MCSA or wadever?

[Sean]

Hmmm. I am currently fresh from IT area and wish to take up a MSCA cert or get a A+ or a CCNA. Ppl from this sector told me get the experiences 1st den consider taking up certification courses, but would not I be more employable if I got certify? Btw anyone knows where to take up these few courses in sgp? Thanks

[Fass]

Without hands on, it will be very tough for you to attempt MCSA OR CCNA

 

Places like NewHorizon, Drake even Informatics do conduct courses.

[torque]

I got microsoft official cirriculum for sale @ $300. Includes training cd-roms and windows evaluation licenses.

Includes test king questions all printed out to practice. Can call me at 98502869 to deal.

[redbeacon]

Nice to be meeting a fellow IT enthusiast like you, Sean.

 

Anyways, your friend is probably right: You can't simply jump into MCSA (or MCSE for that matter) without some hands-on experience.

 

You have a few choices to get started; Get a job as an IT assistant or IT support, helping the administrator in day-to-day front-end PC troubleshooting. From there you learn how (for instance) Windows 2000 and/or XP works, how to help your clients connect to the network and to the domain, not to mention the easy-to-learn troubleshooting steps that you can learn from your peers.

 

MCSA would be a great start. Just 4 exam papers and you're off to a sit-down job of administrating a network of users who, day-to-day, complain that they've locked out their account because they've used up 10 logon password attempts (for instance)

 

My advice to you is, go get your CCNA first. Unless you have networking experience, CCNA should help you understand how networking (and LAN, WAN, etc...) works. There will be some modules in the course of the MCSA certification which requires you to know a bit of networking. And routing as well, I might add.

 

Once you get your MCSA, you are employable. If you're the lucky few, you'll get into a profitable multinational corporation to support the users there. If not, you'll be doing the same elsewhere, but with (on average) a 2k paycheck.

 

Hope this helps!

[max_caveman]

Hi Sean.. This is my 2 cents worth of thought.. First of all , without experience or certification is indeed very hard to get a job BUT it's not impossible. I know where you coming from , alot of confusion and uncertainty cos i have been there myself. I graduated from NP with mechanical diploma but after some time working as mechanical enginner , I decided to switch to IT field and went around looking for IT jobs. I HAVE totally no experience in IT.. i dun even know what a cpu or ram looks like .Why i wanted to join was becos my friends told me this field makes money. Finally i found an IT job in a small company.. i started off as a technician.. learning how to built PC.. later on troubleshoot PC hardware.. then i progressed to desktop support...then to server/networksuport Through self -study i obtain my mcse ,ccna ,cna(checkpoint firewall administator)...

 

I believe the first thing you should do is get 2 pc , get yourself windows 2003 server CD and make one of the pc as server and the other as client.( you can get 2nd hand cheap PC) Get books on mcsa/mcse certification and pratice how to configure DNS,DHCP,Active Directories,etc.. Hint : go to http://www.amazon.com and check out the books certification section and read reviews about mcse books.. find out what books people would get for certification.. what are the pro and cons of thoise books. Are those books suitable for you?? are they to in-depth for beginners or should you get others books based on the readers recommendations.. MCSA is for configuring the operating system itself and not application servers (eg ,SMS,exchange mail ,SQL servers etc).Learning how to configure/troubleshooting application server is where you make yourself more maketable.

 

As for CCNA , although it is an entry level to networking certifcations.. it's is a tough subject. I would advice you to get your mcsa/mcse then go for this paper. For this paper it's NO longer multiple choice questions... it involves simulation questions where you need to configure on a router simulator. I advice you to get some router simulator software and a good book to study( I recommend book written by Richard dean-- CCNA , Mcgraw Hill publisher ; you can find this book on the 4th floor at funan center called the computer bookshop) .Or look for Christopher 96193470 from Knowledge computers pte ltd--he sells 2nd hand routers and switches .. he is a very nice guy and he will help you out ,btw i dun get a cent for recomending him, i got my own home cccna/ccnp lab equippments from him ; i own 5 cisco routers and 3 switches).

 

 

The IT trend now is gearing towards IT security .. look into Certified Ethical hacker certification and CISSP ; have at least 1-2 years of system/network experieince b4 going into securities.

 

Of course the best way is to enrol in a good school and learn.. but it is NOT CHEAP .. it easily cost a few thousands of hard earn dollars.. if money is an issue, then you should try the above method.Alot of my friends also started off this way.

 

Anyway.. i wish you all the best in your career .

[max_caveman]

Hi Sean .. if you have any questions, i am more then willing to help out a fellow IT mate. you can call me at 98536708 and look for Max. Cheers