On Wed, 22 May 2002, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
Thus spake "Nigel Clarke" <nigel@forever-networks.com>
Certifications are a waste of time. You'd be better off obtaining a Computer Science degree and focusing on the core technologies.
If you're looking to write software, sure. A CompSci degree won't help you in the slightest at operating networks.
Stephen - I bet I can do networks much much better than most cisco CCIEs, even after years of doing network-unrelated work :) That's because I understand _why_ the stuff is working, not only how to make cisco box to jump through hoops.
Why would you devote your career to learning a vendor's command line or IOS?
You don't. You devote your career to learning networking. IOS is a base skill which is necessary (today) to utilize that knowledge and, more importantly, get a job.
Yawn. Are you serious? Sure, you need to have some idea of what things are and how they work, but finding a magic incantation in IOS manual is not something which only ceritified cisco "engineers" can do. Unless both IOS and documentation deteriorated much much further than I think.
A person with lots of knowledge and no skills is a liberal arts major, not an engineer.
One of the best network engineers is the world is a liberal arts major :)
Academic respect doesn't pay the bills.
Sure, being a trained _technician_ pays bills. Just about. In my experience, having a real education does much more. Also, need I to remind you where the cisco (the company) came from? :) [hint - it was a certain university which had a need of IP routing boxes, and developed them in house; they also created workstations along the way, known nowadays only by the abbreviation from "Stanford University Network"]
Then again, the question of CERTS vs. DEGREES might apply differently to someone without any experience. I guess it really depends on what your looking for.
Degrees are, in essence, a certificate that you are capable of learning things by rote and regurgitating them later, possibly applying a small amount of thought (but not too much).
Depends on where you got it. Try to get through MIT or Stanford by learning thing by rote :) I think you'll find yourself with self-esteem below the floor, and a ticket home after the very first exams. --vadim