Just wanted to tip my hat to everyone out there

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Hi guys,
As you can guess, I am very brand new here in your community and I thought that I'd tip my hat to everyone out there and say hallo!! So, please be gentle

I was a Gurkha soldier in the British Armed Forces for 19 years, achieving the rank of SSGT (Staff Sergeant), which (the experience) I found out to be absolutely unrecognised in the Civvy street. Having left the Army in 1999 and although having had management experience and also being certified by the Institute of Management, these qualifications in the civvy street was only as good as a young school leaver.

I started as a data entry clerk in (JET) in Culham, Oxford for 3 years and managed to get to the position of Executive Assistant to the Director, however still in the lower end of spectrum (money wise), as this was very important to me because as I was getting ready to leave the Army, I had taken up the Microsoft Windows NT Workstation and Server V 4.0 course, aiming towards getting MCP certification my marriage broke down. With the difficult situation and very much depressed I could not get through the exams and I was also getting deeper into debt.

So, after a lot of ups and downs in my troubled life,

I moved to Munich in Jan 2004 (for love ) and am working as part-time Assistant Project Controller. I am also studying German language Is that difficult or what! And now I've now finaly pulled myself together and decided to once again go for my dream to achieve the MCP certification and I am currently doing the CompTIA A+ course (at home and on-line of course).

Are you guys still awake . Sorry guys if I bored you with my life history. I feel much better now though I just hope that I can succeed this dream but then again reading through the stories from other members here about unable to secure a job in the IT industry frightens me though!

Signing out now guys and a very good evening once again to you all

 

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Welcome to CF. Sorry to hear about your troubled past, and I'm glad that things are getting back on track for you.

If you are willing to put in the hard work then I'm sure that you will succeed in the world of IT.

 

Greetings Sunray001. Welcome to CertForums. Yes, I'm still awake.

Glad you found us. Sorry to hear about your troubles but it seems that you are recovering nicely. Let us know how we can help you in your studies. Cheers.

 

Hey Sunray001 - welcome to CF

Thanks for the intro, and glad you found a new path. You can be sure of one thing - we will help you as much as we can on the cert trail. You'll get your MCP (and beyond) and despite what you may read, there are also many success stories around here (myself for one) of folks getting the break into IT (I drove a fruit van for 10 years - whilst a graduate in Biology, then I found IT and CF )

Chin up, you're amongst friends here. Oh - and you think we're gonna be anything other than gentle ? You were a f****ing Ghurka for 19 years !!!!!!!!


Enjoy CF

 

Welcome from me too Sunray

You might be confusing an MCP with an MCSE? There is only one exam needed to become MCP, there used to be six of those MCP exams to become MCSE on NT4 and now there are seven on the Windows 2000 and Server 2003 tracks. Either way, we will be here to help you attain whatever your heart desires

Pete

 

Greetings sunray001 ,best of luck with your studies.

 

Hi Sunray,

Sorry to hear of the troubles from your past but it sounds like you are over them now.
Good luck with all your dreams. Hopefully we can all help each other to make them come true.
Hope you stick around.

 

WOW you were a Gurkha

Ooops sorry

Anyway!!! Good Luck for your studies and for your future, good 2 see you have found us all at Certforums - there is lots of support here!

Sarah

 

a real life Gurkah, thats cool! lol
most civvie orgs dont have a clue what it takes, or how long it takes to raise the ranks to SSGT, its easily an entire career, if you had been a leutenant they would of gone 'ooo an officer' lol

Nice to have you aboard, hope we can help wherever possible!
with your current role you might be able to edge yourself into technical project management as your experiance grows, and move more and more to pure tech if thats what you desire

 

Hi and welcome to the forum. I know what you mean about learning German mate as I'm just down the road from you in Zürich.

 

Hi guys n gals,
Thank you for welcoming me to the CF. It is definitely encouraging to have so many kind hearted friends around.

I definitely intend to stick around and update you with my studies. I have recently purchased the following books through Amazon:

Michael Meyers "A+ Certification All-in-one Exam Guide (All-in-one Certification S.)" and "Mike Meyers Network+ Certification All-in-one Exam Guide".

I have also found an online e-learning website:
http://www.e-learningcenter.com
and considering taking up the paid subscription. I have tried it's free e-learning courses provided there and it seems to be quite good.

Could you give me your prognosis on the above or perhaps there is some other better way forward...

Thanks to all of you

 

I'm not familiar with the distance learning provider you reference so I can't comment on them. The Meyers book is a classic for the A+ so your materials are good. Don't forget to have a couple of PCs handy to open up and play around with. Hands on experience is key to learning this skill set.

I didn't use a Meyers book for my Network+ so I don't know if it would be of the same level of quality as his A+ materials. I have heard it rumored that his specialty is the A+ coursework and that he doesn't do quite as good a job on other courses, but I can't verify that. Perhaps someone else here will be able to shed some light in this area.

This recent thread in the A+ forum might answer a few other questions for you since it addresses the issue of starting A+ studies:

http://www.certforums.co.uk/forums/thread6096.html

If you haven't already, spend some time looking at the different threads in the A+ forum. Chances are someone has already asked the same questions you are asking now. You'll learn a lot by reading the answers.

CertForums is also searchable so if you are looking for information on a particular subject, that might be a good way to find it. We've been around a few years now that there's a great deal of material here that can help you.

Hope that helps. Good luck. If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask.

 

I am new to this forum aswell, But i would like to say welcome

 

Excellent. You won't have to take any s**t from servers.

You'll be the first IT guy ever who can actually say to a user that the fact that their PC is borked is their fault and have them agree with you.

Welcome.

 

Welcome, Tecx. If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to create your own thread in this forum and tell us a bit about yourself.