Do you wish to make a headstart in computer networking? Below are 14 networking courses that can level-head your career and make you a sound networking engineer.
These courses don’t promise to make you the next Charles Babbage, but they are sure to improve your engineering skills and dive into the pool of opportunities that can scale up your career.
What’s more! Many companies are always searching for network wizards or engineers who can make their company’s connections stable and secure.
According to Glass Door, a network engineer’s salary is $97,654 in the United States as of 23 October 2023. The amount could vary depending on the expertise level.
Let’s not beat much time around and look at 10 great free online courses for networking.
Capella
Advance your career in the field of computer networking with Capella. Their flexible online programs enrich your knowledge and transform you into an independent learner.
They have set a guided path that can navigate you through the different course modules. With it, you can set your deadlines and move at your own pace,
The USP of the course is you pay for what you have learned. Plus, you get online sessions wherein you can meet the industrial faculty who can share their experience and clarify your doubts.
Also, you can take one or two courses at a time and complete as many as possible within 12 weeks at a flat fee.
CISCO CCNA
It is a brief course offered by Charles Sturt University, which takes around five weeks to complete, for students who aspire to become network administrators should pursue it.
The course walks you through basic networking, routing, IP services, and troubleshooting concepts.
This free online course covers the fundamentals of networking and how to use it daily. Upon completion of the course, you need to clear a timed open-book examination, and then you will receive a certificate for it.
Juniper Open Learning
The leader in AI networking and cloud, Juniper is touted as a big name in the networking world. If you wish to become an expert in this field, joining their free course makes sense. This self-paced, web-based course is conducted by Junos Genius.
On becoming part of the course, you can select any of the eight different certification courses depending on your expertise level.
Also, the course is coupled with many practical tests and other resources to give you a headstart in this field.
These free courses come with a certificate, excellent pedagogy, comprehensive training, etc.
CISCO Networking Academy
CISCO offers many free networking beginner courses to expand your career journey. It teaches millions of students every year and provides virtual and live training worldwide.
This course will teach you fundamental networking concepts like cyber security, the Internet of things, entrepreneurship, and programming essentials in Python and Linux.
The time duration of each course will vary. However, this fundamental course does not accompany a certificate, but it promises excellent deliverables in terms of pedagogy, a thriving community, and a comprehensive course that strengthens your networking fundamental concepts.
Bits and Bytes Computer Networking course by Coursera
Course Era has many certified courses in its kitty, each providing a unique advantage to the learner.
To improve computer literacy and to bridge the gap, it has started a new networking course that brushes up your skills and makes you conversant with its basic terminologies.
This comprehensive course includes concepts about networking terminologies, protocol, practical application, network troubleshooting, introduction to networking, and the different layers associated with it.
Open Source Networking Course
It is a self-paced course that is designed by the LINUX foundation. Through this course, the student will learn all about the open source landscape, networking hardware, how NOS can run on different networking hardware, how to automate networking tasks, how the SDN controller will manage the underlay network, building bridges between applications and networking using several orchestration tools.
The free online class networking takes around 14 weeks to complete and is excellent for those familiar with networking and virtualization. Though it is a beginner course, it isn’t easy to comprehend.
Computer Networking by Georgia Tech
The security and software computer networking course by Georgia Tech will hone the students’ networking skills.
This online Master course will navigate you through sixteen different modules divided into three primary sections: Implementation, design principles, and goals of the computer, network-including routing algorithm used in CN, Resource Control, and content distribution in networking applications including SDN, traffic engineering and network security.
The course is taught by expert instructors and is self-paced. You can learn by listening to the lectures, quizzes and other activities.
While there is no specific requirement to enroll in this course, the basic knowledge of Python and TCP/IP protocol working knowledge of LINUX is necessary.
Networking by Google Cloud
Networking by Google Cloud is a program that takes around two months to complete. This highly-rated networking course will teach you about the core infrastructure networking in Google Cloud: Defining and Implementing network, hybrid connectivity, and network management.
The participants will learn about Google networking technologies, firewalls, subnets, interconnection between the network, Cloud CDN, Cloud DNS, and load balancing.
A prior understanding and experience of the OSI-7 layer model is necessary to get the most from this. The graded assignments will let you explore your understanding level.
Diploma in Computer Networking
It is a basic computer networking course that tells you about the basics or fundamentals of computer networking. Upon completing the course, the students can receive a certificate if they would like.
However, it is not mandatory, and the class can be taken entirely free of cost. Upon the completion of the course, the students will have the know-how of hubs, switches, routers, how Ethernet works, functions and processes of IP addresses, seven layers of the OSI model and TCP model, structure and function of IP addresses, twisted pair cables, VPN protocols, attenuation and interference, default gateway and DNA server, wide area networking technologies.
There are 11 modules and two assessments in this course, which includes more than 50 topics, and it takes around six to ten hours to complete.
You need to secure 80 percent to be eligible for the certification. If you cannot afford certification, you can always claim for the learner’s verification report available on the Allison dashboard.
Introduction to networking for the beginners
It is a free short course by Udemy that introduces you to computer networks. To get started with it, you need to acquaint yourself with how to use Windows and follow the instructions given by the instructor.
It is 2 hour long course that consists of 24 brief lectures. In the end, you will get acquainted with the basic networking commands, the world of CISCO, how to troubleshoot home networks, wireless issues, etc.
And the cherry on the cake is you don’t have to pay a single penny for the course; through it, you can quickly move ahead to the advanced networking courses.
Bottom Line
These are some of the free computer networking courses popular computer giants offer. These courses will elevate your understanding, and since most of them are self-paced, you won’t have to sit for hours and hours attending the class. Just learn as and when you can! That’s the beauty of it.