We talked about this awhile back but I need a rehash on this. Considering my current circumstances, I'm going to head back to the local community college and bang out some cerfifications and get into the field. Simply put, money is the bigger motivating factor as I'm planning on going back to teaching sometime later down the road.

The nice thing is that Jacksonville actually has a really good community college system with one of the better tech departments in the country. Here's the program I was looking at and the general page of degrees and certifications that are available. Any info or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

I'm already A+ cerified and have some networking knowledge but not the credentials that would get me ahead. I figure some time invested here helps give me a little more traction in the job market.

Specific program I'm looking at

Overall program and cert/AA options

Those are some nice program options. If I were you, I would probably take the system administration or network administration instead of the network support services program. The reasoning is that there is more work to do on/with servers and workstations than there is on network devices.

The program you are looking at basically gets you in line w/ my skills and certifications. While I'd like to get into a large network support/design/engineering job, there really aren't that many open jobs like that out there, and there's high demand for the ones that are. There are a lot more network admin and system admin jobs out there.

The other thing that I would suggest is try to get into lower level tech support as soon as possible. In my opinion, work experience trumps a recent certification. There are some who disagree, but I'll take the person who has been fixing computers and dealing w/ users over the person who's spent the last year in the classroom. The person who has both is a qualified candidate. The person who has one or the other is a risk, but the one with work experience is less of a risk.

As I've mentioned in the other thread, I've had a few interviews the last few months, and while both places were impressed w/ my network and Cisco knowledge, both wanted me to have more experience with Active Directory and Windows servers. The last couple of years I've been using more Linux and Unix, so I've been trying to get away from that. The second place actually offered me the job, but they did not offer me enough money to make it worth moving. The job was just west of Vail, and while they offered me more than I make now, I would have ended up losing money on the deal due to the cost of living. I think that they would have offered me more if I had more Windows Server knowledge.