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Greetings need help/advice

cichlid

Joined
3/7/08
Messages
2
Points
11
Greetings, I'm 22 years and old currently enrolled in TCI in a Networking major. I would like a future as a network administrator, someday. I never went to a real high school (bad guardians,no parents) but I completed my diploma through and accredited correspondence high school program known as Thompson High School(penn foster now) with a 3.0 GPA. I had a 3.5 GPA in my first semester at TCI and believe my GPA should be around the same at the end of this semester. I have a friend who transfered to City College after graduating from TCI with a 3.7 GPA and he still hasn't landed a job so he enrolled at city college. For some reason he had around 60 credits, but they only took 12 and he is going for his B.S. My questions are do you think I'm to old to go and transfer for a 4 year degree to CUNY? Or should I just stick out the rest of this year and aquire my A.A.S. in networking and hopefully land a job asap? P.S. if this isn't the right forum I apologize but I don't know where else to ask and I'm really upset I'm 22 only going for an A.A.S. and struggling like this.
 
no, I don't think you are too old at all. In the networking field, the main ingredient of success is to have marketeable skills and proven success on the field. I have friends in this field and I can tell you that tangible hard skills are more important to academic achievements in this line of work.

I highly recommend that you seek out internships (even unpaid ones) as way to break into this profession. Once you have acquired some level of expertise, explore employment opportunities with networking consultants (Shore group as example). In these entrepreneurial firms you will gain exposure to a myriad of technology due to the nature of the firms (serving clients with various technologies and legacy systems)

Network security, IP telephony, and knowledge of Cisco and open source platforms (applications running on Linux such as asterix) are skills in high demand.

Yes. I think transfering to any of four-year CUNY Sr college is a good idea.
 
If possible, go to a 4 year college and get at least a bachelor degree. 2 year associate degree does not exactly cut it these days specially in NYC.
You should also post on this NYC forum. They are a friendly bunch (I've been a member there since 2002). They have a few guys working on IT networking and they do post new job openings. You can also post there asking if anyone has an opening at their job.
I know a member there (RobNYC) who studying at TCI and also works in IT networking. So it's a starting point for you.
And here is another starting point for jobs
new york city systems/networking jobs classifieds - craigslist
 
You might want to apply to Bloomberg who are almost always looking for network people. Some of the stuff they do there is useful to banks.
 
Thank you all so much for the help. I'm currently working at TCI at the ACDS help desk as a student worker with a great bunch of people. So I'm currently receiving a lot of experience hands on with real network administrators, software and hardware specialists at TCI currently. We also manage the entire schools computer problems, so it's a real plus for me. If I didn't have this job I would have no doubt about leaving for a 4 year. One of my concerns is that if I leave TCI it's going to take me 4 years and I'll be 26 before I can get a job I want. But, if I stay at TCI I can have a job by the end of this year or early next year. Since I should be graduating December of 2008. I'm sort of worried if I leave it might backfire on me and make me suffer in the long run even more. And even if I don't attend a CUNY school I still have to spend 70 dollars for the application no matter what. And the deadline is March 15th and it's already the 7th. Any advice you have about my situation is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
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