MCDST Enrolment.....

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hi, just been to my local college today to enrol on the MCDST course which starts on 29th March 2011.
I have just found out that the exam retires on 31st March 2011, 2 days after the course begins.

At the end of the 13 week course, will the exams still be avalibale or are my college pulling the wool over my eyes and just charging me for the course info and not bothered about the exams.

The course is £165 and then i have to pay for the 2 exams myself at the end of it.

I think i need to ring them to ask whats going on.........

Comments welcome.

Thanks.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

yep I would do this in the morning. Unless Microsoft decides to change their minds about retiring the exams you aren't going to be able to take them after the course. There is however plenty of time to self-study before they retire the exams.

 

ok so i just spoke to my college and they said its going to be changing to MCITP which im guessing is the same as MCDST but for windows 7??

At the minute im doing A+ revision and im planning on taking my first A+ exam at the end of september and the next one the month after. So assuming that i have the A+ done before xmas would it benefit me self studying the MCDST and seeing if i can complete it before the exams retire and then doing the MCITP at college ASWELL??

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Its certainly worth self studying the MCDST before its retirement, if you complete it you'll be able to take the upgrade exam (70-682) to get both MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician Windows 7 and MCTS: Windows 7, Configuration.

 

Well, what im planning on doing is........
A+ 1st exam = end of september
A+ 2nd exam = end of october.

MCDST revistion Start of november.
MCDST 1st Exam end of January
MCDST 2nd exam end of febuary

(gives me a month at the end incase resits are needed etc)

College course starts 29th March 2011 for 10 weeks.

At the end of the course we have to pay for the 2 exams ourselfs but i will only need to take 1 as it will be an upgrade from the MCDST.

Then after that do the Network + (i know i will have to renew every 3 years but would rather get the MCDST done first and do the N+ later)

Does this sound do-able??

 

IMO you are wasting a month between A+ papers. There is so much crossover, I would just study it until you are getting results you are happy with on mocks for both and do them at the same time. If you complete one paper and pass I very much doubt you will need a month to be ready for the second, and you are likely to be studying the same source material for both anyway.

I would be interested to see what others think of this approach for MCDST, as I may consider doing it before it retires, but with a new baby due in a few weeks I wont be starting revision until the end of the year and so will be unlikely to be able to allow much time between the two papers. Does everyone treat MCDST as two seperate tasks or one?

 

I agree with the above, you should be able to be ready for the second A+ exam after a couple of weeks if not earlier. I did both on the same day and a few others on here did too.

As for the MCDST I think you would be cutting it fine, If you can get the A+ passes by October then you should be able to get the MCDST well out of the way by March.

 

^ what they say.
I left a couple of weeks between the two A+ exams and felt the second week was largely wasted.
The MCDST doesn't have much of a crossover so it's best to treat them as two separate exams.

 

^what they say about A+
I think most people on this forum do not let a month go by between them. There is so much overlap it probably would be harder trying to figure out what to skip till later. I believe some on this forum have taken them back-to-back or maybe the next day. What I did was take one a Friday. Spent most of the weekend strengthening any weaker parts (as indicated by the test results) and took the second on Monday (or maybe it was Tuesday). When you take the test you will get a printout telling you the areas that you missed questions on. It won't tell you how many but it will tell you the domain/topics and of course you'll get your overall score. Also if you're unlucky enough (or not quite prepared) and don't pass the first but do pass the second you can prepare more retake the first (of course it'll cost you $$). If you are a little unsure, you might consider a few days between them so if you really bomb it you can reschedule the second and prepare some more. I think you can reschedule if you give them at least 24 hours notice but do check to be sure.

Good Luck!

 

I left a fairly hefty lump of time between the 2 A+ exams and regretted it, the level of overlap was huge and I could have sat the second exam the following day and nailed it without too much difficulty. As it is I lost study time for other things and I'm now well behind schedule on my planned certification route.

 

right, got a plan.

I'm going to knock up a study timetable with completion date/targets etc that i HAVE to stick to.
I have a week off work at the end of october so im going to do the 2 A+ exams in that week.

The plan then is to start the MCDST self study at the start of November, taking the first exam at the end of Jan and the 2nd exam at the end of Feb hopefully. So that will be in the bag before the 31st March deadline.

Then, on 29th March 2011 i start college doing the MCITP (Windows 7 version of MCDST)

I want the MCDST so i can offer potential employers XP (MCDST) Vista (A+) and Windows 7 (MCITP) support.

Anyone think all of this is the right way of doing things.

 

Hi paulwatson5

How did you get on with the CompTIA A+?

If you did pass both exams then 70-271 & 70-272 should be a breeze as I found CompTIA much harder.

Regarding your course, If it was me I'd buy the two books from Amazon £56 (comes with cd of xp 3 months + 300 exam Questions and get your money back on the college course.

If you already have Windows 7 at home run the cd in compatability mode otherwise it will not work.

If you read the book a couple of times and do all 300 questions you'll pass and save petrol money driving to college each week too!

 

i'm fairly new to his game and bought a windows 7 configuration book to get my MCITP but i found that you needed to be in that sort of work environment or have some other back ground knowledge of networks before starting it as i read up to about chapter 4 and got a bit lost with all the networking jargon and sorting out of system images that are then stored on a server to allow large volume installs with in a PE enviroment or something so i went to basics and am now1/2 way through a self study A+ course to get some base knowledge. I was told by my wife's cousin (who's in IT) that the MCITP was the best one to start with as i have a little LAN knowledge, i think he over estimated me lol

 

Have they changed it already? Because I thought this upgrade exam only gives you the MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician Windows 7, not the MCTS.