December 2010

If You Could Open a Door Anywhere, Where Would You Go?

Goals

So here marks the end of 2010. How did you do professionally? Did you meet your goals, are you making progress or did you scrap them all together?

I look back at my goals from January 2010 to see how I performed. Looks like I did okay, aside from becoming a Windows Server expert. I don’t think I’m quite there yet.

This year completely changed the way I see my career. I have a set of new goals that I’d like to complete but this time I’m taking a different approach. First, I needed to do a reorientation with my goals so I asked myself a set of questions:

What is my ultimate career goal?
To be a subject matter expert in network security.
What is my major goal for the next 5 years?
To become a key player as a network engineer or network security engineer.
What is my major goal for the next year?
To become CCNP R&S certified with the knowledge and skillset to maintain, troubleshoot and implement network solutions.
Has my career path changed radically?
Yes, because I was in a state of limbo with my career. Not knowing where to specialize, with either Windows or Networking. I now realize that networking is my strong suite and I will continue to build on that foundation.

These are my major goals as of the 2011 year. It’s definitely possible that they could change as I further develop my skills and career. But now at least I have a plan. So now I want to dive in deeper and get specifics:
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The Value of Earning Certifications

It’s like Mac vs PC. You’re either for certifications or you are not. Personally, I have felt that certifications bring great value to an individual.

When I first started working with Cisco gear I never felt comfortable making any changes. It wasn’t until I started reading Wendell Odom’s CCNA certification guides that I decided to really get to know what I was working with.

The scary thing is that I wasn’t yet educated at a certain level to fully understand the concepts of how Cisco applied networking in my environment. It’s easy to make a change to a switch or router but did I know what effect that would have to other components of the network?

I gained a wealthy amount of knowledge after acquiring my CCNA. I not only learned how to type in certain commands in IOS, I got a good grasp around the concepts of networking. I understood why we used VLANs, why we use OSPF and not EIGRP and how they operated. IP addressing made perfect sense to me now. I understood how network traffic traveled through our network.

Even when I was tasked at figuring out why users from the Internet couldn’t get to a specific server in our network. Learning about access lists made that clear to me. What the heck was NAT? Understanding what it is and how it worked allows me to configure NAT on a Cisco device or even a Juniper device because I know the concept of NAT.

I didn’t have the experience as another network engineer might have but after reading through the certification guides and verifying my knowledge by acquiring a CCNA gave me a notch up in experience.

It is very similar to a college course. You get the text books, you read and apply the knowledge. The certification courses were just never included in my college.

What other value does being certified mean to me? It shows my employer that I have initiative, determination and discipline. I even improved my time management skills. I had to set a goal for myself to pass the CCNA exam.

So to summarize, yes I do see value in certification. I see it as getting thorough textbook education, with applied practice and verification. It shows self-discipline and initiative in learning and acquiring new skills to properly get the job done. To further extend the value of a certification, know the concepts of the technologies being studied rather than memorizing for a test. Know the “Why do we use it” and “How does it operate”.

What is your take on the value of certifications?

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Dirty Little Secrets in IT and Careers

I’ve been very busy lately studying for the CCNP and work. It’s a tough battle to balance your work life, studying and personal life. There just isn’t that many hours in a day. On Twitter there are quite a few people who study for hours on a day. I’m talking like 8 hours, on top of a normal day job! I just have to take it slow and enjoy it without pulling my hair out all at the same time! Here are two sites I picked up this week:

I cannot completely agree with every item on that list but it will largely depend on your environment and whether or not you have the capabilities to make a change. One secret I will absolutely agree and disagree on, Certifications won’t always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise.

There are quite a few people on Twitter looking for a new job so I think this would help them tremendously. Better brush up your resume, skills and personality!

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