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Originally Posted by tkilmer
Does this look like something work pursuing?
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Knowledge is Knowledge ... and Knowledge is good. College telecommunications courses focus on the nuts and bolts of telecom: T1 electronics, how PCM works, TDM, WDM, Network Design, Traffic Engineering (erlangs, CCS and the like) etc. It's great stuff and will give you a solid foundation upon which to build ... but college telecom training, in and of itself, is of little use without real world experience and product specific knowledge. I would not discourage you from persuing this path, quite the contrary, but I would also advise you to go to the source and begin preparing for the "real world." The college courses will give you a valuable insight into telecom that many of today's technicians and engineers simply do not posses. The product specific knowledge and certifications will get you a job.
Go to the
Avaya Learning Website. There you will find a plethora of information. They even have training paths to take for specific certifications. Avaya's online training is good, but the hands-on learning classes are invaluable. Also,
Westnet Learning has some great bootcamps that will prepare you for Avaya's core exams. I attended the Westnet ACS core bootcamp (make sure to ask for the one being taught by Woody) and passed both the Design and Implementation tests with a 90 and a 95.
Good luck. It's a great field to be in. Engineers who understand both voice and data are worth their weight in gold and those who cannot hack both disciplines will soon fall by the wayside and be left behind. Like groceries, the world will always need dial-tone ... but that dialtone is now being produced by Linux-driven servers and those types of platforms are going to replace the legacy iron in short order.
regs,
.al.