Not really sure where to go from here.

CodyF

Hello everyone!
I am in my last year at community college and, come Spring 2015, I will be transferring to a four year institution to obtain my Bachelor's degree. I will be leaving community college with an A.A.S in Network Technology and an A.A.S in Information Systems Security. I have no certifications, and a general idea of what I want to do after school. I'm hoping to start as a Sys Admin and, eventually, make the jump to penn testing after a few years of experience.

I'm worried about certifications, though. A lot of my professors say that without certifications, a degree can only take you so far. But a few people I've talked to in the real world say that having certifications with no real-world experience will just get you laughed at. So I have no idea what to do. I was originally planning on pursuing the CompTIA triad, MCSA, RHCSA, and CCNA. But now I'm not sure. I had an excllent hands-on education, but I think I severely lack conceptual knowledge of how networks and resources are supposed to work.

In light of that, I had the idea of pursuing every possible CompTIA certification. They're very conceptual, and I feel like I would increase my knowledge/reinforce what I've learned at community college. After that, I could return to my original goal of CCNA/MCSA/RHCSA/CompTIA Triad.

So what should I do? Certifications, no certifications? Am I going to get laughed out of interviews when I graduate!? I need to build up my associate-level knowledge, I know that much. I'm just not sure what the best way to do that would be. To be brutally honest, I'm freaking out. I have time to get things headed in the right direction, but I have no idea what direction I should go. I have just over a year before leaving community, and two after that before graduating from university.

Thanks for any help!

DoubleNNs

Get certs. Then get experience.

Forget the idea of getting all the CompTIA's possible. They're not pokemon. And esp since you're in school now, I'm doubting you have loads of spare cash laying around. The CompTIAs are expensive. Additionally, w/ the exception of the A+, their ROI are very small.

Start out small. Maybe get the CompTIA triad while in school, and focus on actually graduating - possibly an internship somewhere in the middle. Then dive deeper into the vendor certs post graduation.

You probably won't start out as a Systems Admin right after graduation. That's a position you'll have to build up to - regardless of whether it takes you 3 months or 3 years to get there.

CodyF

Haha, thanks DoubleNNs. CompTIA certs are pretty expensive, considering like you said, that I'm still in school. I think I will pursue the CompTIA triad and maybe Linux+ while in community college, then move up to the vendor certifications while at university.

Even though the CompTIAs are expensive, I was thinking of pursuing for I believe someone on TE called it "non credentialed skill improvement". When I get to the real world, I don't want to be the guy that blindly configures something with no idea what's going on behind the scenes. I know a lot of that comes from experience, but I feel like there are things I can do now to help me along.

W Stewart

That pokemon reference just made my day but yeah, DoubleNNs is right and certs without experience will only get you laughed at when you start trying to rack up above-entry-level certs without ever holding an entry level job.

DoubleNNs

I know people might disagree w/ me, but you could always study the material w/o actually taking the exam. My last job was linux-focused, and I went thru a lot of the Linux Essentials and Linux+ material in my free time.

The problem w/ looking at material w/o going for the cert however is you won't study it as hard, or as in depth. However, w/ certain topics, that doesn't matter too much.

The benefit of doing that, however, is that it won't be as expensive, time consuming, or take away as much from your school studies.

DoubleNNs

Just based off the fact that you're already thinking about certs now, this far in advance, I'm sure you'll be fine once you hit the real world.

thenjduke

I say get the certifications. Go with Microsoft and Red Hat. I would push to go into Linux / Unix Administrator. Build a lab and learn as much as possible. The experience will come. You will need to start off in some help desk position maybe from the start but do that for a year and learn as much as possible. I would also offer your services around campus and check out WorkMarket.

Krones

It depends on the shop. Certs usually help but are not the end all be all and in some shops they are irrelevant. I would self-study Linux in your downtime. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Servers Setup all that, break it then fix it again. Then do it in CentOS. I would skip the CompTIA certs unless you are completely new to computers.