Advice

[Gary Nichols]

Greetings Tyler,

Allow me to insert my 2 bytes here.

As a hiring IT/IS Director/Manager for 4 years at several companies, I can
tell you that the one thing that counts above all others is experience,
experience, experience and experience.  I have seen hundreds of resumes for
SysAdmins.  I don't care if you have a Masters in Electro-Warp Core
Technology or an Associates in Basketweaving.  If you don't understand
TCP/IP, subneting, SMTP, Unix filesystems, computer hardware, etc... you
would be of no use to me.

I'm going to agree with a few others here that have posted and add my own:
1) Acquire machines, whether they be 486's or P3's... buy a cheap Sun Sparc
on ebay... start building your own lab in your flat/apt/house/garage.
2) Get good at network wiring.  Buy a punch kit... buy a set of crimpers...
build your own cables/crossovers.  This alone will seperate you from the
pack *grin*.
3) Learn TCP/IP... the OSI layers... make up a funny rhyme to remember them
all.  (I can't share mine, as it would involve a lot of %#$@ words. )
4) Buy some cheap hubs/switches/routers.  Learn how they all work together.
5) Study Unix like you've never studied before.  REALLY understand it from
the kernel to the file systems to procs.... and for God's sake be able to do
file permissions in your head. :)
6) Study variants... Linux (all flavors you can find), Solaris, BSD, etc.
What makes them different?  Why would one be better for the job than others?
What does it take to secure them?
7) Move to applications and services.  Become familiar enough with Apache,
Sendmail, Qmail, Bind, inetd/xinetd, ssh, cvs, -insert your favorite app
here-.
8) Study security!  Did I say study security?  securityfocus.com.  Go
there... read everything... subscribe to everything...
9) Look for some entry level networking jobs.  You'll need to dig through
careerbuilder.com, but they are there.  If you can't find a jr SA job, go to
work for the company doing something else... tech support, qa, web stuff...
get your foot in the door and then show them "btw, I know how to do all this
cool stuff!".  Become best buds with the IT staff there.  Take them to
lunch... buy them beers... pay their mortgage. (Well, ok... noone ever did
that for me... but the first two are a good start).
10) Get at least one certification... more if you can afford it.  RHCE and
CCNA are good starts.  Stay away from M$ certs unless you plan on working in
a M$-friendly arena.  I'm not knocking M$ (ok, I am), but I prefer to stay
as far away from their closed-source crockware as I can.
11) Most of all my friend, have a life!  Arizona is beautiful... enjoy it
once in a while!!! :-)

This is just my opinion, but is extracted from 4 years of hiring SA's.

Your milage may vary, batteries not included... no warranty implied.

~ Gary



On Mar 21 2001, at 10:02, Tyler Hall was caught saying:
> Greetings,
>
> I need your guy's advice,  I'm hoping to get into the field of networking
in the near future.  Such as, managing a school or a company's network.
I'm going to school right now at Chandler-Gilbert Community College, to get
this stupid degree in "Microsoft Networking"  I think it's a waste of my
time and money.   I'm looking for someone that is in that field, and would
be willing to tell me, what steps I should take.  I currently just graduated
from high school, so i'm still young.   Any advice would be helpful.
>
> Please reply privately, so we don't disturb the public list :)
>
> Tyler Hall