certifications: which should i take?

[axegrinderbill]

my com. college provides (i think) 3 vouchers for certification tests. Which do you recommend I take? A+ being the first (duh) but which else should I go for? Net+? Linux+? what else? In the course of 60 weeks, I've learned hardware/software/periferials, networking, os'es, linux, and 2000 server.

 

[attack]

Server A+ (or something like that...it's different and more complex than regular A+) would be nice especialy if you want to be a network admin...other than that I'm not sure of the other choices

 

[sramjones]

Well I have 3 of them as in my comment. Thgey are all bull**** and wont help you get a job but still nice to have, and could help you gain interview for job, maybe.


with these certifications you actually really dont need to take a 60 week corse. go to www.cert21.com and do the questions they have there and you will learn. It is good to pick up a book, Sybex is good. have used them in the past. but once you take the 60 week class register and pay for cert21.com if you can do there questions without even thinking such as you go to the question and you read the 1sr 3 words and you already know the answer you will do excelent on the test. I almost had a perfect score on my a+. I did 18 questions per section


But they are all ncie to have

 

[axegrinderbill]

i am only 19, and still have lots of ways to go. i want to become a hardware engineer someday, and I know i'll def. take classes for that, but you live in the bronx, lol and im here in ****ty kansas, so I'm sure with even the fewest of cert's i can land at least a best buy/circuit city job, even doing some consulting and internship.

 

[attack]

Axegrinderbill, if you really want to design hardware you need to focus all your time and money on getting a real electrical or computer engineering degree...to actual design complex computer parts like modern video cards and CPU's your gonna need a PhD in one of those fields. (B.S. and Masters usualy dabble in smaller projects like designing cell phones, radio's, coffee makers, microwave ovens, etc.
Certs don't really do much without a legitimate degree behind them, I wouldn't pay money to be able to get certified.

If you don't have funds to go into college, there are ways to get school paid for....i.e. The army...ROTC 4 year scholorship (which after you graduate you get a commision and serve 4 active or 6 reserves...the reserves being a sure option almost), or enlist and go reserve for the GI bill.

 

[don256us]

If you take the A+ and network+, you will find that those now count towards your MS cert. It's both of them combined that count as one unit for MS. I have my A+. Without it, I would not have made it past the first interview for the job that I currently hold.

 

[sramjones]

i am going into computer engineering