Getting experience

c4nk · 12-19-2006, 02:45 PM

How can I get experience prior to getting a certificate. Right now I am studying for ccna certificate.

acid_kewpie · 12-19-2006, 04:15 PM

well, you get a job... not really sure what else you would expect if you mean "experience" as in vocational experience. Experience for a CCNA is pretty hard really, as you aren't going to get to play with cisco switches and ISDN routers for a saturday job you know? for the Cisco specific route, things like simulators are useful, but i'd not count them as experience per se.

c4nk · 12-19-2006, 04:49 PM

Yeah ur right I have to get a job in this field for experience, but what do I tell them... because the truth is I dont have a lot of knowledge about anything, just hands on stuff that I got from having xp for couple of years and linux for over a month, but I can learn pretty quickly.

Crito · 12-20-2006, 12:27 AM

You could always build your own lab. Search ebay for "cisco lab" and see what comes up.

This one looked pretty good to me:
http://cgi.ebay.com/FULL-CCNP-CCNA-L...QQcmdZViewItem
http://www.soundnetworking.biz/DSC00990.jpg

acid_kewpie · 12-20-2006, 02:00 AM

yeah, an old 2900 switch would be a good start. the CCNA is based upon the Catalyst 2950 series switches, and the 2900 should be a near enough match whilst being much cheaper due to their age. I did have a Catalyst 1900 switch, but they are so old now their functionality really doesn't reflect what you need, so avoid them...

c4nk · 12-20-2006, 09:31 AM

WOW!, that would be awsome if I could get the rack from ebay, but unfortunetly I am still a student with no job... So its not likely I will buy any switch any time soon.

Do companies hire students to learn on their equipment? Not part of a class, but lets say I would walk into some company and just ask them, is it likely they would allow me?

ALInux · 12-20-2006, 12:35 PM

I did my CCNA and I scored 1000. To be honest with you havng your lab is great but when you are studying for the exam you are better of with a simulator. It allows you to create different scenarios in no time and it has got some scenarions built in already. If you wan to download one check out the shares section at www.sadikhov.com

acid_kewpie · 12-20-2006, 01:52 PM

i just did my CCNA intro... scraped by by 7 points... ouch.

simlulators are certainly a great improvement over just reading books, but at the same time it's so hard to really undersatnd the point of doing anything when it doesn't actually benefit you. even with a real cisco switch to play with you're not going to really apprecite the point of vtp or cdp or any other number of protocols without actually seeing how they benefit you (or why you should disable them like those two there...)