In The planet of Network APEs : Part 1.1 post, I have asked you to think about why you would want to study Cisco Routing and Switching. I have asked five questions and as promised sharing my thoughts on those five questions from an experienced Network Engineer’s perspective. I do not expect you to agree on everything I say in this post, but rather you should try to take away any points which may help your Cisco studies.
1. Why do we want to study routing and switching?
To make encourage your understanding, the answers to this question can be given in multiple choice questions as the majority of the people having interest in Cisco’s Routing and switching technologies would fall under a short list of categories.
A. To get a job as Network Engineer
B. To advance career or grow out of your current role
C. To expand your knowledge of networking in general to help your current technical career
D. Officially to be Certified due to personal/work reasons
E. All of above
As you can see, all of the answers I have given above relates to your work, career and making a living out of your study. In other words, in terms of economics, you have to invest your own resources to harvest the fruits of your study. Some would say, to have better ROI, you have invest more heavily. This is a good starting point as now you understand that having interest in such studies in general always guarantees some ROI in the end. My answer to the first question is “All of above”.
2. What do we study in Cisco routing and switching?
As you have read in Cisco’s and other training vendors’ web sties, you will be mainly studying subjects related to Routing and Switching. At Associate level, you are encouraged to study more foundational subjects based on lots of theories. At Professional level, you are geared towards more practical side of routing and switching based on both lab and production environment. At Expert level, this is where your knowledge and working experience go into melting pot and you become the master in one technology. In this industry, I have come across many different types of Cisco Certified Engineers, some without a Certification or a CCNA Certification but very good at their work, many with Expert Certification but crap at their work. Certification is good, but you are only as good as your experience, hence, having both experience and the correctly skilled level certification is recommended. The only issue with the current market is that even the most experienced Engineers will be overlooked for job applications if they do not hold certifications which match their claiming skillsets.
Anyway, while you are studying routing and switching, I would recommend you to also branch out a little and look at other Cisco’s technologies and other major vendor technologies. In too many cases, I have come across Engineers who are stubborn as donkey’s arse and only have a single interest in Cisco routing and switching, truly a sad ending to their career as there are so many interesting things you can learn and do.
3. When do we study Cisco routing and switching?
Well, if you are a student, you can study in a classroom. If you are in technical field, then you’ll probably come across on the subject of routing and switching issues everyday. If you belong to this group of people, you need to keep your antennas up and beam into subjects to understand and learn about routing and switching. There are many vendors producing and selling Routing and Switching equipments out there, but Cisco is the biggest by far. Many vendors and their product, but they are all designed to do the same thing. If you are in other area than technical, you will be the end-user of these routing and switching infrastructures, for people in this category, you will have to enroll in a Networking Academy class/read books/web search and should make an effort to understand about Routing and Switching technologies. You can study Cisco routing and switching at anytime you feel like, but I would recommend you to do your studies while your brain in fresh and young, probably in your 20’s and 30’s. I am in my 40’s now and WOW, welcome amnesia and forgetfulness! Some say the speed of time is same as your current age, I am at 42km/h (For US readers, 42 miles/h).
4. Where do we study Cisco routing and switching?
For this one, I will just list all the options that I can think of and you choose where for yourself:
A. At home using own study materials such as internet, official study guides, home lab
B. At work, on the job using work provided equipments (Do not try testing and learning on the real production environment! If something goes wrong, that would be the last day on that job.)
C. At Cisco Networking Academy at your nearest vocational training center/colleges
D. At Universities, some universities have Cisco Networking Academy based courses
By far the best is mixing bit of everything mentioned above. From my experience, the most effective way of learning have been in the order of C-A-B. You might argue that B alone is the most effective way of learning routing and switching, but my response would be “B**l F**k! You are out of your mind!”. What can you test and learn in the live production environment when there are processes and measures (such as ITIL) to stop untrained and hacking Engineers breaking the production network.
5. How do we study Cisco routing and switching to get the most out of my study?
This is some what overlapping with #4 answers, but as mentioned the most effective way seems to be:
A. Enroll and take a Cisco Networking Academy course at vocational training centers
B. Purchase cheap second hand Cisco gears and set up home lab
C. Do not be afraid on spending money on reading materials/CBT nuggets etc.
D. Spend some money on getting a decent laptop and start pick up on either Dynamips or Cisco IOU early at the learning stages
E. Get a Networking job and learn from the job
I have tried all of the above and more, but the style of studying/learning should be based on each individuals need and budget. I hope I have not bored you with my answers, but hope you can add or scratch my suggested answers and come up with your own answers to suit your learning curve. From next post, I will be focusing on sharing the real study materials as I explore (re-explore) the world of Cisco routing and switching. An-young~
ITalchemy - Pick my brain, share the love for IT 
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