I need candid advise from IT professionals. My company has refused to train me so I have decided to enrol for training. I am conteplating on 2 training,a 3 weeks Linux administration training from ilumination systems and a 3 months telecom associate training from TTC mobile.
The linux traing from ilumination systems will train me on red hat and centos administration while the 3 months ttc mobile training will cover

Network Management

Network Management leading to N+, Server+, MCP

Security Solutions & Application leading to Security+

Internetworking & Router Configuration leading to CCNA

Linux: Installation & Administration leading to Linux+

Transmission Engineering

VSAT: Installation & Configuration leading to CSI

Introduction for Optical Fibre

VoIP & VPN Design and Configuration

RF Engineering

Introduction to GSM Engineering

RF Planning & Implementation leading to CWNA

ISP Base Station Configuration

BTS Installation, RF Verification and RBS Integration

Acceptance Testing of 2G and 3G Network Entities
Please let your advice be based on
1) The expertise or recognition of the training school
2) Job opportunities after the training

Thank you.

It depends on the path you want to follow. What job description fascinates you most?

I love system administration, network management, and security.

afrobaby: I love system administration, network management, and security.

Then go for LP1, LP2 and LP3 with that, You will be a Linus Professional without equal.

I dont understand your reply

afrobaby: I dont understand your reply

As in LPI1-3... Linux Professional Institute Certification itself... not the other by the road certification.

http://www.lpi.org/linux-certifications


If you wan chop lizard, chop the one wey get egg.

Lol, which on be road side certification, I was thinking it will be better to go for the training first before writing any certification examination

afrobaby: Lol, which on be road side certification, I was thinking it will be better to go for the training first before writing any certification examination

You can go for the training provided the training is free o. Else, you can do it on ur own! Just that me never get the time... the resources are there... FREE.... free.... freeeee

Lolz, u are funny, a colleague also told me the same, I can linux on my own, maybe should go for oracle training then

afrobaby: Lolz, u are funny, a colleague also told me the same, I can linux on my own, maybe should go for oracle training then

Even Oracle... you can do it on ur own... But the thing is your passion... Do your passion and get the ORIGINAL certification for it from the company itself so you can be recog by companies and get higher pay

@OP Imagine you want to become a doctor and you want to be a surgeon, gynecologist, optician, chemist at the same time? That is what your first post conveyed. @ledafaze has tried by explaining to you through the Linux platform, but just to add to what he has said.

For system administration, I will suggest you go for Microsoft certifications aftter which you will become an MSCA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate) as this is one of the most popular administration Operating Systems in Nigeria, it deals with using Windows Server 2003. 2008. 2008 R2 and most recently 2012. Also if your preference is for administration then I will suggest you drop the idea of TTC mobile Telecoms training.

As for the trainings you should go for, I will suggest you start with CCNA atleast to build the core networking concept, a wide course but it is a good foundation for every I.T. professional. Also if you are chanced you can check up www.coursera.org and register for any of their online classes on Computer Networks. After you might have earned your CCNA, you can then go for either for microsoft or linux system administration trainings. The microsoft certifications are cheap, 8500 or so for each exam and you are to write 3 exams to become fully certified. As for LInux I think @Ledafaze has given the link to the exam.

As for the Oracle it also deals with management but this time you will work more with databases. Also a god career path.

To address your security role, I think after you might have done some of these courses and relate it with your job role you can now decide whether you want to go into either security, audit or information systems management, depending on which one you feel will advance your career. For Security you can start looking at CISM (Certified Information Security Manager) or CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) and for audit you will be looking at CISA (Certified Infomation Systems Auditor) and for Information systems management you can look into ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) or COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology).

There are other fields I have not mentioned because as you learn you will come across some technologies that also have their certifications and it will be left to you to determine if you wan to acquire those certifications or not.

@lockedout, thanks for your reply. I guess you got what my first post meant wrongly. I am Microsoft certified. What I wanted was to know the expertise of these training centres and what their training can offer. IT is not like other fields, I know poeple who are programmers, have some networking skills, good database administrators and so on. It permits for jack of all trades, master of many.
I really appreciate your response.

Most IT certifications are stuffs you can learn and practice on your own, before writing the international certification exams. You don't seem like one who can learn on your own.

If you want to stay relevant in the IT world, you have to read and research continuously. Personally I see training centres of today as rip off, only necessary if you are a slow learner. Video tutorials might be good for you if reading is a problem.

My advice is that you specialize, while getting a lil bit of knowledge here and there. I'm a software developer, I am also Microsoft Certified, have networking skills, database skills, linux skills, mobile app development etc... But keeping yourself updated in all those skills is too much of work that you might end up not being better in the long run. You learn a skill today, jump to another tomorrow, sooner than later you'd discover your knowledge of the previous is no longer valid.

P.S. There's no "Master of many" in the IT sector.

xcitedjay: Most IT certifications are stuffs you can learn and practice on your own, before writing the international certification exams. You don't seem like one who can learn on your own.

If you want to stay relevant in the IT world, you have to read and research continuously. Personally I see training centres of today as rip off, only necessary if you are a slow learner. Video tutorials might be good for you if reading is a problem.

My advice is that you specialize, while getting a lil bit of knowledge here and there. I'm a software developer, I am also Microsoft Certified, have networking skills, database skills, linux skills, mobile app development etc... But keeping yourself updated in all those skills is too much of work that you might end up not being better in the long run. You learn a skill today, jump to another tomorrow, sooner than later you'd discover your knowledge of the previous is no longer valid.

P.S. There's no "Master of many" in the IT sector.

As much as I appreciate response, I hate people talking like they are Know-all. What do you mean by "You don't seem like one who can learn on your own. You can keep your damn advise to yourself. It is not compulsory to respond to posts if you can't select the right words to use.

@OP now I understand you better, It would really be hard to know which field most of these IT training institute are good at unless you know someone who has gone for the training there and he/she will be better placed to tell you more about their trainings, for Cisco courses I know some centres rely mostly on Packet Tracer and GNS3 which is a a bit of a scam on the students taking those courses there.

I know TTC mobile has this telecoms training class that is popular and reknowned in Lagos, a friend that attended said it was quite ok. If possible for any course you choose try go for a personal trainer/small class settings. from my experience those small centres with just the trainer/owner are usually better since the owner/trainer most times tend to focus more on their core competence than other fields, you will find those classes are way better than some expensive centres and need I say the small centres are usually cheaper than the big ones (NIIT, New Horizon e.t.c.).

It is quite true that in IT you must have basic to medium and in some cases advanced understanding of more than one field to get jobs but at the end of the day you will be strong in some areas and weak in others.

@ExcitedJay there is nothing bad in going for the training if you have the time and the money to go for it, it saves the time of cracking your head reading for the courses, in tutor led classes there is the ready made tutor to answer your questions for you and CBT nuggets also has the draw back of you not being able to answer any questions you might have since you can't ask the video questions.

I have noticed that I am not too good with the cbt videos as I tend to get bored easily while watching them so i tend to mostly focus on reading the books but you know in this present obodo Lagos and work stress as well it is not easy reading on your own, if I have the option and resources I will always pick the tutor led classes any day any time. It makes life a whole lot easier and you won't have to stress yourself too much

Take the rice and throw out the shaff!

@ OP
I tink u should try focus on one. Aldo nigeria permits being jack of all trade. I would prefer u stick to one thing and bite from others. know one thing and then try focus on being a solution achitect in your field.
For example i do networks (still a newbie thou), and we plan migrating our monitoring database to a sql database. Hence i need to know basic querying. u might also find urself into linux also.
Just go for one thing and know things that suppor that one thing.
Networking is wide and sometimes i wish i were a programmer coos i feel they are more appreciated. Where i work, once u call urself a network engineer, they expect u to know everything-routing & switching, security, service provider