Need a little advice. Which of 2 options?

DoubleNNs

I'm nearing the end of my year off from college; I left school in May 2012. My plan is to complete a few classes this summer and hopefully re-enroll full-time in the fall 2013 to finish up my Bachelor's.

I JUST got my 1st IT job (finally) - haven't even completed my 1st week. I'm really excited about it and it seems like I'm gonna love employment there. However, it is a part-time position. I'm currently working 3 days a week.

I'm not planning on doing much (if any) certs while in school. I want to focus on classes. So I only have a window of about 4 more months before I decide to put down cert studying for a while. Until then, I was thinking of doing 1 of 2 things:

1) Picking up a 2nd job, probably at a local comp repair shop. It'd give me some professional level hardware experience. As of now all I can really say is I've built a few desktops me or friends have used in the past, and have fixed comps for friends/classmates/family. I could probably try to fit a little bit of studying in the free time I have, but I know it wouldn't be anything too substantial.

2) Keep only 1 job and use my days off to study. I could probably complete the CCENT/CCNA and Linux+ before the summer is over. Might even be able to flirt with some of the CCNA specialty track material before college consumes my time.

What do you think would be a better use of my time and/or be better for my resume? Should I rack up more experience (and some extra pocket money) while slowly studying? Or should I blitz thru a few certs and focus on the part time job I have now?

Qord

I would say why not both, depending on what the rest of your life looks like. I think you can definitely fit another part-time job as well as CCENT studies in there.

N2IT

CCENT>CCNA in those 4 months IMO and then roll into your studies. Don't over do it but 2 months for each should be enough.

Polynomial

What's the goal here?

I'm not sure I understand the point of aimlessly picking up certifications.

DoubleNNs

Polynomial wrote: »

What's the goal here?

I'm not sure I understand the point of aimlessly picking up certifications.

I want to expand on my skill set and at the end of the day have some way to verify to an employer that I actually know the material - even if only theoretically. I want to essentially be able to graduate in a year from now and hit the ground running - climbing up the IT career ladder.
Currently networking interests me, although I'm too new to all of this to be sure if that's the direction I truly want to go down.

Certs are resume builders and provide a template to learn new technology. (Just mere days after getting my A+ I was using the material I learned in interviews.)

Qord wrote: »

I would say why not both, depending on what the rest of your life looks like. I think you can definitely fit another part-time job as well as CCENT studies in there.

I could do 2 part-time jobs and get my CCENT. I'm not sure if I'd be able to finish my ICND2 however, and I def wouldn't be able to get any cert beyond that. The experience would most likely teach me tons I couldn't find in books and labs, but there'd be a limit on how much time/effort I could invest in studying apart from the jobs.

Polynomial

This is where I see the issue. Remember while that your degree is permanent your certification are not.

More than likely you're not going to apply CCNA level stuff for a long time. Quite possibly for you after it expires.

Something to think about. Knowledge slips fast if you're not applying it.

DoubleNNs

Well, the certs are good for 3 years. I should graduate well before that, and there's a possibility I might restart my certification efforts after graduation.

And whereas I completely understand the issue of skill fade, I feel it's a problem both with certifications as well as hands-on experience: there's plenty of things I used to do years ago routinely I wouldn't be able to today. I started school wanting to be a programmer but switched my major to IT after a few Java classes, and I know I'd probably have to do a 30 sec brush up just to make even the simplest Java program today.

So, while still considering skill fade, would more experience (specifically at a local comp repair shop) be more beneficial to propelling my career forward, or would making sure I gain some specialized knowledge and/or certs benefit me more?