unclassified - CCNA vs 'traditional' study at college

[Shaw, Dale]

My 2c..

I'm not sure how these Cisco Network Academy things work, but the reality is
that CCNA is attainable by anyone with half a clue by purchasing a $100 book
and passing a $240 exam. It's the absolute entry level Cisco certification.
Having said that, I believe of the various vendor networking exams,
Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices (ICND -- the exam that when passed
makes you a CCNA) is one of the better ones. I'm directly comparing
Microsoft's now obsolete 'Networking Essentials' and Novell's 'Networking
Technologies'.

I've always wondered how the outcome of these courses is CCNA. The ICND
course is 5 days at Com Tech/DiData and costs about $2,400. Surely there
must be more to the academy courses..

Compared to anything I did at school, any vendor certification is a zillion
times more practical. Canberra is a Cisco town and Cisco certification, I
believe, is a reasonably valuable asset. CCNA proves you can spell "network"
and not much more. The advantage of the instructor-led approach is that
you're more likely to get some 'hands on' with some actual Cisco kit.

If it was me, I'd be tackling the traditional course and having a crack at
self-studying CCNA on the side. Plenty of Internet resources for getting
through CCNA..

Like I said at the beginning, I have no idea what the curriculum for the
Cisco Network Academy stuff looks like. I assume what Karun is talking about
is what they run at ADFA or something similar. It could be a lot different
to the (very) compressed content in ICND with just a similar outcome on
paper.

Cheers,
Dale

-----Original Message-----
From: Ellis, Peter R. [mailto:Peter.Ellis at defence.gov.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 31 October 2001 14:17
To: 'Karun Dambiec'
Cc: 'linux at samba.org'
Subject: sec: unclassified - CCNA vs 'traditional' study at college



Karun, (and others)

I have seen reference in your postings to the Cisco course (CCNA) at
College.

My son, David, is going to Hawker College next year for years 11/12. It has
a similar Cisco scheme there, but he is (or is it I am) somewhat confused as
to the usefulness of the Cisco 'major' versus doing more 'traditional' IT
subjects best summarised as "programming languages" and "systems analysis",
when looking at going on to university study in IT. 

He is about 7-10 days from an enrollment interview to nominate his subjects.


Please comment on your understandings and feelings about this.
(Anyone else with an opinion? But... please keep opinions to under 300 lines
and/or 5,000 words.....)

Thanks,
Peter