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Coolnezzz posted:Question for WGU folks: has anyone successfully enrolled without providing previous college transcripts? "WGU Admissions posted:To be considered for enrollment into a College of IT bachelor's degree program, students must possess a high school diploma or its equivalent AND demonstrate program readiness through one of the following: I didn't need to submit my community college transcript to WGU because I had 3+ years of working in IT and a CCNA. My community college experience sounds similar to yours - I liked the classes I was interested in but ghosted the others and that tanked my GPA. I ended up submitting my transcript anyways and a few classes transferred over. Worst case is that no classes transfer, so you don't have much to lose. Can't comment on whether WGU will be the best decision for you though. I don't regret enrolling, but I'm still trying to establish myself.
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Nov 1, 2020 21:05
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I dont see why you would want a bs in IT if you already have a few certs and more than a few years experience. Just climb the cert ladder at this point imo, itll be a lot faster and probably cheaper.
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Nov 1, 2020 21:11
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Actuarial Fables posted:I didn't need to submit my community college transcript to WGU because I had 3+ years of working in IT and a CCNA. My community college experience sounds similar to yours - I liked the classes I was interested in but ghosted the others and that tanked my GPA. I ended up submitting my transcript anyways and a few classes transferred over. Worst case is that no classes transfer, so you don't have much to lose. Thanks for the reply! I did great on all of the classes I actually enjoyed but totally ditched the general ed. and never bothered to fix that. Defenestrategy posted:I dont see why you would want a bs in IT if you already have a few certs and more than a few years experience. Just climb the cert ladder at this point imo, itll be a lot faster and probably cheaper. I've got WGU on one hand but this line of thinking is on the other, I've always been led to believe that a B.S. is required to "get the good jobs" but I realize that's really not true in our world. I have a great job (imo) that pays really well with nothing but a GED to my name, but certainly a ton of experience at this point. There aren't any rungs left to climb at my company so I'm thinking that buckling down, getting some certs, and putting myself out there to move into something else with room for growth is the best course of action at this point. Thanks for your input!
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Nov 1, 2020 21:50
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I may have an opportunity to do my CCNA through school for mega-cheap. Is BGP at all included in the test? If so, I definitely need more study time before taking it, lolBaseballPCHiker posted:First off congratulations. A LOT of people talk about getting their CCNA and a basic understanding of networking and never actually end up doing it. This post was a huge boost in deciding to go for it. I'm excited to search for these types of jobs.
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Nov 1, 2020 23:33
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Coolnezzz posted:Thanks for the reply! I did great on all of the classes I actually enjoyed but totally ditched the general ed. and never bothered to fix that. I went through WGU. If work is paying for it, and your WGU degree comes with the exam vouchers then I don't know why you wouldn't just go through the program anyways. It's go at your own pace, you can finish it super quick if you want to go down that road and you would at least have a BS behind your name to get past the HR filter.
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Nov 2, 2020 00:04
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Famethrowa posted:I may have an opportunity to do my CCNA through school for mega-cheap. Is BGP at all included in the test? If so, I definitely need more study time before taking it, lol I don't recall BGP being mentioned on the exam itself, possibly outside of the value for Administrative Distance. However, this was when I took the exam a bit over a year ago, BEFORE they retired & restructured the certification & exam paths. BGP is more commonly used telecom to telecom, if I remember correctly. (Absolutely correct me if this is incorrect!)
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Nov 2, 2020 05:38
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The Cisco CCNA exam topics website doesn't list BGP at all (or EIGRP for that matter). Only OSPF and static routes.
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Nov 2, 2020 05:50
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Killer_B posted:I don't recall BGP being mentioned on the exam itself, possibly outside of the value for Administrative Distance. Yeah, at the context of a single org, it's highly unlikely you'll ever see or touch BGP (unless you're at an org that is responsible for registry level routing)
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Nov 2, 2020 06:53
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Actuarial Fables posted:The Cisco CCNA exam topics website doesn't list BGP at all (or EIGRP for that matter). Only OSPF and static routes. BGP was on the old CCNA
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Nov 2, 2020 06:59
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Doesnt hurt to at least know the basic terminology of BGP if you plan on working in networking, even if it wont be on the exam. I think I may actually study for the new CCNP this go round instead of renewing my CCNA for the 3rd time. The little bit I've heard about the exams the new test is easier.
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Nov 2, 2020 13:50
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I have my ENSLD exam in a few hours and I'll be happy to never touch a Cisco certification exam again, especially after doing a few Juniper ones where I felt I was actually tested on my knowledge of the content and not some random fact somebody pulled out of the deepest white page they could find. At this point I'm just doing it out of sunk cost and time.
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Nov 2, 2020 14:13
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As a curiosity, I'm wanting to learn more cloud\container\automation stuff. I know a few certs I need to go for but what would be a good path for getting my feet under linux since, as far as I know, it's more commonly used when dealing with container\automation stuff.
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Nov 3, 2020 15:28
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Cyks posted:I have my ENSLD exam in a few hours and I'll be happy to never touch a Cisco certification exam again, especially after doing a few Juniper ones where I felt I was actually tested on my knowledge of the content and not some random fact somebody pulled out of the deepest white page they could find. How is this exam and the material in general? My day to day is mostly firewalls, and I was looking at the replacement for CCDP to round out my skillset in general.
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Nov 3, 2020 15:35
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Irritated Goat posted:As a curiosity, I'm wanting to learn more cloud\container\automation stuff. I know a few certs I need to go for but what would be a good path for getting my feet under linux since, as far as I know, it's more commonly used when dealing with container\automation stuff. Get an RHCSA book like Sander van Vugt. Read it and do the labs/exercises. Then repeat the labs until you can do them blindfolded and take the exam. If you like it, repeat it for RHCE (for RH7 it was 1 book for both exams, not sure if it's the same for 8). This will give you a very good base for Linux in general and Red Hat specifically. It even gets you started with containers. Since it's hands on it's really valuable when it comes to job hunting. You can't exam cram your way out of this exam. Here are the objectives for the exam
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Nov 3, 2020 15:39
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LochNessMonster posted:Get an RHCSA book like Sander van Vugt. Read it and do the labs/exercises. Then repeat the labs until you can do them blindfolded and take the exam. If you like it, repeat it for RHCE (for RH7 it was 1 book for both exams, not sure if it's the same for 8). Yeah, I think a cert would help push me along since all of my current verifiable skillset is Windows based. I'll use that, thank you!
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Nov 3, 2020 16:43
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Contingency posted:How is this exam and the material in general? My day to day is mostly firewalls, and I was looking at the replacement for CCDP to round out my skillset in general. Overall I thought it was quite a bit easier than the old CCNP route & switch exams. CCNA level, even. I knew going into it that it was more theory based and most of the questions I got were pretty surface level. Even if I wasn't 100% sure I was able to eliminate half the answers that had nothing to do with the technology in question. Like typical for Cisco, the questions that felt like questions you'd potentially be asked on an interview were so simple I was worried I was missing something, but it did have its share of questions that felt like they were plucked out of a random paragraph in the white papers. There was only one question I felt the wording was a little ambiguous. I didn't use the OCG. It's pretty small and personally I find them too dry when I could just do my own research in Cisco's documentation. Normally I dislike itpro.tv but I use it as a study material since it's free from my employer and I was impressed this time around. Sequeira is so much better when it's just him presenting. I also did a lot of design courses in Juniper Genius which shared a lot of overlapping theory. Can't stress enough this exam is not an implementation exam, I think I had all of two questions that asked which two commands would you use, and they were both pretty obvious without even knowing what the commands do. Also, I really don't feel like the percentage breakdown reflected the number of questions I got. I felt like Multicast and SD-Access/WAN dominated the pool, but they are also some of my weaker subjects so maybe they just stood out more. (When I say easy, I mean like... One of my drag and drop questions was asking if I knew how many hosts can be assigned to a /26, /28 and /29 address) Cyks fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Nov 3, 2020 |
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Nov 3, 2020 19:11
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Cyks posted:Overall I thought it was quite a bit easier than the old CCNP route & switch exams. CCNA level, even. I knew going into it that it was more theory based and most of the questions I got were pretty surface level. Even if I wasn't 100% sure I was able to eliminate half the answers that had nothing to do with the technology in question. Thanks--I did a bunch of certification exams until about 2013, and the exams I've taken recently seem geared for braindumpers instead of demonstrated knowledge, like the "what is cloud?" foundational Azure exam was asking about availability zones in Asia or similar. Cisco's CyberOps exams were also out there, so I was getting discouraged. That's promising. It sounds like it has some trivia, but a manageable amount. I had a lot going on last year and couldn't knock out ROUTE/SWITCH, so I've been considering a reverse approach--knock out a potentially easy exam like ENSLD or ENWLSD, and finish with ENCOR when there are better training materials out there. While a CCNP has definite value and worth having, regardless of what this exam tests, would you say that the source material for ENSLD is worth studying or otherwise useful? Random subnet questions wouldn't be, but general "this is how large enterprise networks are architected, and these are design considerations" would be.
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Nov 3, 2020 20:26
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Contingency posted:Thanks--I did a bunch of certification exams until about 2013, and the exams I've taken recently seem geared for braindumpers instead of demonstrated knowledge, like the "what is cloud?" foundational Azure exam was asking about availability zones in Asia or similar. Cisco's CyberOps exams were also out there, so I was getting discouraged. That's promising. That's a difficult one to answer. I hold a Security+ as a job requirement and I agree, the certification is a joke as far as demonstrating your understanding outside of regurgitating concepts you either braindumped or crammed before the exam. I felt that way about older Cisco certifications as well, although from what I hear the newer CCNA and ENCOR are much better. With the exception of SD technologies, multicast, IS-IS and some of the VPN technologies, I have touched the topics covered on the exam in a production environment at some point. If we pretended those topics I just listed were worth zero points, I feel confident I could have passed the exam purely based off on the job experience, which suggests the exam was actually relevant to a production enterprise design and my personal experiences. While I knocked the subnetting question as being super easy, the truth is I've spent WAY more time at work dividing up a network like the question asked me to do when designing a new remote office deployment than I will do something like... think about the eight states of an OSPF adjacency formation (that I had to just google to count how many there were). There were some other good questions in there as well, like one asking where on the topology should you configure an OSPF stub area to reduce the routing table but also limit the number of ABRs in your environment. That's a good question that I would consider worth studying or otherwise useful. So for that I would say yes, mainly because the material and knowledge depth was mostly surface level that you'd actually touch and not much reliance on trivia that you would just google in the real world if you needed to know. (side rant)However I am of the opinion that a certification should reflect what you know, and not something you just study for. I hate how a CCNA is listed as a requirement on applications for an entry level position of plugging cables into a switch, when it isn't. It's a level two certification that should be on the level of somebody with around two years of meaningful job experience. CCNP should be the end of the road for 99.9% of network engineers yet I constantly see positions above entry (and some entry!) listing it as a requirement. (/rant) The difficult part I'm having with the response is that I don't really think the overall topic structure is what I would consider DESIGN. In my mind design should include more focus on business decisions and more familiarity with different products and how they integrate into your overall network. I guess my issue is what exactly should a specialist certification be - and in the case of ENSLD, I felt like the source material was good for administrators/engineers who work in a network shop where bringing up new IDFs or remote offices with connectivity back to a central branch is a big part of your job and is the reason I went with it over the other options.
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Nov 3, 2020 23:15
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Contingency posted:Thanks--I did a bunch of certification exams until about 2013, and the exams I've taken recently seem geared for braindumpers instead of demonstrated knowledge, like the "what is cloud?" foundational Azure exam was asking about availability zones in Asia or similar. Cisco's CyberOps exams were also out there, so I was getting discouraged. That's promising. I have the opposite problem, so I'm trying to decide which concentration exam I want to take. I passed ROUTE and SWITCH before the change. We're getting ready to make a big SD-WAN deployment where I work, so I might do ENSDWI. I'd be eager to hear how yours go.
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Nov 4, 2020 00:42
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Cyks posted:That's a difficult one to answer. I hold a Security+ as a job requirement and I agree, the certification is a joke as far as demonstrating your understanding outside of regurgitating concepts you either braindumped or crammed before the exam. I felt that way about older Cisco certifications as well, although from what I hear the newer CCNA and ENCOR are much better. Thanks, especially for the "design" vs "ENSLD" comparison. My situation is that I'm in a senior level position, but most of my career has been working with firewalls/IPsec instead of deep R&S. That's fine for many companies, but it closes a door with enterprise environments above a certain size. I'm looking at a CCNP to get me to more interviews, and the cert material itself to be able to perform the job. It doesn't sound like ENSLD will cover the "whys," as much as I'd like, but it'll fill some gaps. Thanks! Jedi425 posted:I have the opposite problem, so I'm trying to decide which concentration exam I want to take. I passed ROUTE and SWITCH before the change. We're getting ready to make a big SD-WAN deployment where I work, so I might do ENSDWI. I'd be eager to hear how yours go. So here's the deal--layoffs hit and I'm next on the list if they need to cut deeper. With the way things are going economy-wise, I'm looking for a CCNP Anything to make it through HR screening, and I believe I can pull off CCNP Security by March. I think you took the old ASA exams back in the day, and if you are ever considering CCNP Security, SVPN+SCOR seems to be the fast track and the training's out there already. I'll probably be starting on ENSLD afterwards, but it's going to early summer most likely.
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Nov 4, 2020 04:01
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The ENSARI is by far the most common and the one that has the most resources available. Go look up the CCNP subreddit and you'll see post after post of people passing whereas I think I saw all of two for ENSLD. If you're trying to just get something quick just to pass HR filters, I would definitely consider one of the design paths (either wireless or enterprise). The only one of seen as being really difficult so far is ENAUTO as I've seen it called a programming certification and not networking.
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Nov 4, 2020 07:21
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Cyks posted:The ENSARI is by far the most common and the one that has the most resources available. Go look up the CCNP subreddit and you'll see post after post of people passing whereas I think I saw all of two for ENSLD. Thanks! For me, the holdup for Enterprise is actually ENCOR--I used Cisco Learning Labs for the CCNA and an aborted attempt on ROUTE, and am waiting to see if they'll have a similar product for ENCOR. They just released one for ENARSI, so I'm hopeful.
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Nov 4, 2020 17:12
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Coolnezzz posted:Question for WGU folks: has anyone successfully enrolled without providing previous college transcripts? I attended community college for computer network systems engineering in the early 2000s but I was young and stupid and I ended up failing most classes due to a lack of attendance. I think I had a 1.7GPA last I checked in 2014. Actuarial Fables posted:I didn't need to submit my community college transcript to WGU because I had 3+ years of working in IT and a CCNA. I had a similar situation when I enrolled in WGU, having a college I hosed off in as a kid and dropped out of. I also didn't want to tell WGU about that, but after applying I was told "Hey we see you have attended XYZ University in the year 200X, we are going to need transcripts for that." I sent them over and they didn't give a poo poo that I was terrible back then, though.
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Nov 5, 2020 16:33
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For your WGU grads, did you actually get anything out of it? Was it worth going? I really dont want to go to school, but I've now been turned down for 3 government jobs in a row in IT security because I didnt have a degree. Which I think is dumb personally, but if thats the hoop they're going to throw in front of me I guess I gotta jump.
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Nov 5, 2020 16:38
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I haven't parlayed my WGU degree into a new career, just kept it in my back pocket in case the layoffs come at my current job so unfortunately I can't speak to job prospects. I did apply to a Masters program at Georgia Tech and 5 other schools with nothing more than my WGU degree and was accepted at all of them (which I eventually decided against) so the degree is at least treated pretty well as far as legitimacy goes.
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Nov 5, 2020 16:48
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BaseballPCHiker posted:For your WGU grads, did you actually get anything out of it? Was it worth going? I'm not a grad yet (this should be my last term if I don't gently caress around, though). I enrolled in WGU because I was stuck at a company I hated and after getting passed on several opportunities or just never hearing back after applying I was hoping it would help me pass some of those dumb HR barriers. Then right in the middle of it I got a new job and have picked up a bunch of skills and am currently working in and getting better at infosec, a field in which largely nobody gives a poo poo if you have a degree or not.
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Nov 5, 2020 16:57
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siggy2021 posted:Then right in the middle of it I got a new job and have picked up a bunch of skills and am currently working in and getting better at infosec, a field in which largely nobody gives a poo poo if you have a degree or not. Im trying to pivot into InfoSec myself after I got my CISSP! I have a number of related projects under my belt at my current job but just cant seem to make the jump yet. I've mostly been applying for county and state jobs. Maybe they're just more sticklers about having a degree in the field.
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Nov 5, 2020 17:07
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BaseballPCHiker posted:For your WGU grads, did you actually get anything out of it? Was it worth going?
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Nov 5, 2020 20:35
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Yeah, for government IT jobs everything seems like it needs a four year degree now. Even our Tier 1 contract call center required new hires to have a bachelors. They really do enforce it, they always have trouble staffing those awful positions because the government demands a degree.
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Nov 5, 2020 20:55
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Diva Cupcake posted:Remove the HR filter as cheaply and quickly as possible. WGU serves that purpose. +1 this. This is why initially went to WGU. Applied for a couple jobs I was qualified and didn't make it past the HR filter. BaseballPCHiker posted:For your WGU grads, did you actually get anything out of it? Was it worth going? I have an AAS from community college and did 1 semester at Arizona State back in the early 2000's. I went to WGU Oct 2011 to finish my bachelors and the quality of coursework was just as good as what I got at CC or ASU to be honest. I didn't have a ton of extra classes to take outside my degree program, but I did actually take quite a bit away from some of the business classes I took, technical communication, and some other courses. The courses have made a positive difference in my career in my opinion. It was worth going for a few reasons some personal and some professional. I'm glad I did it.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:26
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EDITED.
BaseballPCHiker fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Feb 2, 2022 |
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Nov 6, 2020 00:44
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FCKGW posted:I haven't parlayed my WGU degree into a new career, just kept it in my back pocket in case the layoffs come at my current job so unfortunately I can't speak to job prospects. Just curious, which masters program at Georgia Tech did you apply to? Been toying with the idea of getting a masters for years..
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Nov 7, 2020 15:53
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I realize this is a couple of days old but, FWIW, always submit your transcripts. Even if it gets you credit for only 1 course, that's one less course you have to take for a few minutes effort.
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Nov 8, 2020 06:29
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Why WGU over a traditional school?
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Nov 9, 2020 13:39
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Famethrowa posted:Why WGU over a traditional school?
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Nov 9, 2020 14:16
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Famethrowa posted:Why WGU over a traditional school? For dudes just trying to check an hr box its probably all the same. Find a 100% online degree thats relatively inexpensive from a school thats not a lovely diploma mil.
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Nov 9, 2020 14:44
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Famethrowa posted:Why WGU over a traditional school? Fastest and least expensive way to get a degree from an accredited college. Tuition covers a 6 month term, where you can do 12 credit hours, or 50 credit hours. There are people who've finished their degree in 6 and 12 months, or you can be like me and take 3 years to do it (While working 50 hours a week, raising 2 infants, etc) WGU is great for someone with an established career that needs to get a 4 year degree to check the HR box.
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Nov 9, 2020 17:27
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skipdogg posted:Fastest and least expensive way to get a degree from an accredited college. Yeah the flexibility was the biggest thing for me. I could blow through the easy classes I already knew in a couple weeks, and spend a bit more time on the tougher classes. If I get burnt out and want to take a week off, that's fine too. Vintimus Prime posted:Just curious, which masters program at Georgia Tech did you apply to? Been toying with the idea of getting a masters for years.. Online Master's in Cybersecurity. Exact same coursework as their on-campus program but the whole thing is online and around ~$10k instead of ~$30k+. They also have an Online Master's in Computer Science that is well regarded and it's only ~$6k for the program. I actually went through the first couple weeks of the Cybersecurity program before I dropped it. I had got my bachelors when I had lots of free time at work to study but my job responsibilities changed and I realized I couldn't do the program without making some series sacrifices or driving myself crazy. From what I saw it's the exact same teachers, material and lectures as their on-campus program FCKGW fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Nov 9, 2020 |
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Nov 9, 2020 18:15
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Huh. Wonder if WGU would have been the better option for me.  I'm feeling the 45 hour work week + trad. bachelor program burnout right now.
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Nov 10, 2020 02:07
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Any feedback on taking courses from Cloud Guru/Linux Academy? Seems a but more robust than waiting for a Udemy course to go on sale for $20. I'm looking to get base certs in AWS. Azure, GCP and then see where I want to go from there.
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Nov 10, 2020 14:46
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