Calling All Network Admins

[Brynn]

How did you get into your job?

Im 3rd Year 'leccy engineering student, with communications.

Going to do Cisco CCNA over the summer.

What do you advise me doing for my summer work placement? Do I call up companies, and ask if they need an extra pair of hands? or do I ask to shadow people?.


Also another question, do you enjoy your job? and would you wish it onto another person?

 

[nath]

Does your uni not offer placements?

 

[leggy]

leccy engineering student and you want to be a network admin?

I did a 5year MEng in electrical/electronic engineering. I had previously thought about doing a networks based job but went down the electrical engineering route instead. I will be starting work as a graduate power engineer in september (after 4 years of doing a rubbish research job) for an extremely large and reputable company.

As a fully chartered powerengineer (can take around 4 years after starting an engineering job) you have much more flexibility over pay and actual job. Choose it in otherwords. It is alot easier to get into aswell. It seems that becoming a network engineer with your qualifications is a lot harder than it should be.

Then again it is entirely up to yourself and if you decide to go down that route then good luck. It may be that I just didn't try hard enough. I would advise you to gain as much knowledge, as you can yourself, as engineering uni courses (esp. electrical engineering) usually provide extremely shoddy networking modules, if any. Most companies that want network admins (even for placement) require you to have a lot of sound networking knowledge. Not just "oh yes I am fully aware of irc and have setup a dedicated game server once or something"

 

[Brynn]

Does your uni not offer placements?

no, my course is a 4 year batchelors.

blah

Im not wanting to do power, just..just..ick! I did software instead of the power module. However i was really interested in the communications course much more, i actually worked hard for that course. I know what you mean about companies wanting people to be decent at the networking, which is why i was deciding to do the cisco over the summer, and to also give me a slight edge over all the other electrical engineering graduates for that term.

 

[Cyradix]

I I also did electrical/electronic engineering, followed by a 3 year bachelor in Telecom.
I didn't get a Network admin job right away. I started as 2nd-3rd line support and got "promoted" to network after 2 years.

It is a really fun job and would recommend it.
Only downside is the maintenance outside business hours. Fixing a router at 6 am or restoring the mailserver at 11 pm is part of the job....

 

[`mongoose]

I got lucky

I got a job as in a college learning centre straight after university. Then I taught meself how to html n stuff and got a job as web developer - went to webmaster and then took over firewall duties n stuff. I did CCNA and used that and my firewall experience to land the network managers job when it came up.

if you want experience you should apply to a local FE college, the salary won't be all that but you will get almost 40 days a year holiday, a great pension and should get tons of good training. Once you have your experience you should be able to get a proper job in teh real world or not depending on preference.

M

 

[Draylor]

Going to do Cisco CCNA over the summer.

One day Ill meet someone with that "qualification" that actually has a clue.

Sure, theyll teach you the Cisco terminology for things (which all too often fails to match terms used in the realm world) and how to spend 5-10 times more on hardware than will ever be required: but when it comes to fixing real problems on real networks - or god help us determine realistic requirements - the lack of useful experience is all too obvious.

CCNA is only very slightly more credible than a MCSE in my book at least

Id suggest looking for the job you want first rather than wasting time/money with worthless qualifications. Any company that offers you a job (with basically 0 experience) as a result of having a CCNA that wouldnt consider you without it probably isnt one you want to work for anyway.

 

[yaruar]

One day Ill meet someone with that "qualification" that actually has a clue.

Sure, theyll teach you the Cisco terminology for things (which all too often fails to match terms used in the realm world) and how to spend 5-10 times more on hardware than will ever be required: but when it comes to fixing real problems on real networks - or god help us determine realistic requirements - the lack of useful experience is all too obvious.

CCNA is only very slightly more credible than a MCSE in my book at least

Id suggest looking for the job you want first rather than wasting time/money with worthless qualifications. Any company that offers you a job (with basically 0 experience) as a result of having a CCNA that wouldnt consider you without it probably isnt one you want to work for anyway.

Pretty much agree, the only way to really work in this game is to start at the bottom and work your way up. Practical experience is king in the IT game. I actuallyt trust people with qualifications less than i do those without, but that's probably because i've never taken any myself.

 

[`mongoose]

Pretty much agree, the only way to really work in this game is to start at the bottom and work your way up. Practical experience is king in the IT game. I actuallyt trust people with qualifications less than i do those without, but that's probably because i've never taken any myself.

You can't beat experience but at least most people who have done a ccna have a basic grasp of some principles. I guess the validity of the qualification is being watered down by the monkeys offering the 'CCNA in 7 DAYS!!!!1111' courses where people get pushed through 4 semester's worth of info with a big marker pen being more or less told what to learn for the exam.

M

 

[TdC]

I studied photography


once apon a time I actually did MCSE+i and CNA and that stuff and prolly still have the certs to prove it somewhere, but only because BigCompany paid for it.

atm I am a Solaris (that's a unix flavour) sysadmin. I've been doing it for the past three years, with 5 years of unix in total and three years Novell before that.

I'm very lucky to have my job tbh