L.C. Posted February 23, 2010 Report Posted February 23, 2010 One of my ENG-150 Technical Writing assignments for the past weekend is to find someone in the career field of my choosing (Network Administrator / System Administrator / Systems Network Administrator / Network Technician) and interview them. Basically I just need the following questions: How did you prepare for the career or position you have now? (I need to know what position and career you have too.)What college course work or other training was most useful?What types of activities fill your typical working day?What features of your career do you like the most? The least?What personality characteristics are most useful to someone in your career?How would you describe the long-term outlook of your field?How do you expect your career to develop in the next 5 years, 10 years, or 15 years?Do you know any books, periodicals, or online sources that might help me find out more about your field? This assignment is due tomorrow. :S I have been looking all weekend, even e-mailed my boss (who never got back with me; I work remotely btw). I would greatly appreciate some help. *shamed* Quote
BDwinsAlt Posted February 23, 2010 Report Posted February 23, 2010 I had a similar assignment for a career I was going to pursue. I was going to be a programmer, so I went on a programmer forum and asked for them to answer my questions. They responded quickly and with some good answers. Maybe you should try posting on a forum about Network Administration and see what happens. Quote
»Swift Posted February 23, 2010 Report Posted February 23, 2010 Something like this could take more than a moment to reply to but overall, I'm sorry I am posting this late. How did you prepare for the career or position you have now? To answer this question, I chose this later on after joining the military. I re-assigned my Primary Miliatry Occupation Specialty (P-MOS) to a 25B. The course to be a 25B is varied between 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 months of schooling. Right now I believe it is currently 5 1/2 months in length. The course follows a strict guideline of Security+, A+, N+, brief introduction into ICND to understand the fundamental uses of Cisco interconnecting network devices, so you then go into Switches and Routers, the kinds of protocols utilized and by the end of this course you will setup your own small network. They throw in some troubleshooting techniques by breaking or disconnecting devices and you need to figure out how to solve each problem as a team of five individuals. So overall, you are not prepared until you follow the training. What college course work or other training was most useful? Never did any college work unless you count me working for SDSU (San Diego State University when I was in High School for the Dept. of Anthropology doing basic network techinican troubleshooting and databasing by importing to Access a bunch of Excel spreadsheets full of data). What types of activities fill your typical working day? Right now, not much to be honest since I'm in a staff job - but overall on a tactical deployment I'd be staging up a tactical network, running VMWare and having an Unclass network running for our google surfing et cetera and the rest I can only glaze over to give you the overall typical response. OPSEC mandates me to be a little careful on how I would respond to this question honestly. What features of your career do you like the most? The least? I enjoy the fact that you can take any aspect of the military training, and use it to work on getting certifications on what you want to do to continue a progressive career path. ETS or Retiring out of the military, following your personal certifications will guarantee you a job in either a civilian or government agency rather easily. The least I like about it is getting up for 0630 accountability formations, sleep is soooo much better. What personality characteristics are most useful to someone in your career? Tact, Honesty, and Trust are the three key ingredients to being in this job - You need to understand how to communicate with the less-than thrilled individuals who don't know what to do as well as understand that rank is a game too. Once you understand these concepts, you can guarantee yourself as a reliable individual if you are always on your A game. How would you describe the long-term outlook of your field? Long term out-look is actually pretty bad right now because this is just a common ground for the most part. It's a great starting point, it's better to focus your field of vision on a specialty as well truthfully. Mine is going the career path of Security, because it's a lot more booming still and the level of trust is competitive. How do you expect your career to develop in the next 5 years, 10 years, or 15 years? I don't know just yet - I'll still be in the military for awhile, I'm planning on going Warrant and continue striving for more certifications. Re-cert's will always be a priority as well by the way. Do you know any books, periodicals, or online sources that might help me find out more about your field? You can check out ISC2.org, cisco.com, look at CCENT, which is your ICNDP1 & P2, then CCNA, CCNP, CCSP (Security Professional) et cetera. Quote
L.C. Posted February 24, 2010 Author Report Posted February 24, 2010 Something like this could take more than a moment to reply to but overall, I'm sorry I am posting this late. How did you prepare for the career or position you have now? To answer this question, I chose this later on after joining the military. I re-assigned my Primary Miliatry Occupation Specialty (P-MOS) to a 25B. The course to be a 25B is varied between 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 months of schooling. Right now I believe it is currently 5 1/2 months in length. The course follows a strict guideline of Security+, A+, N+, brief introduction into ICND to understand the fundamental uses of Cisco interconnecting network devices, so you then go into Switches and Routers, the kinds of protocols utilized and by the end of this course you will setup your own small network. They throw in some troubleshooting techniques by breaking or disconnecting devices and you need to figure out how to solve each problem as a team of five individuals. So overall, you are not prepared until you follow the training. What college course work or other training was most useful? Never did any college work unless you count me working for SDSU (San Diego State University when I was in High School for the Dept. of Anthropology doing basic network techinican troubleshooting and databasing by importing to Access a bunch of Excel spreadsheets full of data). What types of activities fill your typical working day? Right now, not much to be honest since I'm in a staff job - but overall on a tactical deployment I'd be staging up a tactical network, running VMWare and having an Unclass network running for our google surfing et cetera and the rest I can only glaze over to give you the overall typical response. OPSEC mandates me to be a little careful on how I would respond to this question honestly. What features of your career do you like the most? The least? I enjoy the fact that you can take any aspect of the military training, and use it to work on getting certifications on what you want to do to continue a progressive career path. ETS or Retiring out of the military, following your personal certifications will guarantee you a job in either a civilian or government agency rather easily. The least I like about it is getting up for 0630 accountability formations, sleep is soooo much better. What personality characteristics are most useful to someone in your career? Tact, Honesty, and Trust are the three key ingredients to being in this job - You need to understand how to communicate with the less-than thrilled individuals who don't know what to do as well as understand that rank is a game too. Once you understand these concepts, you can guarantee yourself as a reliable individual if you are always on your A game. How would you describe the long-term outlook of your field? Long term out-look is actually pretty bad right now because this is just a common ground for the most part. It's a great starting point, it's better to focus your field of vision on a specialty as well truthfully. Mine is going the career path of Security, because it's a lot more booming still and the level of trust is competitive. How do you expect your career to develop in the next 5 years, 10 years, or 15 years? I don't know just yet - I'll still be in the military for awhile, I'm planning on going Warrant and continue striving for more certifications. Re-cert's will always be a priority as well by the way. Do you know any books, periodicals, or online sources that might help me find out more about your field? You can check out ISC2.org, cisco.com, look at CCENT, which is your ICNDP1 & P2, then CCNA, CCNP, CCSP (Security Professional) et cetera.Thank you very much Swift! =D Teacher was also gracious enough to extend the due date for everything by a whopping week. Quote
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