Transferring from Coast Guard to Civilian as an IT

As the topic title states i'm getting out of the Coast Guard this summer as an IT. In the CG I went to a 7 month school that taught the basics of our job, which mainly consists of programming phone switches (Nortel and eOn), trouble shooting phones and wiring any where past the demarcation point, trouble shooting 3Com switches and connectivity on our base (no Cisco :(.), adding and administrating users, printers, whatnot in the Windows NT and Server 2003 (Active Directory) environment and such.

My question is what jobs I should REALLY be looking into. I want a Network Administrator job, but it seems they all require a bachelors degree (I only have a HS diploma, but am going to use my GI bill for school).

Any ways I guess what I really want to know is if my skills can really get me a good job or if i'm basically going to be starting all over again. I feel I should be going for more than an entry level job, but at the same time every Job Description I look at seems to want the applicant to have a BS, 3-5 year work expierence (the thing I do have) and a good understanding of a wide range of products. Some of which I have little to no expierence w/, namely Unix.

Sorry for the long post, but thank you in advance for any responses.

Austin in Key West, Florida said: As the topic title states i'm getting out of the Coast Guard this summer as an IT. In the CG I went to a 7 month school that taught the basics of our job, which mainly consists of programming phone switches (Nortel and eOn), trouble shooting phones and wiring any where past the demarcation point, trouble shooting 3Com switches and connectivity on our base (no Cisco :(.), adding and administrating users, printers, whatnot in the Windows NT and Server 2003 (Active Directory) environment and such.

My question is what jobs I should REALLY be looking into. I want a Network Administrator job, but it seems they all require a bachelors degree (I only have a HS diploma, but am going to use my GI bill for school).

Any ways I guess what I really want to know is if my skills can really get me a good job or if i'm basically going to be starting all over again. I feel I should be going for more than an entry level job, but at the same time every Job Description I look at seems to want the applicant to have a BS, 3-5 year work expierence (the thing I do have) and a good understanding of a wide range of products. Some of which I have little to no expierence w/, namely Unix.

Sorry for the long post, but thank you in advance for any responses.

Austin,

You should try taking some Cisco classes at a community college. Some of them are Cisco Training Partners or Cisco Academy members.

Some of the program managers could point you towards some companies that are willing to hire experienced folks without a degree. Also keep you eye out for the caveat BS degree or equivalent in experience.

Good luck