Going away in two days for Firebrand Training's A+ and Network+ Combo platter! :)

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Hi there,

It's been a while since I've used this site. How's everyone doing?

Anyway, I wanted to poll you all for opinions on Firebrand Training. I've been working for a local small computer repair shop, and my boss is paying (a considerable sum of money) to put me through Firebrand's 7 day training course at their purpose built facility in Oxfordshire (somewhere).
I couldn't be happier.

Anyway, yeah - any opinions on the company, or their teaching methods, success rates, anything? Good luck wishes?

Regards, Matt Stevenson.

 

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Well i checked out the site and looked specifically at the MCSE track, as that is what i have done. They say it's an accelerated course, 14 days to be precise. You will learn in 14 days what is possible to learn in 14 days. There isnt a hope in hell of learning all you need to pass an MCSE (seven tough exams) in server 2003 in 14 days. So, someone in their marketing dept, is exagerating a lot.

 

Wouldn't touch 'em with a barge pole personally... after sales customer service (for me) was cr@p. The tutor was useless too... still trying to get some money back off them.

As far as they're concerned, because I passed an exam, they see that as being as a result of the course I took there... even though I had to make several representations about the labs and the tutor.

Who knows? You may have a really good tutor... all the best on the course anyway...

 

Good luck with the course.
Keep us posted.

Cheers
NB

 

If its paid for? Why the hell not. ; )

Though I would never personally pay for any rip off training unless absolutely nessessary. Self study = owns!

 

Hi guys, just an update to let you know how things went.

I passed every possible A+ exam, easily. I also passed the Network+.

I feel that the course did skim over the specifics of various things, such as troubleshooting, but if you're coming into the course with some background in computer repair, you'll probably be fine.

I found that there were a couple of others on the course at a similar level of learning to myself, and we came out with good results. I also found however, that the people with no prior experience had greater difficulty keeping up with the pace at which we went through topics.

I definitely wouldn't recommend this course to a person with no prior experience, as information overload is very likely to occur. However, if you just need an instructor to fill in the gaps in your current knowledge - then you'll find what you're looking for at Firebrand.


I hope that this doesn't sound too 'marketing-like' - I could have given a really glowing report based on my experience, but it wouldn't necessarily be useful to the potential readers of this review.

In summary - they're damn good, and if you just want to get the formality of passing the exam out of the way, or fill in the gaps in your knowledge, then they're definitely the people to do it!

 

Did you sit the exams while on the course? I'm kinda tempted by this

 

Yeah, the cost of the exam vouchers is covered in the cost of the course. You get an A+ Essentials voucher, a voucher one of the 3 other flavours of A+, and a voucher for the Network+.

If you fail the Essentials exam, you can use the other A+ voucher to resit it again, at no extra cost. If you find that you want to do extra exams whilst there, you can pay for the exam voucher, and then sit the exam within 15 minutes, as I did. They're very accommodating.

I should point out that each A+ voucher costs £130 inc. VAT, and the N+ voucher costs about £190ish, so it's quite a big portion of money covered in the initial cost.

 

How was the accommodation?

 

Room was good, cleaned daily. En-suite bathroom. Generally well kept building. Very, very good food - scheduled breakfast, lunch and dinner, with snacks available all the time. Hot and chilled drinks machines dotted around the place. I really can't complain at all about the accommodation.

 

Well done on the certs, but what was the point of doing four exams for the A+ when you only have to do two to get A+ certification?

 

Why not? I was able to do it, and my instructor said it it was worth it, so I did.

 

as long as you didn't have to pay for them, I was just wondering why you did 4 when only 2 are required.

 

I did pay for the other two. I did them because it demonstrates a better all-round knowledge than the next guy who didn't think it was worth it to go for all 4.

 

possibly but as long as your A+ certified I doubt many employers are going to ask if you did two or four exams, but well done anyway.

 

I think the possibility's worth it, for the extra couple of hundred quid.
And really, they're not going to be interested in how many exams I did, but rather the number of certificates with my name on.

 

if you can do the job is what they want, hopefully having all the A+ exams done will show that

 

Everyone reading this, keep in mind that part of what was said was that boot camps only really help *if you have prior experience* in these technologies. If they are mostly or completely unfamiliar to you, boot camps are a waste of time and money.

 

I Wholeheartedly agree.

 

They may not ask... but he can now list all three as separate A+ qualifications on his CV... thereby giving him an advantage (however slight or great) over his competition.