CCNA course options

[cronk23]

Hi,
I'm fairly new to cisco and I am pursuing the CCNA certification. I cannot decide wether to take the course at a school or do it on my own. The course I am thinking about taking at a school is the Cisco Networking Academy course. Of course the bebefits of that are that they have a nice lab to do all the practical stuff in and there is an instructor. The price isn't that much either. I already have the Cisco Press CCNA 640-607 exam book, and the ICND book, and a Cisco 1602 router. Would what I have now be enough to sufficiently learn the CCNA material? I also have a router simulator to go with it. Of course I'm not just worried about whether or not I'll pass the exam, I'd like to learn this stuff really well too. I've done other certifications on my own with no problems, but I'm worried that theres too much hands-on stuff (with Cisco) that I couldn't do on my own.
Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks.

 

[dogbert2]

I've got through 5 semesters of the cisco network academy
(i'm currently taking this semester off to complete
my degree), but I have NOTHING but good things to say
about our Network Academy (we are a regional academy,
so we train other Netacad instructors). Our prices
are reasonable, and just remember, the MORE you can
do on your own, without the instructor's assistance,
the easier you will have it when you go to take your
certification exam. Be advised, the CCNA material
will become MUCH tougher by Summer or Fall of 2003,
and in addition to knowing current CCNA material,
the new CCNA exam will require students to know EIGRP,
Single Area OSPF, NAT, VLSM, RIPv2, WAN (BCRAN), and
more stuff in frame relay.

Study Hard!!!

 

[Biccy]

I am just about to complete Semester 1 and I have found it invaluable so far.

The online way of doing things is great and very well paced.

It takes longer (9 weeks per semester) but I think this allows you to assimiliate the content properly rather than having it force-fed at a condensed training school..

IMHO

 

[HurryDLB]

The Academy prog is just too good. Gets u prepared for CCNA in a very systematic way. A person who just dont know anything about networking can take this course...finish it in 3 months time...prepare for a month and iam sure you will get this CCNA...

 

[denodave]

Ours has not given enough hands-on time! This is very critical to retaining the info, and we just have not had near enough of it! AAAARGHHH! Email me! denodave@yahoo.com
Real men pray...especially techies!

 

[dogbert2]

Hell, when I did semester 5, we had 37-45 labs (class was
once a week, 4 hours), 3 case studies (took a whole class
each), 10 chapter exams, a 3 hour practical exam, and a
final exam. On average, we used up 98% of the class time
involved, and that doesn't include reading the book
(you do that outside of class)...was very tough, IMO.