How to stop being enikey?

Question

System administration

Good afternoon!
Such questions, I think, are not new and have been asked many times. That's what I asked them :)
A little about myself - 22 years old, enikey with a higher correspondence technical education, combining the duties of warranty service for digital equipment in a large retail chain. I am from sunny Kazakhstan, from the city of Astana. It's been 2 years since I embarked on the IT path, but I'm haunted by the feeling that I'm marking time. Growing up in your current job is not an option. head office in Almaty. For the last 7-8 months I have been engaged in self-study: paid courses of the Cisco Network Academy at the STEP Academy (I came across a lot of negative reviews, which is wildly surprised, I like everything); all sorts of labs on Packet Tracer and GNS; mastered Olifer's book on networks, crammed "DNS and BIND - K. Lee, P. Albitz"; received several certificates of completion of Cisco courses, of course, realizing that this is far from the desired CCNA; I'm trying to start learning English honestly - it's very difficult for me with languages ​​​​(somewhere in the depths of my soul hoping that certification will appear in Russian); I’m slowly learning Linux, I started with desktop ubunta + a gift from the instructor - a server on centOS with a white IP remotely (in order to raise dns, mail, possibly a proxy in order to read livejournal, etc.);
Went to several interviews. The biggest disadvantage, as I understand it, is the lack of experience with "real" hardware (servers, telecommunications), you can't convince them with emulators. Money is not a priority for me, the main thing is the possibility of development. The question is banal - where do admins come from now and how to become one?

Answer 1

At your age of 22, you can change jobs at least every 2 months, for any new experience in each company will be gained. What prevents you from gaining knowledge while working as an engineer (if you want, call it help. sys. admin). Here is your experience and knowledge. If after a month or two you realize that there is nothing to learn here, start looking for a new place.
PS from my own practice: at any place of work for at least half a year there is something to do / learn, until the work rolls down to the replacement of cartridges)))

Answer 2

start with a support from a local provider

Answer 3

change jobs, grow up, then change jobs again
give up cisco it's a dying market

Answer 4

Well, as an option, look for a company with vacancies: a system administrator (indicating: no experience) or an assistant to a system administrator. Gain experience as an assistant (the main thing is that the mentor is normal and really teaches), and then either become admins in the same company / branch / neighboring company building, etc., etc. Or look for already admin vacancies with real experience and possibly a recommendation from an admin from a previous job.

Answer 5

It is not surprising that everyone scolds the step academy, if after 7-8 months of the course, WITH CERTIFICATES in the network direction, you learn DNS separately from the book.
To stop being an enikey admin, you need to start doing system administration. Take on more challenging tasks.
Look for a job with an ISP. And a big one.
English, no matter how hard it is given, is extremely necessary.
Read a toaster and habra, learn system administration tools. Virtualization, monitoring, centralized management of workstations.

Answer 6

Keep going to interviews and learn how to persuade. Focus on your knowledge and desire to learn and develop. When I got a job as a developer, I failed 10 interviews)

Answer 7

How I turned out to be an admin (a short list of jobs)
1 student installer of a domonet (pulled a twisted pair cable over roofs and porches / night technical support on the phone - grew up to an assistant admin, got acquainted with Linux and networks
2 Enikey in different companies (up to 200 computers) set up a radar Internet on Linux, corporate mail, etc.
3 admin in a freelance company (set LAMP proxy mail, etc. to order with elance)
4 admin in a hosting provider / domain registrar (support for a huge number of Linux servers)
You can try the options:
1 Internet provider - grow in the network manager admin,
study further networks and strive for CCNA and beyond
2 Hosting provider - grow into a Linux admin
learn to put LAMP, configure mail. dns ftp etc.

Answer 8

books are good, of course, but experience with real hardware is necessary,
and the ability to raise the network yourself from scratch ...
about Cisco is a good and useful topic (no matter how much they scolded it for the price tag, etc.), but I think that this is the next step after that how can you raise a server from scratch and fully configure it in solo.