In reply to William Fields.

I'd recommend taking a trip over to the Cisco Learning Network and get some feedback from your peers as well William. So many valid ways of answering these questions. As far as where these topics show up in certification tracks... no need to guess there. We've got all of the Exam Topics for every Cisco Certification in one spot: https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/learning_center/certification_exam_topics

Most people on our site recommend getting a CCNA R&S cert as your bedrock to build on... but you will find other opinions as well. Hope you'll post your questions over there and let the community give you some food for thought.

Brett Lovins
Community Manager
The Cisco Learning Network