Cisco CCNA Training

Tue Nov 4 14:08:38 UTC 2014

On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 9:42 PM, Larry Sheldon <larrysheldon at cox.net> wrote:

> For learning--work beside an Old Hand that knows it and has a good record.

Speaking of that, I've been wondering for a while if there are ever
network engineer "apprenticeships," so to speak, or if you guys knew
of any people or companies who do things like that. Based on my
observations, the flat "knowledge" of everything will take you only so
far; there's a lot of tips, tricks, non-conforming platform
behavior/bugs and "unwritten rules"/"best practices" that really only
come with the time of being a net admin. I was envisioning something
like the electrician or plumber-type things where you learn the
technique from a master artisan of the craft.

It seems like a job where the best training *is* that hands on where
you get to see all the big/fun equipment and learn from production
decisions that were made, strange hardware/configuration problems,
etc, but I'd never really seen anyone/company who does these types of
things, and I'd really like to get more experience in the field.
(everybody I look for that wants a network engineer wants a network
engineer, with experience already)

Finally, just more of a general question, what else would you
recommend to someone who wants to get into the network
engineer/operations roles? This could be anything, from books to
classes, to whatever. I do already have my CCNA and A+ from while in
high school, (my networking I-IV prof was adjunct at the local CC, so
we could dual enroll in the local CC and get them to pay for our cert
tests :D) and most of a bachelors in Networking and Systems
Administration from RIT that I'll be finishing up over the next little
bit. I also love radio (K2FUR! :)), so something with cellular really
fascinates me, although any sort of networking/ops/disaster recovery
really is my passion.

Anyway, thanks for your time and potential suggestions!

Alex