<p>I posted this on the High School Life forum, but I got no replies and this is a really important decision for me. I also thought getting advice from experienced parents would be better than inexperienced high school students. I'll post it here:</p>
<p>I'm extremely interested in technology and I want to major in computer engineering when I go to college. I'm considering taking Cisco in high school. I can get 15 credit hours at the college I want to go to for it and I can get a certification (I think it's called the CCNA?) for Cisco. My uncle, who is a software engineer, says it's a very good thing to know. The problem is that it is a 2 year class. I'm going to graduate one year early so that already cuts down on the classes I can take. If I don't take Cisco I'll take Physics Honors (I'll be taking Chemistry Honors that year too). Then I'd take AP Physics the next year probably (along with AP Chemistry) but I'd have to retake it in college because it's the wrong type of physics for my major, so I don't really want to waste time doing that. If I do Cisco I'd simply take Physics Honors (and AP Chemistry) my last year in high school. Will it look bad on a college resume that I'm sacrificing AP Physics for Cisco? I am following what I love to do, so I hope that will make a difference.</p>
<p>I have a software engineering background and once worked in the networking industry. I was in in the industry during the boom times 1990s-2000 and know many people that have a CCNA or a CCIE. But for the past several years I have been a portfolio manager in the finance industry (more on that later).</p>
<p>I think you are facing an important decision. The high school track of taking AP physics and AP chemistry prepares you for a rigorous college education in any of the STEM fields. Taking Cisco gives you a head start for exactly one field–computer networking infrastructure. It may also be more limiting from a salary perspective.</p>
<p>Suppose instead you went to college and got a degree in computer science or engineering. You have a great number of choices of what to do with your degree afterwards. You could then go to grad school in the same field, or a different field such as Law, Medicine, or Business. </p>
<p>And of course, you can immediately go to work without losing those other options for later. For example, I started out my career doing programming for about 10 years, became a software developer and eventually a software architect in the networking industry. I then switched over to the product management and business development side for about another 10 years. I then went back and got my MBA, switched careers and am now managing equity portfolios. The analytical skills developed during the BS were the base for all this.</p>
<p>^ Agree. Taking physics, chemistry, AP USH, AP English… is whole lot more important for your mental/intellectual development than some trade certification.</p>
<p>Yes, it will look bad to sacrifice a college-level academic class to take what is essentially a course for technicians. Furthermore your uncle may have overstated things a bit. CCNA is the entry-level certificate offered in the Cisco configuration world, and is used by those who want to get technician jobs configuring computer networks. Not that its a bad thing to know, but its not going to be that useful to you unless you want to find work as a network technician. </p>
<p>Even armed with a CCNA you’re still looking at bottom-level jobs if you can find someone willing to hire you because they don’t want just someone with the training, they want experience. And, for anything but the most basic IT jobs, they will also want you to pursue some of the CCNP certifications. If CCNA is something you really wanted to learn you could do it by self-study. They even have 4-day courses after which you can take and pass the CCNA exam; that should give you an idea of the relative paucity of content compared to a year of Physics.</p>
<p>Thank you so much! I do want to go into computer engineering as my undergraduate major, not networking. The only thing about physics is that I’m going to take honors physics either way but if I take AP physics I’ll have to retake physics in college because they want a different type of physics. I want to look into the 4-day course, which I think would be really interesting. I hope they offer some for high school students. On a different topic, by any chance does anyone know if it would be a good idea to self-study and get a Microsoft certification for Windows 7? I looked at it once and I can’t remember exactly which one it was, but I know it had things to do with the desktop. I looked at all of the required skills and I can easily do almost all of them. I would just have to learn a few more things. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>I was just using the 4-day example to show you that something you can master in 30 hours or so of instruction is not quite equivalent to a year of college-level physics. If you want to find some of these courses google “ccna bootcamp”. But they tend to be quite expensive. If you want to do the CCNA do it self-study; there are probably a ton of videos on YouTube, you can buy the books you need for a small amount.</p>
<p>As for the AP physics not matching up exactly, not the point. For one thing, taking challenging classes is what helps you get into better colleges. And for another any exposure to the concepts is going to help you when you take the class in college, even if there is not a great deal of overlap.</p>
<p>I don’t know a lot about computer certification but I would think having a MS 7 certification would be a great way to get a job on campus in tech support while you are studying. That experience will be helpful later on as well.</p>
<p>If they want a different type of physics, then it is a different class with a different focus. </p>
<p>You seem to be thinking about it as if “physics” was a single subject that could be taught in a single class. </p>
<p>Look at it this way. In HS, it is common to take a couple years of “English.” In college, you might take 19th Century British Novel, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Jacobean Drama, Romantic Poets, Modern Novel…you get the picture. </p>
<p>You wouldn’t be “retaking” physics, you would be taking more and different physics. If there is some overlap or it builds on what you already know, that simply enables you to do well in the class without killing yourself. :)</p>
<p>I would follow the course of study that prepares you for the most elite undergrad experience possible.</p>
<p>Also, if you do later want to go into a direction where CC__ certifications are useful, learning them is likely a lot easier and faster starting from a CS background, and getting to the higher ones like CCIE is what it takes to get to a respectable level there. CCNA is a relatively low level certification.</p>
<p>Where a school offers them as distinct majors, computer engineering is usually more hardware-oriented than computer science, but the distinction can vary by school.</p>
<p>I would think that most engineering schools would not care whether you took AP Physics since they teach their own intro classes, as you say is the case with the school you are looking at. So if you want certification, I think it is OK, but agree that it would mainly be useful for on-campus work.</p>
<p>Regarding CS vrs Comp E, know that you can use a CS degree in many industries, while the hardware aspects of a Comp E degree are useful mainly for the electronics industry. But tech companies who hire CS people do hire Comp E majors for similar jobs sometimes, making the difference less important.</p>
<p>Would it be reasonable to double major in computer science and computer engineering since many of the classes would go for both majors, or would that be pointless since they’re close majors?</p>
<p>Don’t sacrifice academic classes for what is a job certificate…which does become obsolete after a period of time anyways. Better to take it when you’re close to getting a job or on the job so your certs are current. </p>
<p>As for computer science vs Computer engineering…rule of thumb I’ve heard…the former if you want to work mostly/completely with programming/designing software and the latter if you’re more interested in designing/creating/programming/producing computer hardware. </p>
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<p>Actually, a CCNA has slightly more cred than MSCE as the latter has higher knowledge requirements and has been reputed as harder to get. </p>
<p>Then again, my friends and I have worked with MSCE certified colleagues who got certified mainly because they were great at taking multiple choice exams…not because they knew how to work with/troubleshoot the computer/MS Windows to save their lives in an actual working environment. </p>
<p>It’s a reason why one friend who did hiring for an ISP networking security department ended up rejecting hundreds of folks with +A and MSCE certifications while hiring dozens of folks who had no certifications or even majors/minors in CS/CE…but who passed his own self-created interview test…try to troubleshoot/fix PC, network, unix console, and talk through each step so he can see whether you not only have a clue…but have the mindset/desire to learn quickly and well if you don’t have the requisite skills.</p>
<p>If you want to learn something useful you could try teaching yourself Linux. How much computer programming do you know now? My son started by teaching himself Visual Basic, moved on to Java, learned SQL for his first summer job and learned Linux somewhere in the middle of all that. </p>
<p>Computer Engineering programs can vary quite a bit. Some are almost like a CS degree with a few hardware courses, others are like an EE degree with few software courses. Make sure you check the specific requirements for the school you are thinking about.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for all of your replies! And mathmom, my uncle who is a software engineer suggested I do the same thing. I just can’t find websites that teach programming very well. If I end up not doing Cisco, I will most likely take a semester of computer programming, and if I remember correctly it is Visual Basic.</p>