🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4g9bn9$gfv@hpg30a.csc.cuhk.hk>, chip@alumni.cuhk.edu.hk 
says...

>What's your opinion that a young person, like me, getting the
>certification before getting a related job?  I have few choices
>concerning this.  My current job is not network, nor computer related,
>and i strongly wish to become a computer/network engineer.
>
>Up to now i have been passed 3 tests on CNE4 (technologies/ 4.1 admin/
>4.1 adv. admin), even without chances to touch a *real* Netware
>server, no matter it is a 2.x, 3.x or 4.1 server.  I found that study
>guides are useful for prepareing exams, but the biggest problem, as
>you mentioned, is lacking of experience.  I'm very anxious that even I
>get a CNE4 certificate, my lack of experience will block me to getting
>any job and hence wasted my studing time and money involved.  Does any
>company wants to hire paper CNE? 
>
>On the other hand, does every CNE4 have chances to touch, to plan the
>entire directory tree of a WAN, or always perform Partitioning and
>making Replicas all the time?  I don't think so, so I can justify that
>the way I'm doing (getting CNE without job experience), but i'd be
>much better off if I can get such experiences.
>
>Other than CNE4, i've started to dig in NT, and learned a little bit
>SCO unix.
>
>Can you advise me the way for this situration?  Very thanks at all.

Sometimes it seems like a catch-22 situation; i.e. no job without 
certification, and no experience with certification.  I got some hands-on 
in the official NetWare courses, but not a lot; how much CAN you get in a 
3 to 5 day course?  I got a lot more at first by building my own server, 
and setting it and a workstation up and working with each function till I 
understood it.  That still didn't give me experience in business.

I have known people who worked an internship in a college environment, 
sometimes with no pay; others have been fortunate to get a position with a 
large company as an assistant admin, so that they had someone with lots of 
experience to get through the early part.

It may take creative thinking to find a way to get the experience.  Wish 
you well in it; I still think that just the effort involved in learning 
the material well enough to pass the tests (specially some of the recent 
job-based tests) improves a persons knowledge substantially.

Jim Cason, CNI