CNT3112 is the second course in the networking sequence — where a student stops describing networks and starts configuring them. Routers and switches, VLANs, inter-VLAN routing and routing protocols, on real or simulated equipment, with troubleshooting as a first-class skill.
Florida's statewide description: the course "provides students with intermediate level knowledge in the architecture, components, and operations of routers and switches in a small network. Content includes how to configure and troubleshoot routers and switches. Students will learn how to design and configure virtual LANs, inter-VLAN routing in both IPv4 and IPv6 networks, and routing protocols."
UWF's description is the same text with one addition — "routers, switches and wireless devices", and "virtual LANs, wireless LANs, inter-VLAN routing…" ⚠ That single difference is the most informative thing on this page, and it is not a drafting variation. See Special Information: this course almost certainly tracks a vendor certification curriculum, and the statewide record is one revision behind it.
⚠⚠ What to expect practically. This is the course where networking becomes hands-on. You will spend substantial time at a command line configuring devices, and most of that time will be spent finding out why something does not work. That is the intended experience — troubleshooting is the skill being built, and it is the one employers actually test for.
⚠ It is also cumulative in an unforgiving way. Every topic depends on addressing and subnetting from the introductory course. A student who never made subnetting automatic will find VLANs and inter-VLAN routing very hard, not because those topics are hard but because each one requires three correct subnet calculations before it will work at all.
The evidence is convergent and worth setting out, because it changes how you should read every other source about this course.
| Source | Title | Covers wireless? |
|---|---|---|
| Florida statewide | Routing and Switching Essentials | ⚠ no — routers and switches only |
| UWF | Switching, Routing and Wireless Essentials | ✅ yes — adds wireless devices and wireless LANs |
⚠⚠ Both of those are the names of successive modules in the Cisco Networking Academy CCNA curriculum, and the difference between them is exactly the documented change when that curriculum was restructured: the earlier revision's second module covered routing and switching; the later revision's second module folded wireless into it.
A third piece of evidence confirms it. ⚠ UWF titles the prerequisite course CNT3004 "Introduction to Networks" — which is the name of the first module of the same vendor curriculum, and is not the statewide title for that number (Network Concepts). Two consecutive courses named after two consecutive vendor modules is not a coincidence.
⚠⚠⚠ Three consequences, and they matter.
⚠ Stated as an inference rather than a certainty: the evidence above is strong but circumstantial, and the guide has not seen a syllabus. Confirm with your department — and the question worth asking is simply "which CCNA revision does this course follow?", which will also tell you which certification exam to sit.
| Source | Title |
|---|---|
| Florida statewide | Routing and Switching Essentials |
| UWF (only public carrier) | Switching, Routing and Wireless Essentials |
| ⚠ a private carrier | Advanced Network Administration |
⚠ Only one Florida public institution carries this number. A private institution also carries it and is not counted here, under this repository's public-institution scope — but its title has found its way into some Florida course inventories, so you may encounter this number labelled Advanced Network Administration. It is the same number; register by number.
| Source | Prerequisite |
|---|---|
| Florida statewide | CNT 3004 Introduction to Networks ⚠ with a grade of C-minus or better |
| UWF | CNT 3004 — no grade condition published |
✅ UWF carries CNT3004, so unlike many courses in this catalogue the statewide prerequisite actually resolves at the carrier. ⚠ Note also that the statewide prerequisite quotes the title "Introduction to Networks" — UWF's local title, not the statewide one, which identifies UWF as the contributor of the entry and is consistent with everything above.
⚠⚠ Take the prerequisite seriously regardless of the grade floor. This course assumes subnetting is automatic for you. If it is not, spend a fortnight on practice problems before the term starts — it is the difference between a hard course and an impossible one.
| Institution | Its title | Credits | Contact hours | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of West Florida (SUS) | Switching, Routing and Wireless Essentials | 3 | not published | ⚠ Prerequisite CNT 3004; may not be repeated for credit; Department of Cybersecurity and Information Technology, College of Science and Engineering |
One Florida public institution carries this number, at three credits, publishing no contact-hour figure — so the 45 hours recorded here is Florida's convention for a three-credit course with no C or L suffix.
⚠⚠ Treat 45 as a floor and plan for considerably more. Configuration work takes as long as it takes, labs are attempted more than once, and the troubleshooting that is the point of the course is by nature unpredictable in duration. Students routinely report this as among the most time-consuming courses in the sequence, and that is not a sign anything is wrong.
⚠ Departmental placement is informative: UWF houses this in a dedicated Department of Cybersecurity and Information Technology rather than in a general computer science department. That predicts a practitioner and security-oriented emphasis rather than a theoretical one, and it is consistent with a certification-aligned curriculum.
The second course in the networking sequence, following CNT3004 and preceding the security, wireless and enterprise networking courses. It pairs with CNT4403 (network security) and CNT4526 (wireless and mobile).
Florida's statewide record classifies it as transferable to an institution offering the same course, with no Gordon Rule designation and no general-education category, and marks it for dual enrolment with elective high-school credit — ⚠ boilerplate across the prefix. The (U) means upper division only.
⚠⚠ A transfer note specific to vendor-aligned courses: what transfers well is the certification, not the course number. With one public carrier, the "same course offered" condition bites — but a current associate-level networking certification is recognised by every institution and every employer in the field. That is the more durable asset, and it is the argument for sitting the exam.
Network engineering has been automating for a decade, and this course sits right where that pressure lands. Configuration management, templating and intent-based systems already generate device configuration at scale; AI-assisted operations tools now propose changes and diagnose faults. ⚠ A student entering this field will work alongside all of it.
Where the tools genuinely help in the coursework: explaining what a configuration block does line by line; interpreting show-command output; generating practice topologies and scenarios; explaining a protocol's convergence behaviour a different way; and — ⚠ particularly good — acting as a troubleshooting sparring partner that asks what you have already ruled out.
⚠⚠⚠ Where it fails, and this is the hazard that defines the field: a generated configuration is syntactically valid and silently wrong. An access list with its rules in the wrong order permits what it should deny. A subnet mask off by one bit isolates a segment. A routing statement pointing at the wrong next hop creates a black hole that only appears when a primary link fails. ⚠ None of these produces an error message. The device accepts the command and the network misbehaves — sometimes months later, under conditions nobody tested.
Two consequences for how you work.
⚠⚠ And the confidentiality rule, which in networking is a security control rather than an etiquette point: never paste a real configuration, topology, address plan or packet capture into a consumer chat interface. A device configuration is a complete description of how to attack the network it runs — VLAN structure, trust relationships, management addresses, sometimes credential hashes. Treat it the way you would treat a password.
⚠ Finally, the career reading, stated plainly. The part of this job that consisted of typing the same configuration into fifty devices is going away, and that is not a bad thing. What is not going away is designing a network that will still work when something fails, and diagnosing a fault nobody has documented. ⚠ Both require the mental model this course builds — which is why the students who understand rather than memorise are the ones the automation makes more valuable rather than less.
Generated September 16, 2026 · Updated September 16, 2026