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cisco networking academy
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| jason892 2003-05-22, 9:49 pm |
| I am currently enrolled in the cisco networking academy through a community college. I have finished the first semester in a little under two weeks. I have absolutely no networking experience, but this course seems like a no brainer. Will these 4 semesters really prepare me for the ccna test, or am I wasting my time? | |
| Erik1916 2003-05-29, 8:05 am |
| hi Jason892
I took the Cisco networking academy, it covers most of the topics but I found that it didn't go into enough detail about certain things like VLAN's, VTP, STP. I had to learn more about these things from a CCNA study guide.
Erik,,, | |
| jgribble 2003-05-29, 10:10 am |
| It really depends on your college. I teach semester 4 at mine, and we do x.25, Frame Relay, ISDN and everything on an Adtran. And we do a lot of other cool stuff. I have heard a lot of complaints about some Acads, but I know there are just as many really good ones. You might just want to talk to the instructor who does semester 3 and 4 and see what their labs are like. | |
| Erik1916 2003-05-29, 10:21 am |
| I quess it does matter where you take the courses, I doubted my instructor's knowledge and experience, I was able to stump him on more than one question. The college did have the Adtran to simulate WAN connectivity but didn't have the resources to implement it when I was there. | |
| brandowyn 2003-05-29, 10:21 am |
| I took the first semester on line through a Community College. I wondered the same thing. I didn't read the last 4 chapters or take the exams for them. Instead I just took the practice and final exam and got a 97.5. The test was unbelievably easy. I have always heard that it would be a hard course. | |
| jason892 2003-05-29, 10:39 am |
| I am taking the all four semesters online.
The only lab time I will get is when I travel 500 miles to the remote lab location. I have finished semester 1, and it was incredibly easy, given the fact that I have never dealt with osi, and subnetting before. Will the next three semesters be the same, or will they get progressivly harder? Also, should I get a study guide (like sybex) and do some on my own studying? | |
| jgribble 2003-05-29, 11:51 am |
| I know not all situations work out like this but... I never relied on an instructor to teach me anything, I always used the oppurtunity to use the equipment to teach myself. A lot of times the instructors dont have very much experience if any at all. If they did, most of them wouldnt be teaching.
I have seen some come out of the four semesters and could work anywhere they wanted because they went above and beyond. They were trying to learn how to set up ISDN while the others were only trying to memorize the acronym.
When I had an instructor that didnt know his stuff, I made it my personal challenge to be able to answer the questions he couldnt.
Point being, as long the environment allows it, the education can be whatever you make of it. | |
| jason892 2003-05-29, 9:15 pm |
| I just got my password for the second semester. Turns out the college I'm using gives free 24/7 telnet access to a rack of routers. Now I can try out some of those commands I see ya'll throwing around out. | |
| revcop 2003-06-03, 4:51 am |
| I took all four semesters and I can say that it gets better as you go along. By the time you get to sem4 and study frame-relay you know everything. | |
| gbugmiami 2003-06-04, 8:21 pm |
| Im hit or miss on it. I did it at a local community college. I had a horrible teacher for 1 and 2 but a good one for 3 and 4. Still, we got very little experience on frame relay and isdn. I dont think it had very much to do with me passing the ccna. The TCS was a big pain, i got something out of it, but im not 100% how much. I think its better geared at the beginer or the unmotivated (me). Im glad i did the networking academy however but its not for everyone..
jasonw | |
| ottomatic 2003-06-04, 9:47 pm |
| I just finished all 4 semesters. I got alot out of the last semester. My teacher was (with all due respect) a royal pain, but he taught me so many things. When I would do a lab he'd break the setup on purpose. The lab consisted of 3 routers daisy chained w/ the one in the middle being a frame-relay switch. He'd do some tough stuff. He set the exec-timeout to one second, password recovery everyday, he'd mess up the punch down and leave the orange wire just barley out so you can't tell if it's in or not unless you really look, he'd turn IGRP debug on, and he did much more than that. I'm happy that he was my teacher. Then when it came time for the skills test... I aced it with out any problems because I was expecting something really really hard. He said he had to go by cisco's rules on the skills test. I feel that I'm almost ready to take the CCNA, just have to read over the study book and my notes alittle more.
I'm dieing to get my Cisco 831 router next week. (for those of you who got one, they're on their way).
It just depends on who your teacher is. Your teacher can make the class fun and benificial or a piece of crap. | |
| jgribble 2003-06-10, 12:44 pm |
| Sounds like you learned a lot. I think that is a prime example of "Just depends on who your teacher is and where you attend."
I have heard some horrible stories about bad instructors, but I know there are several that are terrific. | |
| duanesnyder 2003-06-13, 1:36 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by jason892
I just got my password for the second semester. Turns out the college I'm using gives free 24/7 telnet access to a rack of routers. Now I can try out some of those commands I see ya'll throwing around out.
Do we need a code to use the routers at the college you mentioned? I followed your link and could not find 24/7 routers to use. Can you supply the link?
Thanks,
Duane | |
| jason892 2003-06-13, 2:33 pm |
| The link you're referring to is a link that EN puts in place of certain keywords that they have advertisers for. I typed college, and en inserted the link. I'm not sure what site you went to, but that ain't the site for my school. And yes you have to have a code and be enrolled in the school to get access to the routers. Sorry |
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