Calvin Career question

[aarone]

I decided to start a new thread away from the other one because you were the most readily avaliable person to answer my questions about my future career, and I did not feel like straying from my original subject.
I was going to do pre med....but after alot of considieration i went back to my original love...computers!
I am not sure if i want to be a systems administrator or network engineer.
I have access to lots of different copmuter classes to take at my college.
What did you take in college? Is getting cisco certified the way to go? What classes would you take with new technology on the way? What exactly does your job entail?
I can tell by your nice tank and AWESOME benz you have a seemingly pleasant and secure lifestyle. That is not at all why I am interested in this field though.
sorry if this is long but i was just thinjking about a few things.
aaron

 

[calvindo]

not a problem aaron. First thing first... if you have a love for computers, you will mostlikely do very well in your career path. how much computers do you know? to be honest with you, i really never attend college... actually, i never finished my senior year in high school (really regret it now, my grammer is terrible).
I got my foot into the IT field by learning from home and experimenting with things. what you should do is buy a few computers and set up a network at your house. imo, thats a must... for anyone starting out. if you have broadband, you can do so much with it... just pretend your house as a company. set up remote access, mail server, web server etc... i can go on and on...
as for your career path.... do some research on salary and see if meets your goal. I live in silicon valley, so a systems administrator make anywhere from 75k-130k, a network engineer will also be around that range. If you like enjoy supporting application and server support, then systems administration is what you should get into. imo, cisco is boring... you just need to understand network typology and cisco hardware... just imagine supporting that on a daily basis
what i do... I'm one of the many Systems Administrator who work for ----. my department supports hundreds of microsoft servers. stuff like email, business application servers, web servers etc...
if you have any question, feel free to ask or email me.

 

[aarone]

On the networking my computers together i already run broadband at home.
My computer is the hardwired (cat5) to the router 802.11b liksys
The others in the house are through the great wireless invention.
Would it still be possible to run a webserver and mail server with this set up?
I was thinking i could just use apache and the mutt mail server program on redhat (free) or just get 2000 and get a nice set up. What do you think i should do?
Also can you reccommend any books?

 

[wamp]

Just don't end up like me!
No schooling in computers, but a little knowledge, Overworked, Underpaid and the only IT man here. On call 24x7 and no budget... Man, it's so much fun!
I agree with the man from E-Bay on the Cisco stuff. Snozze Fest! I tried to read a book on it and could not get through the 3rd chapter!
The best way to learn is like he said. Play with it! Thats how I got this mess of a token ring to Ethernet, just started playing.
I would love to get more into wireless though. We have some Access Points for the RF equipment we use, but not enough to satisfy me. I would love to play with the new 802.11g stuff... But, No money=No Toys!

 

[nicky1.8t]

aaron off topic but am i the only one who thinks the clown in your avatar looks like the happiest clown in the world?

 

[calvindo]

yea, i like his avatar. might have to steal it.

 

[aarone]

Originally posted by nicky1.8t
aaron off topic but am i the only one who thinks the clown in your avatar looks like the happiest clown in the world?
Yeah its just smilin away. Rye actually took this picture. Im surprised no one else grabbed it up...maybe because they did not want to copy! LOL