Artifex's Journal: I'm quitting my job! And I want your thoughts.

No, really. I've been saying it for a while. But this "survival job" is keeping me from moving forward.

I'm planning to enroll in either the CCNA / PIX Firewall Specialist / CCSP Advanced Network Security Professional Program or CCNA-Firewall / Wireless Security / CCNP Advanced Network Professional Program at SMU, or an MCSE program there or elsewhere in town. This is going to put me in the hole by $10K or so, although I might get a part-time job to offset costs, so when I come out in about 6 months I need to be able to move into something fairly quickly.

I know there's a reasonably good market for MCSEs here, as I do see ads for "LAN/WAN Network Engineers," Microsoft-speak for network/server administration, etc. And frankly, that's the real reason why that's even an option for me. But I'd much rather go back to routers, which is what I used to do before I got laid off. So what I'm looking for, from y'all, is a sense of the market out there, particularly for certified router jockeys, and whether I should go all-out for the CCSP track or the CCNP and wireless track. Although, if you can think of something else that I should be looking at, I want to hear that also. Of course, if you have a pointer to a job already, tell me quick! :) (And yes, I'll move out of Texas for work, I had a great time in Portland)

Can't help out a whole lot, but

[spumoni_fettuccini]

I think the CCNA PIX/CCSP CCNA-Firewall/Wireless Security/CCNP thing will pay a lot better than MCSE. IIRC there is a huge glut of MCSE in the market, at least two years ago there was. I could be wrong, I just might be getting way underpaid.

Re:Can't help out a whole lot, but

[Artifex]

Thanks for your response, spumoni :)

Yesterday I made it official and put myself enormously in debt.
I hope I'll be able to leverage this quickly and thoroughly.