CCNA Courses (Four) from Cisco and UAF CTC
Cisco is the leading networking company, concentrating in
the more physical/hardware end (routers, switches, etc.) of
networking; i.e., more electrical engineering than computer
science (see
B.S. Credentials
entry). Cisco also came up with the most popular networking
certification, the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA),
which is often a requirement for IT jobs, when there are any.
You don't have to take courses to get this, just pass a single
for-profit test any way you can.
To have a much better understanding of the subject and to be
able to prove this with my grades, I took four 4-credit (not 3
since it includes labs) CCNA preparatory courses (one academic
year) from Cisco and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)
Community & Technical College (CTC), which had an
exceptionally well-equipped lab (e.g., each student had his
own late-model routers and switches). I took the harder
version of these courses, Exploration, not the easier version,
Discovery. I did extremely and exceptionally well, having
received a rare A+ in all four courses; see CCNA Courses and
Grades below for course descriptions and all my grades in
them.
While this obviously shows my understanding of the subject as
Cisco teaches it is exceptional, it was clear to me that even
CCNA preparatory courses, usually given as the core courses in
community colleges, are not enough to consider any one who
takes them qualified for an IT job, never mind just passing
the CCNA certification test. See
Principles
of IT Incompetence (No IT Education:
Certifications).
This is particularly true regarding IT security, i.e.,
protecting from hacking, which is mostly computer science
(see
Security
Expertise Credentials entry).
A B.S. from a good university in electrical engineering and
computer science should be the minimum requirement for an IT
job.
CCNA Courses and Grades
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