Great Cisco degree program... funny though

Funny cause the school is a 100% Nortel shop.

Check out this 4-yr Bachelor of Information Technology (Honours) degree program:

As part of the career-driven curriculum, the BIT (Hons) program offers all three levels of the Cisco certification program, namely, Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA®), Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP®), and Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE®). Currently, no educational institution in Canada is offering a certification preparation program for CCIE, the third level of the Cisco certification. UOIT will be the only Canadian institution that provides this preparation. CCIE is considered the most rigorous of Cisco's certification program and it is highly respected by the industry.

I checked it out yesterday... a CCNP lab (for CCNA's and NP's) and a CCIE lab, completely decked out by Cisco, with total courseload designed by Cisco to make sure graduating students leave with their CCIE.

Oh... My... God!

And being faculty, I get to take this bad boy FREE. Course, parttime... it'll take me until 2015 to complete.

I just find it so hilarious that the school doesn't own a single piece of Cisco hardware in the actual infrastructure, but we have this program... and nothing from Nortel. Oh well.

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Comments

c0d3_w0lf

mikej412 wrote:

MARS is still a planet, right? But Pluto isn't.

Don't be hatin' on Pluto, man.

Otherwise, where will we get plutonium when you make it angry and it stops giving it to us?

Ferret999

I agree with the (coffee shop ---> CCIE Security) guy getting a bad wrap.

If he had the gumption, fortitude, intelligence, and perseverance to pass the CCIE Security
while working at a coffee shop, that speaks louder to me then somebody who has been grandfathered into the Cisco Networking World.

I agree he has some really great qualities but at the same time I think what this really proves is no matter what the cert even CCIE if you do not have the experience then you are not going to get the job. There are no shortcuts to the so called "big money" years of experience plus studying and a bit of luck are what get you there. So thats why things like this degree program makes me nervous will they produce loads of people who have passed the CCIE but are still really only ready for entry or midlevel roles? Will they teach all the professionl skills you pickup from working in a production enviroment?

snadam

mikej412 wrote:

snadam wrote:

And thats called 'dumping'; which is technically illegal and un-ethical.

Actually, when you use the legitimate Vendor Workbooks labs, and do them all -- and that's your "study method" -- that's known as the "brute force approach." If you do enough labs, eventually you'll see a lot of the "gotchas," and if you luck out, you'll get a lab that asks you the "tricky things" you've learn from the practice labs.

And then there was the old Trinet Security Lab Workbook that was supposedly too close to the real exam for comfort....

MARS is still a planet, right? But Pluto isn't.

BAH! I read the original quote wrong...misunderstood the 'vendor' portion. So my bad. Youre right.

And last time I checked MARS is still a planet

Mishra

Ferret999 wrote:

I agree with the (coffee shop ---> CCIE Security) guy getting a bad wrap.

If he had the gumption, fortitude, intelligence, and perseverance to pass the CCIE Security
while working at a coffee shop, that speaks louder to me then somebody who has been grandfathered into the Cisco Networking World.

I agree he has some really great qualities but at the same time I think what this really proves is no matter what the cert even CCIE if you do not have the experience then you are not going to get the job. There are no shortcuts to the so called "big money" years of experience plus studying and a bit of luck are what get you there. So thats why things like this degree program makes me nervous will they produce loads of people who have passed the CCIE but are still really only ready for entry or midlevel roles? Will they teach all the professionl skills you pickup from working in a production enviroment?

I think what this should teach you is that each interviewer is different no matter what the qualifications. You might astound one person while **** on the next guy. I guarantee you that his CCIE went somewhere, just as someones hard dedication + CCNA could get you somewhere.

ITdude

aueddonline wrote:

ITdude wrote:

dtlokee wrote:

I am finding this to be true of more and more people I have interviewed with a CCIE. I interviewed somone last week who's been working at Starbucks for the past 3 years and got his CCIE Security a few months back. He said he just did the vendor labs over and over until he memorized them all them went and passed it. I didn't put him through a technical interview due to this, I also won't be considering him for the position.

Go figure.

That is almost a little scary! However at least people like you serve as a filter preventing people like that from getting hired claiming to be CCIE without apparently any real world experience.

Look at the bright side, if you did hire him, he might be able to supply you with plenty of latte's!

give the guy a break man how many people in this forum could pass that test, good on the guy, claiming to be a CCIE, he is a CCIE ! he might not have the experience but that cert won't have come easy.

That was my point exactly! In his scenario even though he did have a CCIE but no where near the experience level of one, I would at least promote myself as say a CCNP(assuming he had experience with that) and then after he caught up to speed he could rely more on promoting himself as a CCIE.

When you get to the CCIE level it is more than just about passing the required exams, it is about your experience in the field.

If you signed up for a chef course in a culinary institute and passed all the exams to become an executive chef, would you then apply to a 5 star restaurant and promote yourself as a master chef having just graduated? I think not.

However, I don't really blame the guy for trying

ITdude

dtlokee wrote:

Bottom line: he's a CCIE and I'm not

CCIE Envy?

doom969

snadam wrote:

Aquabat wrote:

yea i visited toronta a couple months ago and i liked it, but i guess mabye real canadians don't consider toronto canada, lol

toronto? no....Quebec? Oui, tabarnac!

Lol, where did you learn that ?

Crunchyhippo

I guess I should stop advertising a salary range of 40-50k maybe I would get better applicants

CCIEs are interviewing with you, willing to take 40k a year?? I know that zero experience will hurt the pay scale, but still.....

I'd hate to see what the CCNAs are willing to take.

networker050184

Crunchyhippo wrote:

I guess I should stop advertising a salary range of 40-50k maybe I would get better applicants

CCIEs are interviewing with you, willing to take 40k a year?? I know that zero experience will hurt the pay scale, but still.....

I'd hate to see what the CCNAs are willing to take.

When are people going to realize that certifications do not equate to salary.... If you don't have experience the certifications are nothing but a piece of paper.

dtlokee

Crunchyhippo wrote:

I guess I should stop advertising a salary range of 40-50k maybe I would get better applicants

CCIEs are interviewing with you, willing to take 40k a year?? I know that zero experience will hurt the pay scale, but still.....

I'd hate to see what the CCNAs are willing to take.

Heh, that was a joke...

My instructors make anywhere from $450-$1200/day depeding on the classes. (but most of them don't work every week)

mikearama

networker050184 wrote:

Crunchyhippo wrote:

I guess I should stop advertising a salary range of 40-50k maybe I would get better applicants

CCIEs are interviewing with you, willing to take 40k a year?? I know that zero experience will hurt the pay scale, but still.....

I'd hate to see what the CCNAs are willing to take.

When are people going to realize that certifications do not equate to salary.... If you don't have experience the certifications are nothing but a piece of paper.

I agree 100%. Well, 90%...

...the only exception being the CCIE.

I don't think it farfetched to believe that the one cert that does indeed equate to more money is the IE. When I read rate surveys throughout Canada and the US, the #1 and most consistently top paying cert is the IE. It would appear that that one cert IS in fact worth a good chunk of change, experience or not.

Perhaps it's just expected/assumed in the industry that an IE is experienced. *shrug*

snadam

doom969 wrote:

snadam wrote:

Aquabat wrote:

yea i visited toronta a couple months ago and i liked it, but i guess mabye real canadians don't consider toronto canada, lol

toronto? no....Quebec? Oui, tabarnac!

Lol, where did you learn that ?

I have a lot of family living in Montreal. I was born and have always lived in America. Love to visit Canada though!

itdaddy

this pisses me off; what is going to happen like all great career fields in big demand
the market will be flooded with non experienced CCIEs and then the jobs will be taken up and the salaries dropped. this just pisses me off the school see the market trends ( i understand it is human nature) but crap! and d(*&%%^%^%( other choice words. just pump them out like cans of soup. you will probaly see schools all over the counrty claim to get you your ccnp and ccie bam in 6 months! i have seen all this...holy crap! and i do believe people lie about their skill set
maybe he was working at Starbucks but maybe he was really workinghard just bragging and trying to belittle the competition!
my thoughts!

Dingdongbubble

cool I have been looking at the same Univ and degree since a long time.

I asked them a few questions some time back (last year I think) and they said that they are trying to get a CCIE faculty into the Univ by 2008. Here are the questions i asked and their replies:
1. Are students required to attempt all four CCIE exams? Or do they choose which ones they want to attempt. What is the minimum number of CCIEs studied and are the CCIE required at all?

Taking the CCIE exam is optional, however, all three areas will be covered in the curriculum.

2. Is there any one in the faculty who is a CCIE?

We are in the process of hiring a faculty with CCIE credentials before we first offer the first CCIE class in 2008.

3. Are students supposed to hold all four CCIE cert by the end of the degree?

No, taking the Cisco exams is optional. Holding CCNA, CCNP, or CCIE is not a requirement for the BIT.

4. How is it possible at all to study, attempt and achieve four CCIE certificates in a matter of just a few years? Cisco engineers normally attempt for a single CCIE after years of experience.

Our curriculum is designed to prepare students for the written part of the exam and to help students prepare for the exams.

5. Will UOIT hold CCIE exams on campus or will students be required to attempt the exams at an official exam centre?
We are now working closely with Cisco to see if we can offer the CCIE exams on campus. As of now, all CCIE exams are being held in the US only.[/quote]