Is a High School degree required to get CCNA certified?

Im 17 and still attend high school (11th grade), except I do it online which allows me to work full time. I was thinking about spending the next 5 months studying for the CCNA exam and then try to get a temporary job for 9months before I start college.

I was wondering if a High School Degree is required before getting CCNA Certified. Also would companies hire beginning networkers under 18? Should I just work at a Starbucks or something similar until I graduate College and try to get CCNA+CCNP Certified until I start College?

Would working using my CCNA + College be too much at once?
Should I really go to college? In the long run would I really make much more with a college degree too?

To be honest I don't even know if getting a CCNA Certification first is best for me. I really want to get into networking and pursue it as a career. Should I get another certification first, other than Cisco stuff?

Sorry if my questions my be a little off topic for this forum but I'm looking for advise from others that can relate and can offer advise. Thanks ahead of time!

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Comments

Paul Boz

No, you don't have to have any formal education to pursue a CCNA certification. I got my job doing entry level tech support when I graduated highschool in 2003, at the ripe old age of 18. I'm in college right now and work 40 hours a week, over night, as a NOC center senior technician and network administrator. I don't really get much sleep between working 4 10 hour shifts a week (8pm to 6am), studying cisco, AND taking a full load at LSU, but I manage.

malcybood

Add1cti0n wrote:

Im 17 and still attend high school (11th grade), except I do it online which allows me to work full time. I was thinking about spending the next 5 months studying for the CCNA exam and then try to get a temporary job for 9months before I start college.

I was wondering if a High School Degree is required before getting CCNA Certified. Also would companies hire beginning networkers under 18? Should I just work at a Starbucks or something similar until I graduate College and try to get CCNA+CCNP Certified until I start College?

Would working using my CCNA + College be too much at once?
Should I really go to college? In the long run would I really make much more with a college degree too?

To be honest I don't even know if getting a CCNA Certification first is best for me. I really want to get into networking and pursue it as a career. Should I get another certification first, other than Cisco stuff?

Sorry if my questions my be a little off topic for this forum but I'm looking for advise from others that can relate and can offer advise. Thanks ahead of time!

Hi there,

I would say if you are 17 then your main priority should be to go to college and get a degree. A degree gives you more options than a CCNA, as many employers in different industries would potentially employ you as opposed to if you left school and got a CCNA it ties you down to pursuing an IT related career.

It is also proving increasingly difficult to break into IT nowadays, especially to get a direct path into networking with no IT experience. A CCNA expires after 3 years so if you got it now and then done a 3 or a 4 year degree, it would have expired by the time you graduate.

You could do a degree and in your 3rd or 4th year if you had the time then study for the CCNA as a CCNA + degree is a good combination for finding an entry level job.

An alternative qualification to look into first would be the CompTIA range of certifications i.e. A+, Network+.........There are forums for these certs on this site and also links to the CompTIA website and different certification paths they do.

http://www.techexams.net/comptia.shtml

Oh yeah and there are no pre-requisites for sitting the CCNA, but ideally you should have an understanding of basic networking. The course is expensive unless you do it self study......again difficult with no network knowledge.

Good luck

Malc

mikej412

About the HS Degree -- Nope.... the only requirement may be a parents signature on something if you're under 18 when you sign up/take the exam. Some High Schools offer the Cisco Network Academy Courses for the CCNA..... so there have been a bunch of teen CCNAs.

The INTRO portion of the CCNA material might cover between 70-80% of the CompTIA Network+ Certification..... so that might be a certification to consider before the CCNA.

As for the under 18 networkers getting hired.... see what answers you get here and consider a more general post under the jobs or off topic forums to see what other teens have gotten in the way of employment. And then there is
this post to check out -- I the remembered the "19 in 2000" comment I had made which made it easy to find.

Lots of people work their way through college.... but it really depends on your skills balancing school and work. If you get into a tough academic school, you might look for part time or weekend on-call type stuff.... or contract work durning breaks/summer. On campus work (if the school had a good sized network and actually let you touch it) could be a perfect solution. Modemhumper may have some school/work insights for you.... (should be back in classes now, but still finds time to post).

Experience eventually will count the most for future jobs.... but a good education can open up a lot of doors. Certifications just get your resume selected from a database or pulled from a pile. But if you can start racking up some good real experience while in school, you'll be way ahead of your classmates when you graduate.

Where you live (and go to school) will determine if there are even job opportunities available for you..... so consider that too.

As for being off topic -- nope, not a problem -- you did ask about CCNA Certification

But since you're in high school you do get forum home work -- find the CCNA Forum FAQ (one of the sticky posts in the CCNA forum view) and check it out.... and checkout the CompTIA Network+ forum this weekend. We'll expect a 200 word report on your certification study plan by Monday evening.