Gill":bsejz6qi said:
database administrator and network manager.
As a manager in IT (banking), here's my two yen.
I'm surprised that these jobs were recommended, but I guess they're giving you an aiming point, rather than your next move, which is fair enough (neither are something you can just start out as). I've worked with people who've reengineered themselves into technical positions like these, and there are two definite camps.
1) People who get the paperwork and think that makes them a DBA, network guy, software engineer or what have you. These are a waste of space, and occasionally dangerous with it.
2) People who get the paperwork and realise how little they know, and who then pragmatically acquire experience through taking a few lower level jobs. These I like.
So, that's kind of my advice. That and choose Cisco, because there's a seriously organised career path there. Take a basic course or two, then try to find yourself a junior level job and apply it. Be a sponge, ask as many questions as you can get away with, do as wide a variety of things as you're allowed, and learn to take good, retrievable notes.You'll probably figure out what it is you enjoy the most, then you can take courses to target those specific areas and away you go. Don't just treat networks as a "job" type job - it's not, it's something you need to live and breathe to be really good at (nobody likes mediocre network guys - they should walk on water).
Remember - you don't have to be good at everything, but you do need to know what you know, which is a different thing altogether, and you probably won't learn that from books.
Five years, minimum. G'luck.