Taking Cisco Networking Academy training proves "good karma"
Ex-teacher finds career fit in I.T. trenches
| François Bégin, 36, credits his current career to having "good karma"-and to having studied at the Cisco Networking Academy. "I'm very new to this profession, and yet I've got a good idea of the big picture. It doesn't stop at my server." |
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| François Bégin |
All of this, however, amounts to a considerable departure from his earlier life. Bégin was born in a small town south of Quebec City called Lac Etchemin and grew up in Quebec, but then moved west in 1991. He spent a decade as a high school math teacher, but then decided he wanted a career that was more "intellectually challenging" than "socially challenging."
That meant taking a "leap of faith." Bégin gave up a "pretty cushy job with a more than decent salary" to take the one-year Information Technology Professional program at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, including the first four semesters of the Cisco Networking Academy curriculum.
The Cisco Networking Academy Program teaches students how to design, build and maintain computer networks through two certification-driven programs (Cisco Certified Networking Associate - CCNA, and the Cisco Certified Networking Professional - CCNP). The program combines online learning and testing with instructor-led training and hands-on laboratory exercises in which students work on actual networks.
At the end of 2000, Bégin wrote the exam and achieved his CCNA certification. Before he had even completed the program, however, a recruiter put him in contact with TELUS, and he was offered his present job. "It was the old story of being in the right place at the right time talking to the right people," he recalls. "I've always had good karma in my life."
Having the Networking Academy training was also extremely helpful, says Bégin. "Certification is meaningful, but what was even more important was the hands-on learning. The Networking Academy program had real value." Although his job involves working on servers rather than routers, "we're not an island here," he says. "One of the support teams we have here is a network team. We need to sometimes troubleshoot issues with them."
Thanks to his Networking Academy training, says Bégin, he can look at a network diagram and grasp what he's seeing-and also appreciate what's happening in the background. "I work with fairly experienced UNIX administrators, some of whom, surprisingly, have no clue how the network works. I'm very new to this profession, and yet I've got a good idea of the big picture.
"It doesn't stop at my server," he adds. "I know what a switch is, what a router is, what their roles are, and how everything is interconnected. When I start troubleshooting, I do all the troubleshooting on my server, and can go beyond that, too, ?and talk in an intelligent fashion to the network guys about an issue that might be on their devices."
Bégin is convinced that his new career is "a good fit for my personality," and he wants to keep learning. He would like to pursue a Masters degree in computer science on a part-time basis, if he can find a program oriented toward system administration rather than programming.
"I want to stay in the trenches and work on systems," he says. "Or maybe more on the network side, but that's down the road." Nor has he closed the door on his old career. "I have plans to go back to teaching," he says, "but that's maybe in 10 years. At that time, I'll teach what I've learned about computers."
December 2003
