance on a different vendor education will not plug the gap there. Understanding the technology deeply will. To be honest the old reading list for the CCIE written did at least encourage some of the sort of background Im talking about. We were encouraged to read some pretty obscure books by today's standards but to this day Im glad I did so even if I didnt understand a lot of what I read at the time. A few years field experience put it into context! The problem today is the written is seen as a ticket to schedule a lab exam slot at San Jose as opposed to a critical learning and training experience. So there ain't a whole lot of reading going on.

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

Mind you I am doing my 2 year degree. Someone here posted that it isn't even really a degree so why should I care?

That's funny, but I don't really agree with it. In fact, if I were doing it all over again, I would probably grab a two year degree first, simply because it seemed like it took so long to accomplish the four year degree. I don't think a two year would have ever helped me, but I've learned over the years that it's very good to have interim goals.

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

All jokes aside I am not looking for a get rich quick scheme to get through school. I plan to get at least a Masters and JD and I know I will be in school for quite some time after this degree. I also don't expect certs to pave the way for my non IT oriented studies. Hell, I don't even expect to retire in the IT field so I need to get a holistic education that will cross over into many other aspects of life. I basically have two reasons that education is important to me. The first are very personal and would require a lot of explanation but in short I want to surpass all expectations people have had of me.

Yeah, from what I've read you have a good head on your shoulders, and appear to be looking for answers more than short cuts.

Also consider that people like me, and there's a few of us here, who went a more traditional educational route, are at this point separated by a severe generational gap. We'll probably never adjust to the myriad ways in which college credit can be earned these days.

As I've said before, any educational experience will ultimately be only what you make of it.

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

That's very commendable and respectable.

Thanks, but I wasn't really looking for praise. What I'm really pointing out is that what I did is not really that unique; there are many out there who took exactly the same approach.

I always remember back in undergrad meeting people in class that were my age, worked full time+, and had kids. Now that would have taken some discipline.

MS