What college degree do you need to become a Network Administrator?

Question

Do you even need one? Besides the Network + Certification, if that counts.

Answer 1

This varies from company to company. The best thing you can do is to get experience somewhere in the field. You could start out as a front line technician in a company. If you have a good work ethic, you might be able to ask your boss if you could work with the Network Administrator.



I am CISCO trained (no longer certified as CISCO certs run out after 3 years), and am A+ certified. I have about 15 months experience as a Computer Systems Administrator. I am currently studying for my Network+ certification. I also do not have a college degree, just two years of technical school.



Though I am not on the 'Network Operations Team' for my company (Lead by a network administrator), I find that my CISCO training is priceless in dealing with network issues, and I am able to talk to the network team very easily, as we are all on the same page with technology and terminology. I am also asked various network questions by my fellow systems administrators from my other company offices across the country.



As far as college degrees, I am not familiar with which one would serve you best. However, I do know that you will want at least four things on your resume if you wan to be a network administrator:



1. HANDS ON experience. This is vital. There are many problems that arise that a book simply cannot tell you about.



2. A+ Certification. This is a basic computer certification, and covers basic networking. You would be surprised how few technicians and networkers have this certification. It will help you stand out, as it not only guarantees a technical skill level, but also an ethical level as well (such as not by-passing production activation, not using pirated software, etc)



3. Network+ Certification. This is a basic, vendor neutral certification. This shows you have a broad range of networking knowledge: From cabling, to using Host Files, to IP Addressing, to file servers.



4. Actual instruction. Seriously. This one is commonly missed. Sure, some people learn networking from JUST being on the job and working along side of a network administrator. But, you never have the true 'from the ground up' knowledge that you should have. The worst thing you could have happen is for someone to ask a basic question (what is the max length of a cat5 cable run without being repeated?), and not know the answer. If you want to engineer, install, and maintain a network, you will need this. Only by having a firm ground work can you truly engineer an awesome network, and guarantee it will work as you say it will.



I hope this helps!!

Answer 2

You don't need one - you don't need any qualifications - it is simply a matter of how quickly and how high you want to progress. If you can get into a entry level position from there you can go fairly high without qualifications.



However, any certificates help you get your first job and moderate at what level that is. Frankly any of the CompTIA suite won't help you past that - they are simply too basic. Higher level industry certs make a candidate a lot more appealing. MCSE and CCNA are in demand and widely respected. Academic qualifications have their place too: they don't teach the specifics of particular systems but how things work underneath the configuration dialogs or whatever else you are actually working with. I can't tell you how valuable that understanding can be when confronted with an issue that isn't covered in the manuals or other sources of information, or something needs adaptation to do something slightly different to originally intended.



If you want a direct comparison my brother is four years older than me and we're both in IT. I went to Uni and got a CS degree. He was educated to 18 then pursued a different career until roughly the same time I graduated. Although we're in slightly different fields - he is in network admin whereas I am mostly in engineering, twelve years he is roughly at the same level I was when I first graduated. I'm still earning 50% more than him, and while he is beginning to feel constrained because the better jobs he would now be looking at now tend to demand formal qualifications I can pretty much take my pick as to where I work.

Answer 3

A+ and IPv6 certificate are MUST