Raymond Jordan of McKinney is a customer support engineer at Cisco in Richardson and a graduate of Texas State Technical College in Waco.

(WACO) – Raymond Jordan has the world at his fingertips as he stares at his computer monitors at Cisco Systems Inc. in Richardson. Support calls from individual customers and companies transcend time zones and he is the man with answers.

Jordan, 41, is a customer support engineer on Cisco’s Server Virtualization Team in the company’s Technical Assistance Center dealing with the company’s Unified Computing System Platform.

Jordan, of McKinney, recently spoke to computer science students at Texas State Technical College in Waco about his work at Cisco and how students can prepare for internships and jobs. He said it is typical for interviews in the technology field to be conducted in front of a small panel. Panelists ask a question, which can then lead to follow-up questions.

“Most people are looking for a basic method of problem solving,” Jordan said.

Jordan was living in Hewitt when he graduated in summer 2013 from TSTC with an associate degree in Computer Networking and Systems Administration.

“I knew I was going to get a good education when I enrolled,” he said. “I knew TSTC had a good reputation in the computer networking field and in other fields. I was impressed that the computer networking classes have equipment that you can work on, installing cables on equipment and getting your hands on. Sometimes, I have to do something like that and think back on the hands-on work I did at TSTC. This kind of experience helps when you are going through job interviews.”

Jordan’s TSTC degree complimented another career interest he had throughout his life: Journalism. Jordan received a bachelor’s degree in Journalism in 2008 from The University of Texas at Arlington. He worked at a newspaper in Cameron but left after a year and a half.

“I was looking to stay in journalism for a while,” Jordan said. “I was working at Sprint at their retention department in Temple. I was commuting every day. I had always liked technology and working with computers and knew TSTC had a great program.”

TSTC instructors encourage students to pursue as many certifications as possible primarily because testing prices are lower for those in school.

“What we do is teach the fundamentals,” said John Washington, an associate professor in the Computer Networking and Systems Administration Technology at TSTC in Waco. “At the library we have books the students can use to prepare for the tests.”

TSTC in Waco is a member of the Cisco Networking Academy, an international career-building skills program created in 1987 to provide a pathway for people to enter the IT field.

The Computer Networking and Systems Administration program offers the Cisco Certified Network Associate Routing and Switching four-course curriculum that students can take to become Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician certified or CCNA certified.

A group of TSTC Computer Networking and Systems Administration students and instructors will travel Nov. 2 to San Antonio for Cisco Academy Day at Rackspace, a worldwide cloud management company specializing in website hosting, data services and cybersecurity.