I'm a bit under the weather right now, but I'll point you to some resources now and see if I can did anything else up later.

Don't take anything certification tracked for security. It's the wrong way to go for security and could even count against you in certain situations.

Cisco is a different situation because you're more likely to run into a situation where a cert actually means something.

Go to Hacker News and do a search for everything security this guy has to say...

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek

There's probably a ton of posts on there in general (not tied to the above user) about Cisco certs.

Sounds to me like you just want to mess with a lot of networking. Security covers a lot of areas, but just learning networking well will probably give you all sorts of evil ideas. There's all kinds of networking simulators out there. There's lots of cool toys for Security as well. You'll probably be spending a lot of time at Github.

I would also look out for good communities of people you can interact with. Find and follow people on Twitter. Find communities on Reddit you can read and post to. Mention what your interests are and talk about how you are progressing. The above mentioned user (one of the highest rated on HN) says right in his profile that it's okay to contact him. Send him a message! Also write about your experience in a blog or something. Summarize what you are learning and post it on that blog (as if you were explaining it to someone else.) You'll likely get tons of helpful feedback. As people get to know you and hear from you, then opportunities will pop up. Look at it as a process, portfolio and profile you are building on over time rather than just getting certifications.

I don't know what the learning track is like for these things, but hitting this hard in something like web development could lead to job offers in less than a year.

Between security and Cisco, I would go security. As you can see every day in the news, security is a massive problem and getting worse.

There's really no courses worth a sh*t for any of this. Better to do a search for suggested learning tracks and do this on your own. Classes are just a waste of time. If you have military school money you are looking to burn off, then just find classes with the hottest chicks.

If you wanted to try your hand at something development, then I have been hearing some good things about this place...

https://lambdaschool.com/

30 weeks. Pay nothing until you land a job over 50K. Then they take a percentage of your earnings for a couple of years (or you can pay up-front if you prefer.)

Sorry if that doesn't answer your question. Just relax for the 5 days.

 

Oh, I should have guessed that.

Then just grab the simulators and books and take the test in Manila. Classroom time isn't required? There's probably tons of Youtube videos which go over "what to focus on for passing Cisco cert tests". There's probably a lot of paid online courses as well.

I have never heard anything about courses for those certs being offered here. If they were, I imagine there would be FB posts which mention them.

 

You don't get certs. You get the knowledge. It appears that people who go through that school do land jobs though. Which is the other part of what you are interested in.

 

For example...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8237352

https://www.reddit.com/r/ccna/

Seems like there are no cheerleaders for the courses. Mentioned in there are links to the emulators.

 

You're right, they aren't in the same job market. But if you could get similar pay to try something different for a short, cheap school, then why not. You might even find software dev jobs which pay a premium for people who have a security clearance. Premium on already well paying jobs could be huge. Maybe take a look at Palantir for example. That's a silicon valley company which does work for the government.

For the Cisco certs, here's your first lesson. You don't need to cap Cisco, it's not an acronym. Cisco isn't the cert, it's the name of the company. You are likely looking at CCNA, which is an acronym. You might fail the test if you get this part wrong.

Couldn't you just check the box that you have the cert and then get the cert if you get the job? Why bother with stuff you don't even need right now? I would just jack around with the emulation tools to learn networking in general. Then maybe you'll get good enough that you can just do a light review and knock the test out when you need to.

 

Why not just do it online, on your schedule, or get a test prep and cram? There are sample test available to gauge your readiness. You said you just want to pass and don't care about the knowledge.

This site talks about preparing and offers an online service.
https://www.simplilearn.com/clearing-ccna-certification-top-study-tips-for-exam-rar272-article

I hear a lot about Cyber Security which isn't specific to Cisco.