How would you use $4000 to benefit your IT career?

Tax season is here! and lucky for me and my education expenses (which boosted my tax return by 2500!), I'll roughly get around 4K back from the government...and I'm going to invest all of it into some form of IT training/certifications.

My Plan: Right now my goal is to become a Linux Sys Admin or Engineer. I'm thinking about putting the money into Red Hat training, so I can get the RHCSA and RHCE (I already have the Linux+/LPIC-1). After looking at indeed.com and simplyhired.com, there are a lot of companies looking for RHCE's (not so much RHCSA)...so I'm hoping with my 1 year of Linux technical support experience, Linux+, LPIC-1, RHCSA, and RHCE..some company might take a chance on me.

Anyways...How would you use 4K to benefit your career?

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Comments

N2IT

Roguetadhg wrote: »

1. Pay off credit card debt.
2. If out of credit card debt, Go to hospital bill
3. Otherwise savings.

Wisdom my friend

FloOz

as of right now i would probably save the money until i graduate and then build a small home lab so i can begin studies for my ccent/ccna. My tax return money, however, is going towards car payments.

YuckTheFankees

You have all made good points and I definitely appreciate all the responses. After thinking about it a little bit longer, it really comes down to how fast I want to get the Red Hat certs (which I do believe will definitely advance my career). If I spend the money on the training, it will probably cut down the time I study for the exam's by a good amount.. but then again if I can wait the 2-4 months longer to get the certs..I would save a lot of money. Seems like a pretty simple choice? lol

veritas_libertas

YuckTheFankees wrote: »

You have all made good points and I definitely appreciate all the responses. After thinking about it a little bit longer, it really comes down to how fast I want to get the Red Hat certs (which I do believe will definitely advance my career). If I spend the money on the training, it will probably cut down the time I study for the exam's by a good amount.. but then again if I can wait the 2-4 months longer to get the certs..I would save a lot of money. Seems like a pretty simple choice? lol

I'd love to take a Red Hat course. Is there a Red Hat academy near you? The local Tech Academy near me is a Red Hat certified training academy.

[edit:] and after further research, the whole program is available online. Hmm, Red Hat training at community college pricing. Nice... I'll have to think about that for later on down the line

YuckTheFankees

I have an authorized Red Hat training center in downtown Denver, which is only 20 minutes away from me. Where did you find Red Hat training at a community college? The only Red Hat training I have found are the classes which are offered on-site, remote, or virtual classroom.

** Nevermind I found the info about community colleges..but there are none in CO. damn**

veritas_libertas

YuckTheFankees wrote: »

I have an authorized Red Hat training center in downtown Denver, which is only 20 minutes away from me. Where did you find Red Hat training at a community college? The only Red Hat training I have found are the classes which are offered on-site, remote, or virtual classroom.

Linux Administration Certificate Program

N2IT

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Linux Administration Certificate Program

That is freaking sweet!

Forsaken_GA

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Linux Administration Certificate Program

The danger I found about trying to take Linux classes at votech's was that they didn't tend to fill, so the classes got cancelled.

N2IT

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

The danger I found about trying to take Linux classes at votech's was that they didn't tend to fill, so the classes got cancelled.

I'm starting to see this trend as well.

-Attempted to take a finance course at the CC and bam it was cancelled. Weird since it was business but it was a night class so maybe that's why.
-Attempted to take an AS400 course and it hadn't been available since 2007 and it was 2011

Their service offering was so out of date it was sickening.
-Attempted to take a SQL class on query building in Oracle and that cancelled, so I waited and was able to get into a database design course which wasn't exactly what I wanted but it led into an advance course and I ended up learning a lot.
-I was able to get into VB and that was a good experience.
-Attempted to take a macro building Excel course at the local CC and it was not available. I actually was logged into the portal and doing assignment when about 2 weeks later I had an instructor apologize the course was cancelled. I kept doing the course work.
-Last but not least I attempted to take a PM course at the local CC and was passed around to ~10 different departments and eventually someone broke the news that the course had been going on for 2 months and they probably wouldn't offer it again. I was forwarded on to another subsidary school who used the name of the CC to market their courses and was offered to have 10, 1 hour sessions with a real life PM for 2,000 dollars but I would have to work around their schedule and there was no set course plan. It was basically ad hoc and ask as you go.

I have been disgusted with the way these programs operate. Back in St. Louis I was going to take an AA major in supply chain management even read a book on supply chain management went to register and they said it was no longer being offered, even though it was in their registeration guide for the current year.

I am thinking about giving Villanova a chance and taking their business analyst essentials course for 1,980 USD. I want to be a business analyst. The syllabus is comprehensive and detailed. I'm about 99% sure that's my next move after I pass the PMP.

techinthewoods

YuckTheFankees wrote: »

so I'm hoping with my 1 year of Linux technical support experience, Linux+, LPIC-1, RHCSA, and RHCE..some company might take a chance on me.

I would think (or hope) that set of certs and experience would go well beyond "lets take a chance on this guy" and more along the lines of "this guy is well qualified, lets hire him!". Am I wrong?

onesaint

techinthewoods wrote: »

I would think (or hope) that set of certs and experience would go well beyond "lets take a chance on this guy" and more along the lines of "this guy is well qualified, lets hire him!". Am I wrong?

From the RHCEs that I know and the job postings I see, they are most often (looking for) Sr. SAs with an RHCE. a Sr. SA position requires some 4+ years experience doing admin work (minimum). So, yes, I think it would be "lets take a chance." Or possibly, a Jr. SA / SA role he might fit into, but the experience is paramount.

techdudehere

I don't think I'd be willing to pay for my own training. Money is too hard to come by these days. I don't even pay for my own study materials. I would just explain that it's going to help you do your job better and that having someone certified will benefit them. With salaries being questionable going into the future, I think I'd hang onto the money. We are all going to need as large of a nest egg as possible. Our employers should be paying for professional training and we should be taking advantage of that. They may not even value the training as much if not equally invested in it.

If they really say no, what about asking them to meet you in the middle and pay half? Isn't there some kind of tax credit for out of pocket education expenses or is that only good for accredited coursework?

JoJoCal19

We got a little more than that for our tax return and actually paid off a bunch of bills. If I were going to spend the whole amount on my career, since I'm in InfoSec I would take the SANS class for GSEC.

YuckTheFankees

**An interesting turn of events. I just found out I will start a computer forensic internship in about 1-2 weeks. My friend was currently doing the internship, then he got hired by the DEA (this month) because of his CF experience from this internship. So now I probably wont spend any money on Red Hat training, I might still continue to study and spend $400 on the actual exam. Funny how things play out.

onesaint

YuckTheFankees wrote: »

**An interesting turn of events. I just found out I will start a computer forensic internship in about 1-2 weeks. My friend was currently doing the internship, then he got hired by the DEA (this month) because of his CF experience from this internship. So now I probably wont spend any money on Red Hat training, I might still continue to study and spend $400 on the actual exam. Funny how things play out.

Congrats on getting the internship. I'm curious to know what it is, can you elaborate at all?

WafflesAndRootbeer

YuckTheFankees wrote: »

**An interesting turn of events. I just found out I will start a computer forensic internship in about 1-2 weeks. My friend was currently doing the internship, then he got hired by the DEA (this month) because of his CF experience from this internship. So now I probably wont spend any money on Red Hat training, I might still continue to study and spend $400 on the actual exam. Funny how things play out.

If you have a good experience with your internship, you may want to consider investing in some third-party training for law enforcement type forensic work as that will make you look hella good to any government employer.

YuckTheFankees

Here's what my friend did over the past year, and I'll be doing the same thing.

-Tasked with bookmarking suspected emails, documents, pictures as well as finding recent internet activity
- Using EnCase and FTK 3 to bookmark
-Then finding any links that associated the user to those links and the times they were accessed.
- My friend also used FTK Imager and FTK Registry Viewer for different projects
-Tasked with writing reports

YuckTheFankees

WafflesAndRootbeer wrote: »

If you have a good experience with your internship, you may want to consider investing in some third-party training for law enforcement type forensic work as that will make you look hella good to any government employer.

Can you provide any links to this type of training?

onesaint

YuckTheFankees wrote: »

Here's what my friend did over the past year, and I'll be doing the same thing.

-Tasked with bookmarking suspected emails, documents, pictures as well as finding recent internet activity
- Using EnCase and FTK 3 to bookmark
-Then finding any links that associated the user to those links and the times they were accessed.
- My friend also used FTK Imager and FTK Registry Viewer for different projects
-Tasked with writing reports

Sounds awesome. Glad to see your persistent ambition has landed you a great opportunity.

YuckTheFankees

I actually land the internship by meeting people on here and ethicalhacker.net, networking is KEY.

WafflesAndRootbeer

YuckTheFankees wrote: »

Can you provide any links to this type of training?

Yes, I shall put some together and post them here for all who are interested. There are three different kinds of training you can get. First, the training from the hardware and software makers. Second, the third-party general industry training (think Cisco bootcamp), and then there is the government training which is done by the government for law enforcement personnel.

YuckTheFankees

That sounds great, thanks for putting in the time to find the links.

Turgon

veritas_libertas wrote: »

I'd love to take a Red Hat course. Is there a Red Hat academy near you? The local Tech Academy near me is a Red Hat certified training academy.

[edit:] and after further research, the whole program is available online. Hmm, Red Hat training at community college pricing. Nice... I'll have to think about that for later on down the line

Why the excitement in RedHat? Very little RHCE fuss on TE over the years. Just asking.

YuckTheFankees

Turgon wrote: »

Why the excitement in RedHat? Very little RHCE fuss on TE over the years. Just asking.

With my Linux experience plus the Red Hat certs, I could probably get a nice paying Linux job. Gaining Linux experience is sometimes hard to come by, so I wanted to captialize on the experience. Plus when I look at Linux admin/ Engineer jobs, a lot of them ask for Red Hat certs or experience with Red Hat. So the RHCE would boost my value by a good amount.

techinthewoods

Turgon wrote: »

Why the excitement in RedHat? Very little RHCE fuss on TE over the years. Just asking.

I was under the impression that RHCE is one of the most impressive/valuable certificates to have. Is that not the case? I ask because I am considering trying for one.

YuckTheFankees

techinthewoods wrote: »

I was under the impression that RHCE is one of the most impressive/valuable certificates to have. Is that not the case? I ask because I am considering trying for one.

I've heard everything from "barely anyone knows about the Red Hat certs" to "it's a top tier cert". I truly believe it's extremely valuable right now, I continue to see more and more Linux jobs out there. Also, the RHCSA and RHCE are performance based..so it's not a multiple choice test..meaning you have to know what you're doing to pass the exam...instead of memorizing information.

That's just my take.

veritas_libertas

Turgon wrote: »

Why the excitement in RedHat? Very little RHCE fuss on TE over the years. Just asking.

I've always found Linux to be interesting, and I'm noticing a growth in Linux jobs in my area. I'm not likely to take any classes soon though. It's much to expensive. I would probably just study for the Linux+ after the CCNA if I thought it would help me. As of now I'm plenty content with studying for the CCNA. That will keep me busy for a while.

WafflesAndRootbeer

techinthewoods wrote: »

I was under the impression that RHCE is one of the most impressive/valuable certificates to have. Is that not the case? I ask because I am considering trying for one.

RedHat is the rough equivalent of Microsoft in the Linux market, because their commercial distro is dominant as far as who is using Linux goes and hardware vendors (HP for example) that support Linux generally only support RedHat, which is why RedHat certs are sought after for Linux professionals. SUSE Linux is also another one but it's not as big as RedHat. Ubuntu is also gaining ground. Any distro that offers a commercialized version usually has a cert to go with it.

Turgon

YuckTheFankees wrote: »

I've heard everything from "barely anyone knows about the Red Hat certs" to "it's a top tier cert". I truly believe it's extremely valuable right now, I continue to see more and more Linux jobs out there. Also, the RHCSA and RHCE are performance based..so it's not a multiple choice test..meaning you have to know what you're doing to pass the exam...instead of memorizing information.

That's just my take.

It's lab based, like the Novell SuSE practicum which no one on TE has posted about for over 5 years. Companies like Redhat because being vendor based they can bash the vendor to get support as opposed to the open source linux/unix versions which many practioners find superior, like my assistant in 2001. He hated Redhat, it installed with drool and was easily rooted, so he went for OpenBSD.

I just dont see what the recent buzz is about Redhat certification. There was one in 1999-2001, then it tanked. Most UNIX/Linux fiends are not cert centric anyway. I worked on HP-UX in 1994-1995 and installed AIX from 5.25 floppies in 1998!

ChooseLife

...RHCE is one of the most impressive/valuable certificates to have...

Like many other advanced certifications, RHCE is designed to complements real-life experience, not substitute it.
I do not want to discourage anyone from taking a certification, just feel it's better be warned.

Typically RHCE as a requirement means "we need someone who knows RedHat well" and "we run Linux in production". Our company runs Linux in production. I am not a hiring manager, rather a server administrator, but I personally will not take a chance on someone who has RHCE without proven track of production experience and regardless of how impressed HR is, will vote against such candidate. And vice versa, for someone who has the experience, I won't care what Linux certifications they have. Some other company may take their chance, but generally Unix admins are not big on certifications and even if it is changing in the recent years, I don't feel there is a major shift in that regard.