CCNA Courses (Four) from Cisco and UAF CTC
Cisco is the leading networking company, concentrating in the more physical/hardware end (routers, switches, etc.) of networking; i.e., more electrical engineering than computer science (see B.S. Credentials entry). Cisco also came up with the most popular networking certification, the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), which is often a requirement for IT jobs, when there are any. You don't have to take courses to get this, just pass a single for-profit test any way you can.
To have a much better understanding of the subject and to be able to prove this with my grades, I took four 4-credit (not 3 since it includes labs) CCNA preparatory courses (one academic year) from Cisco and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Community & Technical College (CTC), which had an exceptionally well-equipped lab (e.g., each student had his own late-model routers and switches). I took the harder version of these courses, Exploration, not the easier version, Discovery. I did extremely and exceptionally well, having received a rare A+ in all four courses; see CCNA Courses and Grades below for course descriptions and all my grades in them.
While this obviously shows my understanding of the subject as Cisco teaches it is exceptional, it was clear to me that even CCNA preparatory courses, usually given as the core courses in community colleges, are not enough to consider any one who takes them qualified for an IT job, never mind just passing the CCNA certification test. See Principles of IT Incompetence (No IT Education: Certifications).
This is particularly true regarding IT security, i.e., protecting from hacking, which is mostly computer science (see Security Expertise Credentials entry).
A B.S. from a good university in electrical engineering and computer science should be the minimum requirement for an IT job.
CCNA Courses and Grades
← Previous Entry Next Entry →