So I'm getting my degree in CS. With my current rate, it will take me about 6 years to complete due to having a family, full time job of 50+ hours per week, and raising kids. In the meantime, I want to work on my certs and want to know yalls opinion.

I want to start with A+. CompTIA has their Certmaster program for $400 including exam voucher with a retake. After I accomplish this, N+, Sec+, and then go CCNA followed by CCNP. I know SOME stuff about computers but I am not a computer nerd. Just a guy trying to get out of the Texas heat in favor of some A/C and be home for my family vs being gone all the time or sun up to sun down hours. I know several of the employees at my local telecom company and they have all but said I have a job when I get the certs.

So, start at the bottom(comptia) and work my way up or go through my local junior college for my CCNA?

Thanks guys!

have you looked at wgu?
not sure where you are planning on going or why, but that worked out pretty well for me.
now I already had my AA, so I got all the basic classes out of the way.

about 8 or 9k a year for as many classes as you can take. With a min of 24 credit hours or 12 per semester.

it gave me those certs as the test for the class. or rather the test for the certs was the final for the class.
got the comp tia first semester followed by network, project, data base and security.

You do need them in that kind of order as you get questions for the previous certs on the final stuff.
well maybe not project or database, but as you laided them out.
I didn't go for the degree that needed the cisco stuff, but it was the same sort of thing. passing the class meant you got that cert too.

I have looked into wgu. I honestly just don't have the time. Last semester of just two classes was enough strain on everything.

I thought that too, and was nervous about it.

Depends on how much actual computer experience you have and or how quick a study you are.

now I have worked in IT for some time. Built my own computers and done the trouble shooting for others. But it isn't my main line of work.

But for the most part I was just learning what they wanted to call things, and what the book procedure was to do something to pass the tests.

I set it up to clear 3 easy classes to get 9 or 10 credits and 1 hard class that I could take the rest of the 6 months to finish.
Basically I could clear the easy classes in about 2 weeks to 3 weeks on the outside.
I downloaded the reading material to a tablet and read it on my free time.
Took all the practice tests and was able to pass the exams first time.

If you need more help, they have study groups at 7 or 8pm after working hours to go over stuff.

if you want to chat about it, you can pm me and I can give you a call.

So my question is, are you studying CS or are you getting into IT?  They aren't the same thing.

Yea, it sounds like you're going into IT. The certs you posted are not useful for CS.

I'm a computer engineer and work closely with CS guys and took many CS courses in college. CS is about programming. The certs you mentioned are for IT work like sys admin and network stuff.

I'm leaning towards IT. I'm still so far off from my BA that changing is not that hard. If I get a good paying job working IT, I may just forgo the degree entirely.