Education... at this point should I bother?

So I've been working professionally for 10 years, I start my Network Engineer IV job at Cisco in a week. When I am out if they chose not to renew the contract I will have almost 12 years experience. That will mean I will have almost 8 years of experience in Network Engineering, and 4 years of Systems / Network Administration.

Now I've only got a CCNA, and almost 2 semesters of college (no degree). Should I even bother going back to college? My lack of certs and a degree has never been a burden on me before in my job search as I have a proven record of success and knowledge.

I'm thinking about just forgetting about college and applying my efforts into getting the CCNP then CCIE. I might just skip the CCNP and go straight to CCIE R&S + CCIE Security considering the role I will be doing in my new job is designing and troubleshooting enterprise routing and switching environments, and working very heavily with ASA/PIX.

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Comments

eansdad

videguy wrote: »

Your background and certifications are great. However you will have a tough time breaking in without a BS. I finish mine next month, I should have finished it 20 years ago. I look forward to the day that I can say yes when they ask if I have a degree.
More and more employers are requiring them for even the lowest level jobs.
I've never heard anyone say I regret getting that degree.

He just got a job as a Network Eng 4 at Cisco I don't think he has a problem breaking in. I agree with the need for obtaining a degree to go along with certs but when you reach his level obtaining higher level certs would be more beneficial then a degree.

ITdude

Out of curiosity, will Cisco fund IE attempts if you are a contractor there, or must you be fulltime with Cisco?

In other words do you get most of the same perks or not?

tpatt100

Well I would look at working on a degree slowly with goal to finish someday. Even though you are at Cisco you are still a contractor. Companies hire contractors because it's easier to **** them when they need to. So you might be at Cisco for a bit but eventually you will be looking for something else. I still see requirements for a degree in IT for major companies for direct hire positions. Plus I think long term you will be glad you got a degree later in your career, Cisco is big now but something else will come along later

ITdude

Well, one of the nice things about Cisco contracts is that they tend to be renewed and last quite some time.....

michaelcox

videguy wrote: »

Your background and certifications are great. However you will have a tough time breaking in without a BS. I finish mine next month, I should have finished it 20 years ago. I look forward to the day that I can say yes when they ask if I have a degree.
More and more employers are requiring them for even the lowest level jobs.
I've never heard anyone say I regret getting that degree.

I agree. I'm in this boat myself.

it_consultant

Anyone who has read these forums knows that I think that BS degrees are more or less optional in IT. HOWEVER, if you want to work for an established company like Cisco or Microsoft, they are almost always required. I was going to apply for an exchange engineer position at Microsoft in Redmond which I was qualified for but for my lack of an EE or CS degree. I might have applied anyway but frankly I wasn't highly motivated to pursue a new job.

millworx

ITdude wrote: »

Out of curiosity, will Cisco fund IE attempts if you are a contractor there, or must you be fulltime with Cisco?

In other words do you get most of the same perks or not?

No unfortunately as a contractor they wont fund my Cert attempts, however, they will give me access to all the internal training resources to study with. So that is a huge bonus in my opinion.

From what I was told by employees there is that they want you to have goals and meet those goals, and they cut the bottom 5% who dont meet their goals.

Keeping that in mind I'm wondering if it would be more beneficial for me to complete the NP so it looks like I'm making progression and then start going for the IE. Maybe give them incentive to keep me around.

erpadmin

it_consultant wrote: »

Anyone who has read these forums knows that I think that BS degrees are more or less optional in IT. HOWEVER, if you want to work for an established company like Cisco or Microsoft, they are almost always required. I was going to apply for an exchange engineer position at Microsoft in Redmond which I was qualified for but for my lack of an EE or CS degree. I might have applied anyway but frankly I wasn't highly motivated to pursue a new job.

My current job required a BS....yadda yadda yadda, it's 5 years later and I still don't have a BS. That's changing soon, but as far as they know, I'm still a high school grad making a bit shy of six figures....

BTW, I find it funny the MS would demand a BS, when it's founder was himself a college dropout. Mind you, his family was already rich.....but he was still a college dropout.

ITdude

True, but a Harvard dropout!

Turgon

millworx wrote: »

No unfortunately as a contractor they wont fund my Cert attempts, however, they will give me access to all the internal training resources to study with. So that is a huge bonus in my opinion.

From what I was told by employees there is that they want you to have goals and meet those goals, and they cut the bottom 5% who dont meet their goals.

Keeping that in mind I'm wondering if it would be more beneficial for me to complete the NP so it looks like I'm making progression and then start going for the IE. Maybe give them incentive to keep me around.

To be honest if you are contracting I wouldn't get too hung up on that. The permanent people are expected to get certified and what have you.

N2IT

ITdude wrote: »

True, but a Harvard dropout!

And scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT. The guy had some serious aptitude!

Like I said earlier in my post the true pioneers have very little time to waste paper chasing. They are actually out doing it.

I worked for a smaller property management company 6-7 years ago and the owner was worth over 160 million. He was a college drop out, but got his friends together with this idea. They took this idea all along the east coast and sold this idea. Eventually this idea evolved into a business and this business was bought out by a very large business, for over 300 million.

IMO true pioneers find school merely a waste of time, the rest of us mortals better lock onto something

Turgon

N2IT wrote: »

And scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT. The guy had some serious aptitude!

Like I said earlier in my post the true pioneers have very little time to waste paper chasing. They are actually out doing it.

IMO true pioneers find school merely a waste of time, the rest of us mortals better lock onto something

Everything in balance, without excellent education I can't imagine the amount of scientific breakthroughs we would have to live without. You wouldn't get near experiments with precision instruments and laboratory equipment in a bleeding edge reserach environment with a C-

But the point is a fair one in the sense that far too many people get hung up on qualifications and certifications as the road to glory. Everyone does that. What makes you different is what gets people the good jobs and the career breaks.