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Hi there everyone. I am currently taking an A+ course using the Cisco curriculum and should be finished with my certification in ~8 weeks. I'm mostly interested in some kind of IT job in the future, which I will talk about more later in my post, but for now I obviously just want to find some kind of starting job. I've always enjoyed more hands-on type stuff and don't really like the idea of working in a call center, so I was thinking of a bench technician job at Frys, MicroCenter, Central Computer (store in the bay area), etc. I'd consider field technician too but I'm only 17 and for whatever reason companies (at least Geek Squad) want them to be 18 or over. Anyways, the only issue is all of these companies want the experience and not just the knowledge. Seems like a Catch-22 almost, need the experience to get the job, but need the job to get the experience. As far as I know, they don't have any type of internships either. So does anyone know of any companies that will hire with an A+ certification but no experience? If not, any idea where I can get the experience? I have my own PC which I built a couple years back, but I doubt that would be enough, not to mention I have no proof that I built it.

Now as I said before, I'll be finishing A+ soon and after that will want to go on to more advanced certifications; either CC** or MC**. From what I understand, Cisco deals more with hardware while Microsoft deals more with software. I don't really have a personal preference as to which I want to branch out to. However, I would like to know which is more valuable and widely used in the industry. To elaborate, if I wanted to find a job as an IT guy at lets say...Toshiba, which certification would be applied most in the work environment or does it differ greatly from company to company? Eventually, I'll probably end up getting both just to know them, but for now I want to take it 1 step at a time. On a somewhat related note, I heard the Microsoft exams (at least MCSE) are 7 tests. If this is true does that mean I have to pay for each of them? If so, about how much would it be total?

As far as degrees go, I've heard the 2 big ones are computer science and electrical engineering. I've also heard that computer science is a lot more theoretical and not so much practical. How true is this? So like my CC** vs MC** questions, if I wanted a job as an IT guy which degree would the employer look for and how valuable are they? Could I possibly be hired with just the certifications or are they a must have?

Lastly, do you think any of the other easier exams are worth getting? Security+, Network+, Linux+, CCENT, etc. or should I just skip them? Also, my A+ instructor who is also the instructor for the CCNA exploration courses said you should know Physics for CCNA. About how much should you know? Unfortunately, I am a bit behind in math right now because I use to sit on my ass and play World of Warcraft all day. My high school also doesn't offer a Physics class since it's independent study. They do let us take college courses though which is good, but unlike high school physics where you can get by with Algebra II, I hear you need Calculus and Trig for college courses.

That's everything I can think of for now. Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any answers you can give me.

"Urdnot" as far as obtaining the A+ before getting any real experience you should be fine. To be honest the A+ is considered an entry level exam therefore it shows that you have passion and ambition to learn even though you may not have real world experience. Most likely you'll have to take a helpdesk AKA "Hell Desk" position before you get to touch any of the cool stuff like servers, routers, etc.

As far as the Microsoft and Cisco certifications are concerned it all depends on what you wanna do. Not so much software vs. hardware more so do you like to deal with the server and LAN side of things or do you like dealing with routers, WAN, network topologies, etc. MCSE is on its way out the door though, it has been replaced by a newer Microsoft exam (sorry I don't remember the name) but there are a similar amount of exams. I'm not positive on the amount per exam but the few that I took were a little over $100 each.

The Cisco exam consists of 1 or 2 exams depending on which route you take to pass the exam. I took the two test route personally as it broke up the topics into smaller sections. Honestly experience trumps any certifications or degree's for most IT positions unless you have the CCIE or something similar. I don't really see how physics help for the CCNA but I guess it couldn't hurt.

I actually created a CCNA Lab Book with a bunch of real world scenarios that you can check out and download a free preview at http://www.configurethenetwork.com

2010-03-11 19:07:19 by Urdnot Grunt

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