They are highly specific to Cisco hardware, in terms of router/switch configs. I took CCNA classes (all 4) in high school and it was good experience for learning some of the underlying principles, but its not exactly heavy on the theory or technology. You can learn almost all of it on your own if you are dedicated. There is a program called "Packet Tracer" that allows you to simulate routers, switches, networks, hosts, etc. but there isn't a real good substitute for hands on experience. You can pick up a cheap home network set for under a few hundred dollars, though. I'd recommend making a home network, rather than paying for classes, if you are dedicated enough, as a home network will be useful for extending your knowledge in security as well.

If you key focus is getting a job and career progression, get the cert. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother wasting the money, just for the knowledge.

I think it could, as always, depend on the quality of the teacher. I am not speaking about Cisco courses, but I recently attended a Microsoft course and the course was provided through recorded material prepared by Microsoft, with a local trainer that could be questioned in case of need (this was due to the fact that I was attending the course in English and the training center was normally organizing it in another language). The Microsoft "recorded" teacher knew his stuff, but the local teacher was not that expert because he was acting as supporting teacher for many many courses (we were 6 people in the class, each one doing a different course: AD, Exchange, SQL Server etc..) So I missed a bit of interaction AND real-life stories that you typically exchange with other students and with the teacher as well. Fortunately the course was paid by my company, but I came back thinking that maybe paying 29$ for a month of Pluralsight would have been a better investment than spending 2000$ for the official MSFT course (even better subscribing for a full year of pluralsight and having the possibilities of having many more additional training videos).

Having said that, for Cisco I'll suggest you to check the Chris Bryant courses available on Udemy [no affiliation], I bought one of them (CCNA) few months ago but just right after I was hired in a non-networking position (and in a company that is not using Cisco) so I never finished it, but the quality seems to be very good and it is confirmed by the number of comments on Udemy and also checking certification forums like Techexam.net. It seems that he also replies to questions inside Udemy, so the interaction is clearly present.

I am taking a Uni Program basically around the Cisco cert stages. Cisco offers a program that simulates all of the software and hardware called "packet tracer". The content of the CCNA at least is now better at explain concepts and theories but it emphasizes some specifics(like some protocols) that aren't industry standard and are mostly Cisco product bias. That being said besides the protocol stuff I would say that the Cisco Bias sections are really easy to spot out because they start pumping up their products. Also Learning Ciscos operating system is good so you can translate that to other operating systems, much like programming languages. I say just buy the books get packet tracer, then take the cert twice once to get used to actual hardware then second to pass. Honestly you will likely fail the first one if you haven't done a Cisco exam before because Cisco makes crazy hard marking schemes and create a scary atmosphere for the exams.

Have a look at http://www.gns3.net/

Looks good, though most of my labs/exams will be in packet tracer I will save this for when I learning other systems. It looks like it shares a lot of the interface design with packet tracer with out adding ridiculous features that Cisco thinks is useful Packet Tracer.

They are relevant if and only if you're looking for a corporate job related to networking. Your can begin your career from a networking assistant engineer with CCNA and work your way up to a network architect - probably requires CCIE and up. The exam is actually not very expensive, so you can might as well get yourself certified but I find it unnecessary to sign up for the course though. There are plenty of resources online, so just make full use of it and you'll be fine. (keyword: question dumps/braindumps) Some of the benefits from attending classes i can think of is that you get to strip your ethernet cable and plug them into the physical switches/routers and of course configure them. But in general, you're better off reading the books and playing with packet tracer/GNS3 at your own comfort.

This is a good question. I work with Openstack and was clueless about a lot of enterprise networking concepts .. e.g. vlans, GRE tunnels, VPN, etc. I have also looked into courses but haven't found something that fits my needs (focus on knowledge instead of a cert). Instead of buying networking gear, you might be able to use some Cisco emulation software. I've heard that is sufficient for the first level of cert. Unfortunately, it seems you can only get access to the software by taking an official course. I've watched a bunch of cert related videos on Youtube and those have helped me.

Depending on what you're looking at setting up you can also see about picking up some older Cisco gear. When I was studying for the CCNA I picked up a couple of 2500 series routers off of eBay for ~$80 shipped. They were a generation or two out of date at the time, but I picked up some newer IOS images off of a torrent site and was able to use them to experiment with most of the topics covered.

I imagine a couple of older routers/switches for the hands-on experience combined with simulation software for more complex setups would still get you pretty far.

You can indeed study the course material by yourself; I did that myself and got the (CCNA) certification. If you intent to go through it for the sake of learning the just get a book, Packet Tracer or any other emulator and have fun.

If you intent to take the exam as well, you have to do it a bit structured and use multiple resources. For example, I started out with Todd Lammle's CCNA book, completed it and aced the practice questions. Luckily I also went on to use other resources, (mainly CBT nuggets) since the actual exam was considerably harder than what Lammle leads to you to believe.

Is there a way to legally get PacketTracer without going through a course? I looked and have had no luck so far :(

CCIE here. I did all my certs by self study. If you want to go CCNA > CCNP > CCIE, I advise building a small lab. If you just want to learn without getting a related job you can go the virtualization route (GNS3) or simulation (packet tracer). It also depends on which track you choose CCNA R&S, CCNA Voice or CCNA Security. I had a few classes for other certifications but to be honest you can do them by yourself and using the internet.

Suppose part of your motivation for understanding networking was the desire to set up a "last mile" sort of ISP in your neighbourhood/town, where you lease fibre capacity from someone with fibre in the ground, then you build out a wifi or wimax network that, every so often, terminates into this fibre; is this the correct learning path to take, would you say? How helpful/essential is the knowledge?

Thanks for the replies everyone.