Allow myself to introduce... myself...

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Hi everyone,

I've been reading this forum for some time but recently decided to register and start posting.

Short bit of background: I've been working in 3rd line support for the last 6 years, I caught a lucky break with my first contract and impressed and got moved up quickly.

In July 2008 I decided to do my MCSE and paid £250 or so for an online Microsoft course (wasn't the best use of that money). I soon realised there wasn't enough information in it to pass 70-290 so I bought the 4 core MCSE books from Amazon.

I did the 4 core exams quite quickly (all within 7 months) then failed 70-297 a couple of times. Decided to change direction and did 70-270 then 70-284 before trying 70-297 again.

Third time lucky I passed 297 and, after just under two years, became a very proud MCSE.

One thing that helped me with the studying was borrowing a couple of laptops from work, buying a second hand Linksys router from eBay and configuring XP and 2003 on the laptops then playing with every feature possible in each of the Operating Systems.

Whilst studying for the Exchange 2003 exam (284) I even went on a spending spree on eBay buying SCSI drives and adaptors so I could create clusters. All great fun.

When it came to taking exams I never read anything about the exams on forums until I had passed the exam. e.g. I didn't read anything about 290 until the evening after I'd passed and then I came on this forum and read other peoples' opinions/results.

The second exam I took was 291 so, as I didn't read about it beforehand, it wasn't until I'd passed it that I discovered it was the "Beast". Without knowing it was a tough exam I went in open-minded and, perhaps, more confident.

In fact, the one thing that nearly scuppered my progress was a staff member at the test centre who was talking to me before I took 293. He said something along the lines of "293 is really tough" as I was walking into the room which threw me a bit. I ended up just passing, with 716.

Anyway, apologies for rambling. I'm still studying and looking to do more certs so I hope to hang around and contribute.

Cheers,

Ben

 

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Welcome!

 

hi ben,

glad you decided to sign up! sounds like all your hard work paid off with the exams. well done!

 

Welcome!

 

Welcome to CF!

 

Howdy Ben and welcome to CF! Sounds like you've done a lot of hard work. Wish you success!

 

Welcome

 

Hello and welcome to CF!

 

Welcome to CF

 

Thanks for the friendly welcomes everybody!

It's nice to be somewhere where people are driven enough to want to become certified.

I work for a huge IT corporation (think American, 3 letters, nearly 100 years old) and it amazes me that barely anyone is certified. I spoke to lots of the guys in server admin and none are interested because the company won't pay for exams.

A colleague even told me that he thought MS certs were worthless because one tech who used to work with us passed 70-270 on his tenth attempt - "and he was a doughnut".

For me, getting certified has made a huge difference and I've found that I can confidently answer questions from management and tactfully correct the techs above me when they're wrong. It's very satisfying!

Cheers,

Ben

 

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

G'day mate and welcome to CF

 

Welcome to CF

NB