1 year or less to maximize future earning potential

I will be taking the next several months to a year off of work and I want to take advantage of the time to do whatever it takes to maximize my future earning potential when I start working again next year.

I have about 8 years work experience with Active Directory and a MCSE 2003 certification and I am exactly 18 upper level credits in Arts and Sciences away from a BS in Liberal Arts at Excelsior.
I think I should be able to complete 6 three unit upper level exams to finish the BSLA in maybe 2 months or so.

After the BS degree requirements are complete, I want to update my certification to MCITP Server 2008 Enterprise Administrator certification and maybe a few extra certs such as CCNA and a basic SQL cert. I would like CCNP, but I don't know if CCNP has value without related work experience. I think CCNA-level knowledge would probably be useful as a regular Windows system admin and would take less much time to complete.

I think upgrade from MCSE to MCITP plus CCNA could be done in another 90 days, so that should be 5-6 months there.

After that I'm thinking of IT Masters from Charles Stuart or MCM Server 2008 R2. They both have pros and cons. I like that the the Charles Sturt program is a university degree that will never expire, but I'm concerned that it will take too much time to complete even if I am admitted with the MCITP already completed. They recommend a 2 course at a time pace (1 year to complete remaining degree requirements after all IT certification-related credits are done).
Does anyone know if the the 2 course per trimester paces is designed for people working full time? If so, if I was devoting all my time towards school and not working at the same time, then I think I should be able to take 3-4 courses per trimester and complete the remaining courses for the Masters within 6 months.

On the other hand, if I were to be accepted into the Microsoft Certified Master 2008 R2 Active Directory training, the fees are very high, but it only takes about 5 weeks to complete so I'd be ready to start making money earlier (less money lost by not working) and the earning potential will be higher at least until 2008 R2 becomes obsolete.

It's possible that I won't have the choice to do the MCM if the admissions people decide I don't have enough active directory design in my years of experience. They also say completion of prerequisites doesn't guarantee admission anyway:

MCM Training Courses | Advanced Computer Certification | Microsoft Certified Master


Does anyone have any opinions on what the best options are?

 

That's very ambitious! I think that completing the bachelors degree and nailing the CCNA is going to increase your value tremendously. Everybody loves those Cisco certs! Don't burn out, that's a long list in a short time. Good luck, sorry I don't have more to offer.

 

18 credits in two months per your own estimate - 2 months.

MCSE2003 to MCITP Server Administrator in 4 days with appropriate boot camp, to MCITP Enterprise Admin in 10 days with appropriate boot camp - 10 days.

CCNA in 5-6 days with appropriate boot camp. - 5 days.

So you're looking at 2.5 months provided you have funding before moving forward. I can direct you to a place where you can accomplish the MCITP and CCNA stuff for about 7500 total given your previously existing certs and experience.

Now that stated, I'd personally set the bar high and aim for the CCIE Voice.. drilling that out over the course of a year is possible if you have the budget and time. Median for that particular cert with some experience is around 90-110 and you'll make more if you're willing to travel.

ITJD.

 

CCIE Voice sounds really interesting, but I thought CCIE certs always require a certain amount of previous work experience in the field, so you cannot just do self study and be allowed to take the exam.
Work experience requirements are also why I am not going for CISSP certs.

I have years of Microsoft Active Directory work experience, so that's why I am considering the MCM Active Directory certification.

However, the bootcamp type training of only a few days to upgrade from MCSE 2003 to MCITP EA is probably not adequate background to pass the very difficult exams needed for MCM.
If I go for MCM, I would take all the 2008 exams and not do the shortcut upgrade 2003-2008 path so I refresh everything I had learned in the past. If I remember a lot, then the exams will be easy to pass. If I forgot a lot, then I would relearn the material. This way everything is fresh in my mind and more likely to keep up with the pace of the MCM training and pass the very difficult high-level MCM exams on the first try.

If the CCIE voice is truly something that doesn't require some minimum years of high-level of Cisco voice work experience to be admitted to the exam, I will definitely look into it and forget about MCM and take the shortest path to MCITP as you suggest. I only have less than a year of previous Cisco voice experience where all I did was work with the Call Manager Express GUI and Cisco VOIP handsets in an office assigning phones to new employees and doing things like resetting voicemail etc..

 

As far as I know there's no significant work experience requirement for the CCIE. You need to pass a written and a lab exam. The written is no harder than any of the CCNP/CCSP/CCVP level stuff. The lab is something you'll need to prep for religiously and likely travel for.

As to the MCM, there is no unofficial bootcamp training for it. In order to be certified MCM you need to spend anywhere from 15 to 18K, and take the training in Redmond, then sit some three to five tests and an oral defense. (if I remember correctly. The defense may only be MCA).

The CISSP is another ball of wax entirely. It's a good certification to have on the wall, but I've yet to see its real value outside of government requirements. It's too widely scoped in material to be anything more than a primer.

ITJD

 

What are some examples of places that will do the MCITP EA and CCNA for 7500 combined?

 

Check your PMs in a few minutes. I've one in particular that I've used a few times over the last decade.

ITJD

 

I've got a BS/L from Excelsior in 1993. A lot of doors are closed to engineers without a degree. I got good jobs but it was always a struggle to get to the first interview. After the degree getting to the first interview stopped being a problem. More interviews directly maps to higher income.

I got CCNA/CCDA back in 1999. Because I already had plenty of experience in the IT industry I got no extra income from it. I did have wider access to assignments but they weren't at more senior levels than I was already working. I was soon doing some travel doing work that included networking. If there was any mapping to higher income it was very indirect. The extra breadth in my skill very likely kept my unemployment very low - At the worst of the 2001 crash it took me 2 weeks to find a new job.

Based on my experience I believe the degree should be a much higher long term priority. Certifications are very important in the Windows realm of IT but the farther you get from Windows the less they matter. By the time you get to UNIX they're pretty much corporate rah-rah items.

But that does lead me to a secondary expectation - You'll get more bang from upgrading your Microsoft certs than from getting new ones from other companies.

 

Agreed with the above with the following caveat:

1. You start seeing significant recruiting action once you gather high-level Cisco certs and have a little bit of serious data center service. My experience is it's very hard to retain a CCIE of any specialization (especially voice) in this existing market.

On the UNIX cert front and the CCNA, you're spot on. My take on that though is that it never hurts to credential what you already know.