Success story for anyone looking to get the CCNA

Let me start by saying I'm not sure where I'm going with this story. I would say I'm writing this because I see alot of flak for the certification in general on here.

Background, I started IT when I was 20. I went to a two year school and got an associates in computer networking (didn't pay attention at all), and got a job on a tier 2 help desk for a mega corp in a few months afterwards. My first IT job was making 17 an hour.

Help desk is fine, but looking around all I could see were these lifers who had no passion to move or learn. They were just content with what they were doing. We didn't touch any infrastructure, we just fixed computers. That wasn't good for me because I have plans and to be stuck on a help desk for 10 years means I can't every use any of my job on my resume for more advanced roles.

So I started studying! I didn't pay attention in school and I was on the help desk for two years. My skills were basically starting at 0. Well I bought the recommended books on here and watched the recommended videos. I got my CCNA in about 6 months and felt like the fucking man. I started looking for network admin roles but of course nobody would hire someone with no experience to take over their network for the prices I was looking at.

My resume got a lot of attention and recruiters were constantly calling me the minute I put a CCNA down (midwest, Iowa.) Probably a lot more valuable. Anyways, I managed to up my salary by accepting a job with the same company I was currently contracting for. So It was a really smooth transition and I got my first networking job and a TON more responsibility. Getting my CCNA upped my salary by 10k instantly. I went from 37k a year to 50k a year. I was willing to accept any salary just to get my foot up the ladder a bit more.

Me and one other guy were running the network at 3 metro locations for this company. We managed over 250 stacks of cisco equipment, 6 BGP routers for the 3 sites. 500+ access points and 100 UPSes.

Well I was working for a huge corporation so I still didn't get all the exposure to the equipment I needed (VMs, Servers, Storage, VOIP.). I was purely networking. This still bugged me so I didn't quit learning. I kept studying and got my CCNP R&S exactly 1 year after getting my CCNA.

I shit you not I literally got at least 8 voice mails and 10 emails from local recruiters asking to interview with me the day after posting my resume on the usual job sites. My goals were to work directly for a company, more pay, more responsbility, and a much smaller company.

Well sure enough in a few days a company of about 200 emailed me and wanted to talk. They needed a network admin for their site and have been contracting it out till now. The company was expanding and needed an expert. Well I interviewed and got the job and everything I wanted to help with my future career. I am now the sole network guy for this company, I will create the standards, the equipment models, the documentation, and all of the decisions. I will also backup all of the other infrastructure roles and get me more exposure on my resume. I INSTANTLY got another 20k a year. I upgraded my salary from 50k a year to 70k a year. I got the responsibility of an entire company. I will have exposure and resume material for more than just networking and big picture projects.

Not sure what the point of this post was, but the passion for getting my CCNA kept driving me further and further to expand my career. If you're on the fence, just do it. You'll thank yourself.

I started at 20 years old 37k a year and now I'm making 70k a year at 23. I have 0 DEBT, I went to a 2 year college so really no student loans. My car is paid off. I pay 325 a month for rent. All of this good came because I got sick of the idea of me being a lifer on some sort of helpdesk resetting PCs if I didn't get my shit together.

My first post here 3 years ago was me asking how to set up two different subnets on a router for my home lab just to give an idea of where I started. 3 years is all it takes to bump that salary up for a better life. Thanks to the wonderful community at r/ccna is what drove me. Don't mind grammar and spelling, little drunk