Coastline Community College
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coastline Community College is a community college in Fountain Valley, California. It offers Associate in Arts degrees and career and technical courses for occupational certificates. The college was founded in 1976, and is part of the Coast Community College District. Its location in Orange County California is a reasonable drive from San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles Counties with some students even driving from San Diego County for its more specialized classes.
Instruction is offered in nine different cities within the college service area, at approximately 50 sites, including banks, senior centers, high schools, office buildings, and shopping malls. In addition to these sites, the College has main area learning centers based in Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, and Westminster. In 1997, the College opened a center in Garden Grove with lab and large lecture facilities. In 2006 Coastline opened a new center in Westminster called the Le-Jao Center, for providing job-related technical skills. In 2006 the College opened an art gallery in Huntington Beach which showcases the artistic abilities of students, faculty and community members.
Coastline also offers distance education, including telecourses and the use of Pocket PC and personal digital assistants. Coastline's Distance Learning department has created an open source course management system (CMS) called Seaport which is similar to the products of Blackboard and WebCT. Its Military Outreach program delivers courses to every branch of the U.S. Armed Services. Coastline is also the first college to ever offer a complete degree available through content designed for distribution via a Pocket PC or other mobile learning device (cell phone, iPod, etc.).
Like all community colleges Coastline is a great option for the budget minded student to complete their general education before going off to a more expensive university or for the working professional to advance their career.
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[edit] Computer Networking Classes
One of the more remarkable options that the college offers is its Computer Networking classes categorized under the title of “Computer Services Technology.” These classes can take a student from the ground up to completion of industry recognized certifications like:
- A+
- MCSE – Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
- CCNA – Cisco Certified Network Administrator
- CCNP – Cisco Certified Network Professional
- CCSP – Cisco Certified Security Professional
- Security+
With as little as three completed classes a student can receive a college issued certificate stating the student has completed a category of related classes and has earned a certificate. This certificate can be shown to a current or prospective employer for career advancement. If the student wishes to go further, he can use this new knowledge to take industry sponsored certification tests to gain recognized certifications like: A+, MCSE, CCNA, CCNP, CCSP and Security+. The school even has a VUE testing center where the student can take VUE certification tests at a discounted price.
[edit] Cisco Hands On Equipment Labs
Coastline’s Garden Grove center has two Cisco classrooms dedicated to Cisco equipment where a student can learn Cisco related subjects. These state of the art labs have many routers and switches on four separate equipment racks (from 4 to 8 router/switch pairs/rack) where a student will receive hands-on training in Cisco architecture from Cisco Certified Instructors. These racks have associated patch panels to allow real life equpiment hookup while working from a classroom desk.
The best kept secret about this school is its ROI in relation to its cost (normally under $150 for registration and books per class) and deep knowledge gained as a student spends time practicing hands-on labs. These real world labs will prepare the student to take industry sponsored certification tests and real world employment.
Some of the routing protocols a student will encounter in the labs are RIP, IS-IS, OSPF, IGRP, EIGRP, and BGP. A typical lab might have three routers connected together using a T1 simulator using the OSFP routing protocol. In a PIX/ASA security lab the student may connect security devices using routers and switches to construct a site-to-site VPN. In a VOIP class the student will attach two or more VOIP and analog phones to a Cisco router running CME (Call Manager Express VOIP router software) and UE (Unity Express Voicemail). As a rule of thumb one could estimate a semester class as having somewhere around 10 individual lab projects for the student to complete. The labs will normally grow in difficulty starting with easier labs to build the students knowledge. In addition the labs will normally focus in on specific areas of the course to gain a broad base of knowledge in the course material.
The Cisco labs have the following equipment:
- Cisco 2800 routers with VOIP capabilities including CME (Call Manager Express – VOIP) and CUE (Cisco Unity Express – Voicemail)
- Cisco routers ranging from 2000 – 3000 series
- Cisco switches ranging from 2000 – 3000 series
- Cisco VOIP phones
- T1 simulators
- Cisco PIX/ASA units
- PSTN simulators (simulate a call coming from/to the telephone company)
[edit] Microsoft Windows Classes
Coastline offers a variety of Windows based classes including:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Infrastructure
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Design
- Microsoft Exchange Server
- Microsoft SQL Server
[edit] Linux Classes
Linux
- Comptia Linux+
[edit] Computer Hardware & Infrastructure
Computer Hardware & Infrastructure
- A+ Essentials
- A+ Technician
- Cabling
[edit] External links
- Coastline College Homepage
- Coastline Distance Learning
- Coastline's Military Outreach Program
- Coastline's Virtual Library
- Coast Learning Systems
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