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Which Certs are best?

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by bsboard11

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I am a senior in high school, and enrolled in Cisco Networking Acadamy, and will take the CCNA exam in early may. Afterwards, which certification would be best to get? I plan on learning on my own during college to get either the A+ or the MCSE certification. Which one is easier? I want to have all 3 by the end of my four years of college, and then begin studying for my CCNP after graduating. After I have all 4 of these certifications, how much money will I be able to pull in? Thanks in advance.
-Nick

3 replies

by rcm

A+ is easier, but the MCSE will do you more good. It has a lot more networking situations. Also, MCSEs make a lot more money.

by shanghai sam

The A+ is easier than the MCSE, but I
disagree that it's a better career move,
especially for someone who'll be
breaking into IT.

You'll have a college degree -- that's
good, but too many certs can be a
negative when going for your first job. It
might sound strange, but the problem is
that companies want experience instead
of certs, and without experience, they
won't take your long list of certifications
seriously.

This stigma of "paper candidates" is
especially strong with MCSEs -- there are
hiring managers out there who throw out
resumes of candidates with less than a
year of experience that also have MCSEs.
Probably better to get your foot in the door,
then go for the MCSE.

A+ is considered a "foundation" cert, so
that's probably a safe bet. And if you have
a CCNA (and can talk about the home lab
you set up to study for it) that's probably
good as well, depending on the job itself.
You can always go for the MCSE as well,
but if you have trouble finding that first job
(many do), you might consider leaving
one or more certs off your resume.

Best,

-- Becky

CertCities.com

by studmuffin

Cisco certifications are good,but I think
MCSE is becoming more valuable since Win2K
track forces you to learn the material and will weed out the paper NT 4.0 MCSEs who don't know what they're doing. Juniper is
something you may want to look intolater.

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