unclassified - CCNA vs 'traditional' study at college

[Bob Edwards]

Somewhat OT, this discussion, but I may as well put in my A$0.02 worth.

I sat in on the presentation by Cisco to the Dean of Engineering and I.T.
at the A.N.U. when they tried to sell the Cisco courses to us (ie. ANU
trains the Cisco trainers). The Dean was very impressed. I wasn't (I
teach the networking course at ANU). I persuaded the Dean not to get
into it, despite the bribery^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hoffer of much Cisco gear. I
guess they ended up going to ADFA and getting a more sympathetic audience
there.

I saw the course (I read through most of the teaching material) as being
very black box. Great for training people who need to put in place the
officially endorsed Cisco solution for the set of given networking
problems that Cisco believe that people will see out there. But there
wasn't much to encourage students to actually understand networking
fundamentals and to think through the implications of what was happening.

Also, it is yet another good example of American Cultural Imperialism
(ooo - I am getting soooo political on this list!). All the thinking gets
done for you at Cisco headquarters in the U.S. All you have to do is follow
the doctrine (and promises of 6 figure salaries abound).

Anyway, I should get off my soap box now.

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.