When I was taking a CCNA class, the professor told us that we would have hands-on training. Sadly, we ended up using Packet Tracer instead. The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switches were an option when using the software, so I went out and bought one.
I bricked the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S within the first week and learned how to recover a Switch with an IOS Tar File. Doing so enabled additional features that were not available when the seller reset it for sale.