My Journey so far. But what to do next

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Hello All

It's been a while since i been on here but always have a check up now and again.

So I've always been in to IT since a young age. Did AVCE IT at college then did BSC Multimedia at Uni. I never really had a fix idea what i wanted to do. But i knew that the only thing i can understand is technology and this was my passion. After finished like many people after Uni it was difficult getting a job without experience or good contacts.

I worked freelance and even managed to make a few digital menu boards for restaurants that displayed multimedia menus across multiple screens. I built a computer with 2 graphics cards giving me quad outputs then designed videos using Adobe AFX and made a macro to automate the start up. This just a example of my own initiative. Did a few small office installs.

Then i landed a role as IT junior in a local radio station but at only part time hours. The radio station has about 50 clients and about 8 physical servers and 4 studios servers in its own rack room.

After the IT manager left i quickly secured his position by demonstrating responsibility and willingness to learn and grow. I've dealt with countless situations and problems as any IT Admin can imagine from workstation house keeping to server hardware failure, dealing with raid setups etc. Also recently i've moved the station forward by setting up SIP/VOIP communication from the studio to Iphone using 3G through service providers like iptel and using a inhouse voip server. Another example was our managed firewall died and the security company was charging a lot to replace it. Due to economical situation and climate we couldn't really afford this, so i spent many late nights installing Smoothwall Express and figuring out how network traffic is managed through a firewall and manually managing it, setting rules etc. I could really go on about specific examples but my situation has been quite intense and broad. Nearly all off the skills I've learned, was on my own by taking on challenges and heavy research.

Now I've worked here two years part time, I have been learning a lot in my spare time I've been through all the A+ tutorials, Windows server tutorials as well.I've also been picking odd jobs up here and there too. But i couldn't really afford to do any qualifications as I've come up from a tough situation at home.

Now my next step i'm unsure and i'd like to hear advice from you wonderful people! I've had a few interviews and got good feed back from one job and it's to work along side the IT Admin there. The good thing is it's full time work and its a good tech firm the salary is ok but still entry level. Other postive is i'll get to work along side a IT admin there who i can learn from, as I've been on my own for a while. Also i been considering to do some quals but not sure which route to take yet. The CCNA networking side seems to have good prospects.

I'm interested to hear what you guys think

 

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You've dabbled with VoIP and mention CCNA networking. If you enjoyed the VoIP stuff then I'd recommend a path of CCNA normal, CCNA Voice then CCNP Voice (and do CCNP Route/Switch soon after the normal CCNA as it is not much different)

Working in Cisco you'll bump into server stuff on Microsoft, Linux and Lotus flavours due to them all integrating with each other for example Unified Messaging. Good luck with it all