Best way to learn more?

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feverlax

Limp Gawd
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Mar 1, 2005
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I am currently a first year student studying Information Security at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Long story short I absolutely love what I'm doing (both sys admin and security stuff). I'm looking for ways to further my education this summer and was considering doing one or more certifications. Are Microsoft certifications worthwhile? I was thinking about doing 98-365 (Server 2008 Admin Fundamentals). Would this be a good use of my time or is there something better I could be doing?

Thanks for the help guys.
 
Personally I would focus on general certs first. Knock out the Trinity from Comptia. A+, Network+, and Security+. In that order. They don't cost a lot and round out your education well. After the Security+ you might want to try some of the SANS courses. Like the GSEC. I hold the 4 mentioned above. And while A+ and Network+ are not necessary, they help get your foot in the door and they are dead simple for most IT people.

Then you might want to go after Microsoft certs. I advise the above certs as more of a Security path. Though fair warning the GSEC is VERY comprehensive and not easy. But you will learn a LOT. I personally am going for the Linux+ next because it will round out my Microsoft learning well. I'm okay at Linux but it is used for a lot of applications. Especially in the Security realm. Then I am either going for the CEH *Certified Ethical Hacker* or a CCNA.

Just my 2 cents :)
 
What books or authors would you recommend? I'm just afraid if studying outdated material.
 
Hey look, another RIT person. I went through the same thing, graduated two years ago under the grandfathered IT program. Which last time I looked is now the NSSA degree.

Honestly it's going to depend on WHAT you want to study. A few ramblings from my time there are below.

I'd start sandboxing whatever you can honestly. If you have the funds setup a virtualization server of some sort, leverage the MSDNAA to get copies of some OS'es and go to town. I hope this has changed, but the sys admin lab used to leverage VMWare workstation. This is ok I guess, but in a business you're going to be working with Hyper-V or ESXi, probably not workstation. The concepts are comparable, but the interface, administration etc are not.

Exchange is another big thing that you probably won't touch in your career there. This is a bad thing.

Sys Admin 1 used to deal a lot with Linux administration. Honestly, most of the professors don't know enough Linux to grade the damn labs. It's debatable how valuable this is going to be after you graduate.

One more protip: On your VM Server, make damn sure you put a Linux box of some sort up for scripting. The labs keep god awful hours, and having a Linux VM at home will allow you to do any sort of OS Scripting lab without having to worry about going in. Major plus.

Oh, and buy a printer. That lab opening at 12pm to print is going to bite you in the ass at some point for an 8am class, I'm telling you.

Hopefully some of that is useful, even if it's only related musings about RIT.
 
Thanks for all the tips Adam!

I'm going to start working on learning ESX/ESXi stuff for VMs as well as Exchange server admin (in addition to just normal server admin stuff).

I already have a few Linux VM's set up, but that's a good thing to note about OS Scripting.

And haha yeah I have a printer already, the lab hours here suck.

Just out of curiosity, how prepared for an actual job did you feel coming out of RIT?
 
I don't have entry level certs and it hasn't hurt me yet. I am working on CCNA right now and will probably be getting into vmware later. The + stuff is for people who aren't computer hardware people, who don't tinker. I would focus on getting the best internships and having actual experience and results on your resume when you finish your degree.
 
shiznit said:
I would focus on getting the best internships and having actual experience and results on your resume when you finish your degree.
Click to expand...

+1 Internships and having good stories to tell when you're interviewing matter more than any certifications you get.

No one in industry that I've met cares about + certs. CISSP is pretty much the standard for the security industry but you need experience to become certified so there's no worrying about it while you're still in school.
 
feverlax said:
I'm looking for ways to further my education this summer and was considering doing one or more certifications.
Click to expand...
I'd try for an internship over certs. In terms of getting a job a good internship is worth orders of magnitude more than certs since you will not only learn real world stuff but you will also get to know people who know people who know people who known people who kno........
 
exactly. our intern is still on higschool but he is managing dr solutions with us, configuring switches and voip. he is gonna work full time this summer before he starts college. this kid will be 10 steps ahead of the game whenever he enters the job market full time, I wish I had known better when I was his age.
 
feverlax said:
I am currently a first year student studying Information Security at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Long story short I absolutely love what I'm doing (both sys admin and security stuff). I'm looking for ways to further my education this summer and was considering doing one or more certifications. Are Microsoft certifications worthwhile? I was thinking about doing 98-365 (Server 2008 Admin Fundamentals). Would this be a good use of my time or is there something better I could be doing?

Thanks for the help guys.
Click to expand...

For what it is worth, I went to RIT for computer engineering. Good school!
 
I am currently a NSSA student at RIT and I would like to say congrats on picking a good school. For certs I would honestly say forget them. Focus on grades for your coops. The best think to do would to just tinker and do good in your classes.

Certs to me only apply if you can't afford or don't want to go back to college. A degree from RIT will take you alot further than certs.

Now you said this is for the summer, still I would say tinker around buy a cheap cisco switch or something and have fun or mess with pfSense. For sys admin related stuff use your login to download Windows Server from RIT and just play around.
 
Job experience > certs

Certs might get you an interview, job experience will get you the job/career.

The main problem with recruiting is 90% of the time a recruiter doesnt know shit and are just looking for certs/key words in the resume. So some basic certs are nice to put on your resume as they may help you get in the door.

However the person you interview with isnt going to give a rats ass about some test you took. They want experience.
 
Certificates help validate what you know, period. Nothing more or less. Nothing guarantees you a job, everyone's looking for the perfect resume or perfect this or that.. it's all a combination of those things. I'm in school right now as well and one of my main focuses has been getting work experience while still in school. Part-time, entry-level pay? Sounds great while I'm still in class, not when I've graduated and I'm looking for full-time work while paying off the new bills.
 
I agree with Nitrobass. Experience is the best, but you have to get in the door to get it first! That's why I suggested the base level certificates. They get you in the door easier for exactly the reason he said. Most people doing the HR work don't know dick about what they are looking for. They only know what the IT Head said they wanted.
 
Got more tigers here then I thought. I started ANSA, but left to go work after a year. RIT is going to teach any ANSA or ISF major 2 things. Linux and Cisco. Why? Because RIT is a cisco partner, and most of the teachers seem to think microsoft is the devil.

YOU NEED YOUR OWN LAB. It can be a spare laptop with VMware player, a ESX server, or just access to a friend's gear because what you learn in class is never enough for the real world. My company went to hire an intern for last summer, and we found that all 2nd and 3rd year students that hadn't been on co-op or done their own projects didn't know nearly enough to work with us.

Learn microsoft. Your rit.edu email gets you access to MSDNAA, if you haven't gotten an account yet, get one. Setup AD, Exchange, and sharepoint. MS SQL isn't too important to learn unless you want to be a DBA so if you have programs that needs a SQL back end look at MySQL on a linux server. ESX is going to be more important to learn then Hyper V, and hyper V is easier then ESX in general so there you have it. Exchange 2010 is the new hotness, however Exchange 2003 is what you are more likely to see in the wild. I would recommend setting up a Exchange 2003 environment, learn it, break it, fix it etc, then setup an exchange 2010 server and do a migration. This also allows you to put on your resume that you have done an exchange migration which is good for a company thinking about doing so.

Anyway enjoy your stay in our little slice of Rochester hell, and keep your head up, you are at a school with a lot of very smart people who have a lot of connections. Remember that the only time to go to Gracie's is the pancake breakfast, commons > crossroads, providence > park point, and all those awesome projects for new labs, buildings, and dorms will come long after you graduate.
 
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