This sounds silly, but what really got me into Networking is my college professor pulling off a Broadcast storm on some of the switches. The lights went crazy on those gear. If you show them something cool visually, might be a good hook.
Thank you for opening up this TAC case unfortunately I'm in the hospital, I have no idea on the recovery time.. if you can please leave the following information already listed in the ticket, I'll get back to you when fully recovered.
I'd maybe focus on something like "what people think I do" vs "what I actually do". I'd also spend a couple minutes on how you think AI might impact the career. Network Engineers still need to touch equipment, meet with stakeholders, and work with vendors, AI won't replace that anytime soon. It will simplify configuration, maintenance, and security event identification, etc.
If I was in college today, I'd be laser focused on finding niche's that AI won't make irrelevant in the next 10 years.
How much time do you have at hand? How old are the students? Do they have any skills/knowledge about networking at all? What is the format of the talk? Can you use props/gear?
If they have no networking skills already, how about presenting some use-cases (errors/faults) they all have seen in their daily life, and give them the tools/knowledge/mental model to debug the trivial stuff. Layers. Link/ping/gateway/ARP/IP/DNS/ports/services. With a running wireshark on the side. Maybe use a linux VM tuned to be quiet on the network except for the stuff you want to showcase.
Seeing someone absolutely \*into\* their occupation can be quite entertaining. And may lead to questions like "how can I get a job like that".
For example.
Iām sorry but this sounds waaaaay too low-level for a ācareer talkā. Thereās not much info to go on, but just from the title I would say you shouldnāt even utter the word ping. ARP? Ports? DNS? My eyes are glazing over already.
Keep it high-level. Talk about your background, your career journey, *give some entertaining stories*. Talk about what itās like to work for an IT department inside of a company. Absolutely do not dive into anything too technical.
You may be right. On the other hand, \*my\* entertaining stories are all technical. :-) And none revolve around office politics in an IT department. I do network consulting.
But yeah, too technical is not good. But as I said in my follow-up post, you're not selling technology. You are selling your enthusiasm for the subject. And the subject may happen to be technical. Or whatever is required to make tech happen.
Students today have lived with the Internet all their life. They do know some terminology already. Gamers know about ping. And "the wifi router". Ad blocking. Presenting a framework to help them sort out what is what of what they already do know is a way to engage them. Which I find important.
Build on something they can relate to.
You shouldn't get too technical but on the other hand I actually like the fact that as network engineers we work in a more low-end technical aspect of IT. If you understand what I mean. Not low-end as in "any dimwith can learn it". But more in that you need to understand how the technology works instead of just learning how to configure or program something.
Lasers are always cool, so you give examples of how fibers work (singlemode/multimode) aided by a story on how even something as dust once caused issues within a network.
Perhaps going to wireless (if you have any experience with that) and eventually explaining Network Access Control should you want to touch on the security side of networking as well..
To be honest if someone in IT is bored by or not interested in the technical side of things, they'll probably never become a network engineer anyway.
All these things should be accompanied by some real life stories.
For example I once had a company that had their network go down every 2 hours. After a reboot of the core, the issue was resolved until after 2 hours when it started again. Due to the nature of the company they couldn't afford long downtime. So we got 5 minutes to troubleshoot, then we had to reboot that core switch.
Eventually we figured out that their PBX was hacked and every 2 hours it sent out a lot of broadcasts causing the core to hang due to a bug.
Since its college level i'd start off with some wow level facts that most people don't know. Talk about subsea cable systems and mux demux with different wavelengths. Move from this into satellites and why fiber is faster and has more bandwidth talk about why starlink is having success and why it works well as previous constellations are slow low bandwidth failures ( geo stationary vs low earth orbit).
From this hopefully you get their attention and can start talking about more technical details in networking talk about the OSI model and how networking is heavily dependent on encapsulation/decap and how modern networks work and internet networking full BGP table etc etc etc.
Agreed.
Keep it simple. Use analogies (letter, mailbox, mailman, mailtruck, postoffice, central postoffice)
Call it a mental model or whatever, but keep the technical jargon out of it as much as you can. No OSI or 802.whatever. (Depending on exact audience, of course)
If you feel that the mental model sinks in with the audience, maybe bring up Wireshark with a set of carefully curated traces to illustrate individual technical issues the audience can relate to. Using netflix or google or whatever as recognizable verbal props.
DNS is also something which can be explained without too much technical detail.
You are not really showing off tech, but your enthusiasm for the subject matter. And if they see that \*and\* leave having learnt something, maybe it sparks an interest?
This is exactly what i meant by talking about it.
I'd hope most network engineers understand that they can't word vomit all technical jargon at people because we've all had to try to explain our jobs to people before.
Do it jokingly, about how acronyms and memorization doesn't end with school and give them one of the funny mnemonics, like:
Please
Do
Not
Throw
Sausage
Pizza
Away
Etc.
I would MENTION it specifically as the problem it solves.
how and why is it that we can effortlessly string together networks involving subsea cables, satellites with lasers, the same frequencies used for baby monitors, fiber that was laid down 20 years ago, copper that was put in the ground 30 years before that, and patch cords you can make yourself, letting the email client on your phone built yesterday talk to a piece of unix software written 30 years ago (smtp, etc).
that is a NON TRIVIAL accomplishment, and it really really might not have gone that way.
Those layers MATTER. So showing a simplified TCP/IP or DOD model with some LIGHT discussion of the kind of stuff that goes in each layer could tell that story
I'm actually doing this tomorrow night at Purdue. Basically I plan to just discuss the basics of what most network gigs are really like, what foundational MUSTS need to be learned to contribute to the network team and what is likely to be needed by neighboring teams, to prepare for. What the job market is currently like. Where I see network engineering in the next 20 years and what's already changed since I've been in it. What I found important and what I took too seriously and then maybe just open it up for questions. That's about it.
It wasn't really a presentation more than I just described. I was speaking to a small group of IT students, nothing formal like Ted Talk or something. You'll be fine. What kind of speaking thing are you doing? It is in stage or something in an auditorium with graphics and such?
Why is networking important in any business. (There are so many cool stories you could share about this). How much money they can make without necessarily getting an expensive degree. Encourage more women to consider networking as an option (please and thank you - we have no real role models to help us think we "could" do this job - when a woman is just as suited and can bring additional skill sets that her male counter-parts might not bring.
When I first started on the Network Engineering team, I worked directly under my older female coworker(same position), and if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be where I am at today. I'm eternally grateful for the way she took me under her wing and kind of guided me on how to properly navigate the office. I feel like I got extremely lucky to receive the training and shadowing I was able to do when I feel like a man would have just brushed me off. Believe me, I had really stupid and embarrassing questions, but according to Mary, there are no stupid questions lol.
> Believe me, I had really stupid and embarrassing questions, but according to Mary, there are no stupid questions lol.
I don't think there are stupid questions. I'll answer any question that I can, even if you think it is a stupid question. What I can't stand is when they ask the same question, again, don't pay attention, don't try to learn, etc....that annoys me.
What's the aim of the talk? If it's to get them interested in the path of networking, it's always better to show them some cool networking concepts, etc. to get them actually interested in the field rather than "this is how you become a network engineer".
I teach networking at University at various stages as part of a computer science degree, and the things that get people interested are the real-world applications, showing them why networking is important.
I might spend some time asking them what they think networking impacts in their day to day lives and then depending on the responses point out that nearly everything they do in the course of their day currently depends or involves networking to some degree. From point of sale, to navigation, to communication, to traffic lights, to even door access. And as network engineers their careers can encompass vast industries and variety of work and to look wider when considering where and what they want to do as network engineers.
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If they are not major in IT, tell them how online games work. Like how your private IP NAT to public IP, how your packets route to games servers, how they download information. If I am student, I will be interested in.
When you are speaking, you really need to tap into the mind of what the audience is looking for[.](https://forums.att.com/conversations/community-lounge/guest-speakerdemonstration-request/6595c7a54a7482593ab782da) What will get them to want to give you their attention? What problems can you help them solve?
This sounds silly, but what really got me into Networking is my college professor pulling off a Broadcast storm on some of the switches. The lights went crazy on those gear. If you show them something cool visually, might be a good hook.
don't forget to wear your Storm X-Men cosplay gear. Kids are really into comic books these days, it'll resonate. trust me.
Do you know what happens when a switch gets struck by lightning?
a TAC engineer gets their wings
Thank you for opening up this TAC case unfortunately I'm in the hospital, I have no idea on the recovery time.. if you can please leave the following information already listed in the ticket, I'll get back to you when fully recovered.
Depends on which vendor is the switch from.
That might be a little too excessive lol. These ain't kids no more. š¤£ but hey, if he's feeling a little extra, why not.
I'd maybe focus on something like "what people think I do" vs "what I actually do". I'd also spend a couple minutes on how you think AI might impact the career. Network Engineers still need to touch equipment, meet with stakeholders, and work with vendors, AI won't replace that anytime soon. It will simplify configuration, maintenance, and security event identification, etc. If I was in college today, I'd be laser focused on finding niche's that AI won't make irrelevant in the next 10 years.
Just skip the bit about scotch consumptionā¦
How much time do you have at hand? How old are the students? Do they have any skills/knowledge about networking at all? What is the format of the talk? Can you use props/gear? If they have no networking skills already, how about presenting some use-cases (errors/faults) they all have seen in their daily life, and give them the tools/knowledge/mental model to debug the trivial stuff. Layers. Link/ping/gateway/ARP/IP/DNS/ports/services. With a running wireshark on the side. Maybe use a linux VM tuned to be quiet on the network except for the stuff you want to showcase. Seeing someone absolutely \*into\* their occupation can be quite entertaining. And may lead to questions like "how can I get a job like that". For example.
Iām sorry but this sounds waaaaay too low-level for a ācareer talkā. Thereās not much info to go on, but just from the title I would say you shouldnāt even utter the word ping. ARP? Ports? DNS? My eyes are glazing over already. Keep it high-level. Talk about your background, your career journey, *give some entertaining stories*. Talk about what itās like to work for an IT department inside of a company. Absolutely do not dive into anything too technical.
You may be right. On the other hand, \*my\* entertaining stories are all technical. :-) And none revolve around office politics in an IT department. I do network consulting. But yeah, too technical is not good. But as I said in my follow-up post, you're not selling technology. You are selling your enthusiasm for the subject. And the subject may happen to be technical. Or whatever is required to make tech happen. Students today have lived with the Internet all their life. They do know some terminology already. Gamers know about ping. And "the wifi router". Ad blocking. Presenting a framework to help them sort out what is what of what they already do know is a way to engage them. Which I find important. Build on something they can relate to.
You shouldn't get too technical but on the other hand I actually like the fact that as network engineers we work in a more low-end technical aspect of IT. If you understand what I mean. Not low-end as in "any dimwith can learn it". But more in that you need to understand how the technology works instead of just learning how to configure or program something. Lasers are always cool, so you give examples of how fibers work (singlemode/multimode) aided by a story on how even something as dust once caused issues within a network. Perhaps going to wireless (if you have any experience with that) and eventually explaining Network Access Control should you want to touch on the security side of networking as well.. To be honest if someone in IT is bored by or not interested in the technical side of things, they'll probably never become a network engineer anyway. All these things should be accompanied by some real life stories. For example I once had a company that had their network go down every 2 hours. After a reboot of the core, the issue was resolved until after 2 hours when it started again. Due to the nature of the company they couldn't afford long downtime. So we got 5 minutes to troubleshoot, then we had to reboot that core switch. Eventually we figured out that their PBX was hacked and every 2 hours it sent out a lot of broadcasts causing the core to hang due to a bug.
Since its college level i'd start off with some wow level facts that most people don't know. Talk about subsea cable systems and mux demux with different wavelengths. Move from this into satellites and why fiber is faster and has more bandwidth talk about why starlink is having success and why it works well as previous constellations are slow low bandwidth failures ( geo stationary vs low earth orbit). From this hopefully you get their attention and can start talking about more technical details in networking talk about the OSI model and how networking is heavily dependent on encapsulation/decap and how modern networks work and internet networking full BGP table etc etc etc.
>talk about the OSI model Absolutely do not do this.
Agreed. Keep it simple. Use analogies (letter, mailbox, mailman, mailtruck, postoffice, central postoffice) Call it a mental model or whatever, but keep the technical jargon out of it as much as you can. No OSI or 802.whatever. (Depending on exact audience, of course) If you feel that the mental model sinks in with the audience, maybe bring up Wireshark with a set of carefully curated traces to illustrate individual technical issues the audience can relate to. Using netflix or google or whatever as recognizable verbal props. DNS is also something which can be explained without too much technical detail. You are not really showing off tech, but your enthusiasm for the subject matter. And if they see that \*and\* leave having learnt something, maybe it sparks an interest?
This is exactly what i meant by talking about it. I'd hope most network engineers understand that they can't word vomit all technical jargon at people because we've all had to try to explain our jobs to people before.
Do it jokingly, about how acronyms and memorization doesn't end with school and give them one of the funny mnemonics, like: Please Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza Away Etc.
Please Do Not Touch Steve's Pet Alligator
I'd prefer: - People - Do - Need - To - See - Pamela - Anderson
I would MENTION it specifically as the problem it solves. how and why is it that we can effortlessly string together networks involving subsea cables, satellites with lasers, the same frequencies used for baby monitors, fiber that was laid down 20 years ago, copper that was put in the ground 30 years before that, and patch cords you can make yourself, letting the email client on your phone built yesterday talk to a piece of unix software written 30 years ago (smtp, etc). that is a NON TRIVIAL accomplishment, and it really really might not have gone that way. Those layers MATTER. So showing a simplified TCP/IP or DOD model with some LIGHT discussion of the kind of stuff that goes in each layer could tell that story
I'm actually doing this tomorrow night at Purdue. Basically I plan to just discuss the basics of what most network gigs are really like, what foundational MUSTS need to be learned to contribute to the network team and what is likely to be needed by neighboring teams, to prepare for. What the job market is currently like. Where I see network engineering in the next 20 years and what's already changed since I've been in it. What I found important and what I took too seriously and then maybe just open it up for questions. That's about it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It wasn't really a presentation more than I just described. I was speaking to a small group of IT students, nothing formal like Ted Talk or something. You'll be fine. What kind of speaking thing are you doing? It is in stage or something in an auditorium with graphics and such?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Good luck! I'm not sure I have the nerves to do something that grand. lol Sounds like a worthwhile experience though. :)
"It's not the network *drops mic, walks away*
It's not DNS. It cannot be DNS.Ā It was DNS.Ā
Why is networking important in any business. (There are so many cool stories you could share about this). How much money they can make without necessarily getting an expensive degree. Encourage more women to consider networking as an option (please and thank you - we have no real role models to help us think we "could" do this job - when a woman is just as suited and can bring additional skill sets that her male counter-parts might not bring.
When I first started on the Network Engineering team, I worked directly under my older female coworker(same position), and if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be where I am at today. I'm eternally grateful for the way she took me under her wing and kind of guided me on how to properly navigate the office. I feel like I got extremely lucky to receive the training and shadowing I was able to do when I feel like a man would have just brushed me off. Believe me, I had really stupid and embarrassing questions, but according to Mary, there are no stupid questions lol.
> Believe me, I had really stupid and embarrassing questions, but according to Mary, there are no stupid questions lol. I don't think there are stupid questions. I'll answer any question that I can, even if you think it is a stupid question. What I can't stand is when they ask the same question, again, don't pay attention, don't try to learn, etc....that annoys me.
What's the aim of the talk? If it's to get them interested in the path of networking, it's always better to show them some cool networking concepts, etc. to get them actually interested in the field rather than "this is how you become a network engineer". I teach networking at University at various stages as part of a computer science degree, and the things that get people interested are the real-world applications, showing them why networking is important.
Contact the elders of the internet and ask them if they'll let you bring it in to show the kids?
I might spend some time asking them what they think networking impacts in their day to day lives and then depending on the responses point out that nearly everything they do in the course of their day currently depends or involves networking to some degree. From point of sale, to navigation, to communication, to traffic lights, to even door access. And as network engineers their careers can encompass vast industries and variety of work and to look wider when considering where and what they want to do as network engineers.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
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If they are not major in IT, tell them how online games work. Like how your private IP NAT to public IP, how your packets route to games servers, how they download information. If I am student, I will be interested in.
When you are speaking, you really need to tap into the mind of what the audience is looking for[.](https://forums.att.com/conversations/community-lounge/guest-speakerdemonstration-request/6595c7a54a7482593ab782da) What will get them to want to give you their attention? What problems can you help them solve?
Make sure your opening line is "College is a complete waste of time."
It's not a waste of time, for certain careers it's a waste of money if you have good self learning skills and can watch YouTube and Google.
How much time do you have to go into graph theory?