CCNP Grad Manages Campus IP Network
Rebuilds Career After Telecom Downturn
| Mathieu Boutin, a 26-year-old native of Victoriaville, Quebec, enjoys the challenge of working as a junior engineer and helping to manage the vast and complex Internet Protocol (IP) network at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). It's especially satisfying for Boutin because he endured six months of unemployment before landing the job last March. "We have to deal with remote access, switching, troubleshooting - the CCNP modules fit exactly with the demands of the network on this campus." |
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| Mathieu Boutin |
While working there, he was barraged with questions from the company's customers. "'How does this technology work? How are the switches configured?' I really didn't know how to answer some of these questions," he recalls, "so I decided to enroll at the Cisco Networking Academy at McGill University."
The Networking Academy program teaches students in Canada and around the world the fundamentals of networking. They learn how to design, build and maintain networks capable of supporting national and global organizations. Combining online learning and testing with instructor-led training and hands-on laboratory exercises, students apply what they learn in class by working on actual networks.
Boutin completed the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) program and received his certification while working at Cybex, but then the telecom sector faltered and he was laid off. It was during that difficult interlude that Boutin began studying for his Cisco Certified Network Professional
(CCNP) certification. By the time he had progressed to the halfway point in the CCNP program last March, he was hired by UQAM. (He completed the CCNP program at the end of November, 2002, and has passed the first three of four exams required for certification.)
The Cisco program has made a major contribution to his skill set and his ability to do the job at UQAM, says Boutin. "At the CCNA level, it's rather basic, but the CCNP is much more advanced. The majority of the CCNP modules are very relevant to what we have here at UQAM, where we're a Service Provider for low-speed as well as high-speed Internet. We have to deal with
remote access, switching, troubleshooting -the CCNP modules fit exactly with the demands of the network on this campus."
Leo Cloutier, the senior engineer in charge of UQAM's IP Network, agrees that the Cisco Network Academy prepared Boutin well for his duties at UQAM. "For us, it's certainly been a plus. Mathieu's extensive hands-on training in advanced routing, remote access and multilayer switching has provided him with the networking skills to 'hit the pavement running'. It is an undeniable fact that the academy courses have given him the Internet technology skills essential to succeed at UQAM and also in the global economy."
Boutin speaks of the IP network at UQAM with awe in his voice. "It's a huge, complicated network; it serves nearly 40,000 full- and part-time students in 22 buildings," he explains. "And, over the next three to five years, there will be an enormous number of new projects for the network, including more buildings under construction and the introduction of VoIP."
As for Boutin, he has a new project of his own in mind: next September, he plans to enroll part-time at the Ecole Polytechnique for a Master's degree in engineering, specializing in networking. While studying, however, he intends to continue mastering the IP network at UQAM.
May 2003
