On Jul 21, 2008, at 9:47 AM, Aaron wrote: > A lot of you guys are in the IT industry so I thought it might be a > good idea to post here to see what experiences people have had with > getting their IT certifications locally. I'm looking at getting some > of these under my belt so I can move off of the dreaded Hell Desk > onto more engaging and exciting areas. So I guess my questions are > this: > > 1. Have you gotten any certifications locally before (A+, MCSE, > RHCT, CCNA, etc, etc)? > 2. Where? > 3. Did you take classes or just tests? Which would you recommend > doing? > 4. Any literature that you remember helping you out? > 5. What was your general feeling of the process? > > Any help would be greatly appreciated! Here's my small tidbit of advice, limited as my experience may be. I have my CCNA - it did nothing for me other than make me fairly knowledgeable. If you end up in a network engineering roll, higher Cisco certs will probably be good for you. As far as MCSE, most IT folks I know laugh at it. I don't know if Windows shops are different - never working in one myself. Other than that, experience is your best friend. It would probably serve you well to get out of the big-company environment and go small time for a couple years. There are a ton of small 10-50 man shops around in need of full-time IT, even if it's only one person. Get in somewhere like that and do a good job. Anyone, given some free time, can get a certification. --- Eric Crist