Spent $2,400 on certs this year. CCNA, AWS SAA, CKA. Make $18/hr at Hostinger support — https://www.hostinger.com. The math don't math. Each cert = 133 hours of explaining why someone's wordpress won't load. Blameless postmortem for my bank account. Anyone else feel this? Or do I just have terrible life choices.
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Transparency: I spent $4,100 on certs over 3 years. Error budget on career moves was negative. Blameless postmortem says I should have negotiated tuition reimbursement before signing. Transparency: my first SRE role came only after I stopped collecting badges and built something visible. Transparency is how I got out.
Brooo I feel you. We make a test here in brazil, the ccna cost 3 months salary. But we do it anyway because is very good for cv. I have 4 cert and still in helpdesk hahaha. Dont give up!
What could go wrong: cert mills, brain dumps, expired vouchers, vendor lock-in to specific cloud. And for what? More access to systems you don't control?
WARNINGS: before next purchase, audit your home lab security. Fail2ban. Firewall. The cert won't save you when your practice environment gets owned!
I have make the same since 2 days I fink about this lol. I spend 1800€ for azure certs and now I do the ticket level 1. It is possible to do that? No. But I have learn something, the cert is not the job, the job is the network. You know what I mean? Bref, keep going.
Sorry, total noob here but how much is normal to spend? Im looking at ccna and im scared now. Is it worth for someone starting? Sorry if dumb question.
Teh trick is find employer who pay. Im $0 out of pocket. Alot of places do tuition if u ask. Definately shop around. My last job paid for ckA and I left 3 months later. They recieve the lesson. Im at Vultr now $22/hr. Certs help but not 2400 worth.
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2400 for CCNA is pain
Hostinger pay is criminal tho
Here in Argentina the CCNA is 6 months salary if you buy it official. I did the Cisco Networking Academy at a local institute, total cost was maybe $200 USD equivalent and they had vouchers. Still took me 18 months because I was working two jobs. Now I'm NOC at a local ISP making enough to finally breathe. The cert opened the door but the academy contacts were what mattered.
This. I got my CCNA through a community college program that had Cisco equipment donated. Cost me like $300 total including exam voucher. The $2,400 was the AWS and CKA stuff after, chasing the dragon. Should've stopped at the door that already opened.
