Meet the students who will be building the networks that make the Internet of Things possible! The first graduates of Seidenberg’s Cisco Net Academy have just taken the CCNA 1 exam. These fantastic students will proceed to take CCNA 2 in the spring before sitting for Cisco’s CCENT exam, which is one of the quickest ways to get a job in IT networking.
Students underwent training in the new Applied Data and Networking Sciences Lab, which is located on the 10th floor at 161 William St. The lab was created by Associate Dean Dr. Jim Gabberty as a place where students can gain hands-on experience in cybersecurity, big data analytics, and Cisco networking.
Now that the lab has been open through summer and the fall semester, we’re seeing results: the first batch of students have passed the CCNA 1 exam and are well on their way to the CCENT!
Dr. Jim Gabberty, who brought the program to the Seidenberg School earlier this year, hopes even more students will participate and eventually earn their CCENT/CCNA/CCNS certifications from Cisco as a supplement to their academic studies here at Pace University. “It’s really quite exciting to see these motivated individuals take charge of their future careers by leveraging our relationship with Cisco,” he said.
As a Cisco Networking Academy, the Seidenberg School offers access to high quality courses that provide technical training and helps students develop their professional skills. Through a series of video and practical training using Cisco Packet Tracer, students learn new theory and get the chance to cement it with hands-on practice – and unlike other institutions, we offer it for free.
“When I found out Pace was offering this course for free I was ecstatic,” said Connor Magee (BA in Computer Science ’19). Connor is mainly interested in cybersecurity, which he also studies in the Applied Data and Networking Sciences lab. He took the Cisco course to consolidate his cybersecurity knowledge. “Being able to understand how something is set up, built, and configured, helps me learn how to defend it.”
Simon Felce (MS in Telecommunications Systems and Networks ’18) has four years of industry experience. He took the course to better understand what other teams were doing in his job. “I worked as a wireless engineer . . . I had to work with the networking team who were very experienced with CCNA, so for me it was really good to start learning all the concepts of networking.”
“The opportunity to practice with real devices . . . the fact that it was free was awesome,” said David Acuna (MS in Telecommunications ’18). “Professor Gabberty was really patient, he was always available if we needed help. Now I feel like I know more about networking technologies.”
We are incredibly proud of the work put in by the students to get to this point – and extremely excited for the future where more Seidenberg students get to enjoy this incredible opportunity to grow their skills and increase their prospects.
CCNA 1 through CCNA 4 will be offered free to Pace University students in the hopes of helping to fill the thousands of job openings in the industry.