Wanting to do it on my own.

[OlsonMW]

Greetings and hello.

I am very much interested in becomming a Netorking Professional. I had gone to SIBT for little more then one semester. The courses were bull****. The teacher decided to talk about his personal life more then teach the class. Needless to say after a full semester of this, and not learning a single thing, I left. Now I have $10,000.00 in student loans to deal with.
What I am now want to do is teach myself. I was wondering if the great minds of this forum might have suggestions for books, cds, web pages, etc, that I may use to teach myself. My fiancee and I have limited money, and with my student loans I have acquired already, I'm unsure about going back and choosing another school.
I would like to advance through A+ certification and eventually get Cisco Certification.
If anyone would have any ideas, as I said above, and would be truely apprectiated. I would like to start with the very basics, even though I already know the very basics, it never hurts to crawl before you walk.

Thank you very much for your help.
Matt

 

[objecterror]

i know how you feel. but this one TCP/IP Protocol Suite Third Edition by Behrouz A. Forouzan could be a pretty good help for you

 

[Gigabite]

Teaching yourself is quite easy, but the problem will be finding a job without a college degree. For example, right now I know adobe photoshop and html quite well, but I have yet to find someone to give me a chance as I don't have any degree completed.

 

[Mr_Threepwood]

Hey I just passed my A+ exam yesterday, here is what I found the most effective (it didnt cost much). Go ahead and buy the A+ book written by Mike Meyers, it's not a terribly boring read, and it's easy to understand. Once you have read that, go to total seminars website, purchase the package with 2 discount vouchers and it comes with 1100 practice question, do all of the questions 2 times. Also do more online questions, they all help reinforce what you read. Definitly go for A+ first, it's the basic one for techs, then you can move on the other ones.

However you should have stuck college out really, a college degree is much better then any certifications.

 

[raross]

I agree without a college degree you are screwed. If you truly do not want to get a 4 year degree then just get a helpdesk job and spend numerous years working your way up. You will learn along the way, etc.

Self-study may seem like an intelligent thing to do, but it isnt. You cannot prove your knowledge to an employer that way. Just stay at your 2 year program if need be or try to get accepted at a 4 year program. Certifications will only help you move up in your job, but they usually do not get you a job.

 

[elitesoldier]

Teaching yourself is quite easy, but the problem will be finding a job without a college degree. For example, right now I know adobe photoshop and html quite well, but I have yet to find someone to give me a chance as I don't have any degree completed.

Yea, it is quite unfortunate that we cannot learn stuff on our own without anyway for the employer to recognize that. The only real way for it to be recognized is to make a portfolio and hope the employer looks at it, otherwise........your just learning it "for fun".

 

[raross]

Yeah, but specially in IT, employers just dont have the time to look at portfolios, you're lucky if they read below your education on your resume.