CCNA and co-op program give employer a winning team
Tutor and student succeed together
| It was a real struggle. Vince Delibato was in grade ten at St. Jean de Brébeuf secondary school in Hamilton, Ontario, where he took IT Essentials I: PC Hardware and Software in the computer engineering course (TEE20). It covered the basics of computers, how they function and a brief introduction to networking. He did not get off to a good start. "Students who have taken this program have two skill sets we don't often see and that is to work together as a team and to solve problems." - George Saturnino, President, Icor Group |
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| Vince Delibato | Fab Sa |
Delibato enjoyed the course enough he is now taking the next stepping stone, Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) semesters, as is Sa, who is hoping to go to Mohawk College where they give credit for CCNA semesters taken in high school.
Sa says he realised what he wanted to do after taking the computer engineering course. "I got good habits, passed that course and took CCNA. Computer engineering was a bit intimidating but after that it was pretty amazing, really cool."
St. Jean de Brébeuf has a co-op component to their courses, usually in grade 11. Both Delibato and Sa were interviewing for jobs for their co-op placements. Delibato had an interview with Icor Group, an IT support and network management company. He recounts, "I walked out of the interview, everything had gone well, and then I happened to look in one of the chairs and saw Fab sitting there. I figured I wouldn't get hired. He had more knowledge than I did, there was that grade difference and he was older than me."
What happened, though, was Icor hired them both. Cheryl McGregor is Director of Operations and she is very happy with their performance. "They're really here to learn," she says. "They're both trouble-shooting PC and network problems and they work very well as a team. They are particularly good at problem solving."
George Saturnino, President of Icor, supports co-op programs because he wants young people to see the IT world is different from their perception of a programmer stuck behind their cubicle. In his mind, co-op students who have taken CCNA stand out. "Students who have taken this program have two skill sets we don't often see and that is to work together as a team and to solve problems," he says.
Paul Kocsis is their instructor in the technical studies department at St. Jean de Brébeuf. He is a strong supporter of the Cisco Networking Academy program. He says, "It gives students an excellent chance to accelerate their learning and they can learn something for job opportunities. This is an area where there is demand coming and they're positioning themselves to be in a good opportunity for a job."
A student and his tutor have combined their skills to make a winning team with a promising future that has only just begun.
Feb 2006
