PhD vs CCIE

1. PhD versus CCIE

A PhD takes much longer and is more difficult to attain. Remember a PhD must
be an original piece of work, a CCIE as one of the people below points out, is
an exam to a degree on a known quantity.

I think my PhD has got me where I am today but in terms of practical use - and
I will tell this to anyone - a practical certification
and especially a CCIE is the icing on the cake and is what employers really
want (Cisco could kill this dead by the way if the CCIE certification ever
becomes too easy to obtain). A CCIE will keep you employed and at a reasonable
rate/salary/return - a PhD, Masters or Batchelors degree will not - unless you
want to stay within the realms of poorly paid academia jobs, research or
government roles (nice titles but sod all money in most cases). So my final
advice is sure get your degree but top it off with a CCIE (or CCDE or CCA) or
even an MCSE, JNCIE etc or a practical certification in whatever technical
field you are entering - I would employ a CCNA before I would employ a BSc in
most network jobs - that makes your worth greater in the "real" world.

Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
Received on Tue Mar 06 2012 - 07:16:34 ART