Does anyone here have a CCNA, CCNP, or MCSE certifications? I'm thinking of getting mine and I wanted to find out how easy or hard it is. I heard I have to take a four semester class for the Cisco certifications.

I was also thinking that these courses I have to take are expensive and given the volatility of technology, I fear that by the time I do get a certification, there will be new standards and my certification will be obsolete. Take MCSE for instance; Microsoft release a new Windows version within 3 years. That means I only have a 3 year time frame to flaunt my certification before I need to get another one. Which means taking more classes and spending more money.

I have a friend that is MCSE certified.. He said it was cakework and he told me I'd have an even easier time with it than he did. I'm not sure if I believe that or not though... If you are well versed in computers, you may stand a chance of passing the certification exams. I really would recommend you take preperation courses for them unless you are really, really, really comfortable with what you know.

As far as recertifcation goes, you have to do it quite often to be up-to-date. As in every year or two from my understanding, but if you work for a company, many of them will pay to have you recertified so it isn't an out-of-pocket expense. At least, this is what I've have observed from people I have talked to.

I've sat lots of the courses and now I am doing a course at night school which is a diploma encompassing the MS and Cisco courses.


They are a lot of fun, and there is a LOT of material. It really fills in a lot of the blanks in your knowledge and you start to get a much more complete picture of system engineering and administration.

What really helps is if you can get a job where you are working with the products and technologies because you will get a better grip of what you are being taught.

im P.O.T. certified, its easy as pie dude, just..............
:cabrone forgets:

I'm training to get my CCNA right now. I'm in a 2year course and i've just started so i have a long way to go. /me is studying the OSI and TCP/IP models right now for his test tomorrow.

i want to get cert. too.
but i don't want waste money to take courses that can make me pass and without teaching anything useful.

I just started my third semester of four for cisco. Up until now I didnt have a clue how to program a router because I had a lazy teacher for my first two semesters. All we did was sit in front of a computer and read chapters over the internet and we were expected to do labs on our own time. Now she has been fired and I am really starting to learn with our new teacher. To me each semester got a little harder than the last because each semester goes into more detail than the last.

That's a shame, man.

On my course we were on the routers plugging things in and working with them from about day one. Well, OK i think day one we were making cables so maybe it was day two but you get the idea.

For those of you, like me, who have been unable to buy / get hold of a cisco router until now, try telnetting to:

r1r2.com

where you will be able to find some routers to play with. consult their website www.r1r2.com before hand.