Personally, CISCO's networking courses are far more valuable than the CISCO Certificate itself, the progressive development of networking skills driving social improvement in the Information Age, capable of changing our lifestyles, our worlds and our own selves!
	—-Guo Zhihao, Zhongshan University

I, Guo Zhihao, '98 senior students of the Electronics Department in the Zhongshan University, was born in Shaoguan, Guangdong province. Shaoguan has a long history as an industrial city. Networking had just begun to raise in '96, and it swept like a wind to the North of Guangdong province, near Hunan, where I had first contact with networking in my hometown-Shaoguan, Guangdong province.

During high school, I went out with my friends one weekend and we found that there was a networking promotion being held by the local post office, attracting a lot of people, and giving us free Internet access on computers to let us find out for ourselves just what networking is. Naturally, we couldn't let go of this chance to try something new, and the network opened for us as though "open sesame" had been spoken, letting us enter into this wonderful, intriguing new world, and I was hooked on networking.

Once in university, the opportunities to use networking increased and I grew simply "obsessed", in love with it, and determined to learn networking. Hence, I chose to spend a lot of my time in the department's computer lab, immersed in independent studies. I should actually add that I was lucky enough to be noticed by the head of the lab, Ms. Li Xiaoning (also the CNAP lecturer in our university), who taught me a lot about networking, often solving questions that have long bothered me with merely a few words, truly gaining my appreciation and admiration.

Speaking with Ms. Li once, whatever the original topic was, I clearly remembered her mentioning CISCO and the CISCO Certification. She said, "CISCO is the biggest networking equipment provider in the world, and its CCNA Certification is like a passport to success in the world's networking industry." These few words, of CCNA having such a high, international standing in the networking industry, left a lasting impression, and made me understand that networking wasn't just something to think about on my own, and a formal training program with a series of specialist materials would bring my knowledge of networking to a higher level.

Luckier still, the CISCO networking courses at Zhongshan were soon opened to all the students, finally allowing me the chance to learn more about networking and improve, as well as giving me the determination to obtain the CCNA certification. The CNAP teachers were responsible, knowledgeable and willing to answer all sorts of their student's questions. There were quite a few Literal Arts students in class, who knew little about networking or computers, but their questions, no matter how complex or how simple, were answered by the teachers with extreme patience until everything taught was understood. I was particularly enthralled by the experimentations part of class, where students could chose freely from a variety of work plans, leaving a lot of room for us to use our creativity.

After I finished the CISCO networking courses, I devoted myself into preparing for the CCNA test. There is a saying that, "on a 100km journey, stopping at 90km is the same as giving up half way." - only when I finish the CCNA test, can I say that my studies are officially complete. During that time, my studies in the last year of university were also intense, with 3 or 4 lessons going on per week, so in order to keep things balanced, I spent all my spare time studying for the CCNA test. My efforts were well rewarded and I passed the CCNA with the highest score, from a net-loving amateur, turning into an acknowledged, professional networking engineer.

My quick progress in networking encouraged me to continue my studies, and as one of the first graduates of CNAP at Zhongshan University, I was honored to join the CNAP association there, along with about ten other students, to form 3 groups that focused on different networking programs, theories and practice in areas of considerable difficulty, as the Team Leader of one of the groups. Aside from meetings with our advisor ever Friday, every team had to meet sometimes to discuss and exchange ideas on our topics. My team consists of 4 people; beside myself, 2 people majored in Environmental Geography and 1 majored in Economics. I assigned tasks to everyone according to our personalities and abilities. This semester, our research topic was to confirm the existence of a Switch's Spanning Tree, Frame Relay in the WAN (Wide Area Net) and PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) authentication. The members of our team, due to having similar interests, quickly all became good friends, our team spirit greatly improving our skills.

We were also responsible for taking care of equipment in the lab, assisting teachers in experimentation, and generally helping other students learn practical networking skills. I really like the courses in CISCO's networking academy, which allowed me to truly learn networking skills, from their professional, exceptional teachers, carefully planned courses and cutting edge technology that benefited me greatly. Of our 10 dorm mates, 3 have already obtained the CCNA certification while 3 are still in the CISCO networking academy.

Also, understanding the OSI-layer model of networking taught me one new way of thinking. In real life and in studying, there will sometimes be problems encountered that are hard to start unraveling, but if some analysis is done, splitting up the problems into something similar to the OSI-layer model, working from the bottom to the top, the roots of the problem can soon be found.

Personally, CISCO's networking courses are far more valuable than the CISCO Certificate itself, the progressive development of networking skills driving social improvement in the Information Age, capable of changing our lifestyles, our worlds and our own selves!(Talkback: Post your comment here )