Newbies- BEWARE

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Hello all.
I responded to a internet site for further info on IT courses one week ago.The company is called C******* T******* C******.
Lady phones me next day and makes appointment for "expert" advisor to visit me at home last night.
Dodgy salesmen arrives and is expert at pressure-through-psychology salesman technique only-- knows nothing about anything re: hardware or software.
He avoided the bottom line what-cost question until after 110 minutes of spiel.
Tries to sell me "CompTia C++" certification course for £2250 and would have had me sign up there and then.
Claimed 98% pass rate.
Claimed high probability of attaining programming work within 3 months ( I am a complete beginner !! )
Claimed their courses are "costs only" as their company made its profit from referring newly-qualified students to employers who would pay up to 2k to them for finding their new golden programmer!!
After he left ( without my signature, of course ) I went to CompTIA website.
I was unable to find a listing for any C++ certification.

Admin edit (AJ): There is an update for the following section further on in this thread

Also, beware of at least one company called A***** who advertise on the telly.
Their website and bumpf ( glossy cards and folder ) through the post indicates the company is an MS Certified Partner.
According to Microsoft ( MS ) this company is indeed an MS Certified Partner.
However, their personalised *letter* to me indicates they are an MS Gold Certified Partner.
I phoned their main number and was told they got upgrade to Gold about 5 or 6 weeks previously.
The day after, my 'training advisor' told me they have been Gold for at least 18 months.
I phoned MS and MS could only confirm they are Certified but MS are unable to confirm they are Gold Certified.
This company also claims 97% of students pass and would charge me nearly 5k for an MSCE.

I found these CertForums last night and realised that I am not alone.

Thank you for the tips, other users of this forum.

I am seriously considering the minimal costs approach: teach myself programming from books, possibly official MS books as well as independents'.
The MS and MSDN websites offer loads of information on learning paths and free learning / programming tools ( e.g. Visual C++ Express ) and self-tests.
There are free resources on the web other than MS's of course.
When ready, I'll pay to take the exams at the nearest centre to me and will end up with MS certification for just a few hundred pounds rather than thousands.

Does this sound like a good plan? Or, am I being overly-optimistic?

 

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If it sounds too good to be true then it usualley is. There are alot of dodgy training providers out there. Luckily I am happy with mine and feel I have made the right choice. Although it took alot of research. Not all training providers are that bad. You just need to shop around and do your homework before commiting yourself to anything. Be suspicious of providers who send salesman to your home.

I cannot believe they are saying you can secure a programming job in 3 months!! Definately impossible for someone new to the subject.

The thing that is handy about studying with a training provider, well the one im with - is that support is available 24 hrs a day and they always keep their material up to date. It is good to have support as a safety barrier, you never know when you might need it. With regards to studying on your own, if your happy and feel you would be able to master it alone then that is upto you and good luck with it. Its all about confidance at the end of the day. Some people need that helping hand now and then. I hope my advice has helped

 

That sounds like a plan to me - go for it

 

Thank you for taking the time to reply, peeps.

Frontier-- which is your training company?

 

Hi Tom,
I am studying with ITLearneasy - http://www.itlearneasy.com/

 

important update
In all honesty, that company today left a message on my phone today asking to call them back-- which I shall tomorrow-- since they had information for me regarding my phone query previously.

Ten minutes ago, I checked the Microsoft website, and that company do indeed now have MS Gold Certification listed.
This means that the company must have responded to my query by straightening out the records with MS, thus that company was wrongly described by MS previously.

I sincerely apologise for my innocent part in this misinformation-- I had genuienly checked the MS website and spoken to an MS representative on the phone and my above comments do only reflect the misinformation given me at that time.

Admins

Perhaps you may see fit to remove the original paragraph re: A*****. Thank you.
However, please do not remove the paragraph about C*******T*******C****** as there was no mistake there!

 

Hi Tom,

Firstly I'd really think about your career options and what you want to be. Are you sure you want to be a programmer ? If so good, then are you sure you want to be a C++ programmer ?

You should not be taking advice from salepeople or job sites !

C++ is a middle level language really, its not assembler but its not BASIC either. You have to be interested in fairly techie stuff like embedded dev, compilers, games dev, graphics dev, real time, device drivers, os dev etc.

Don't get me wrong people still do other types development in C++ but alot of new dev of business apps is in C# or Java.
Its realistically going to take 3 yrs for you to be proficient (ie above average) in C++, if you're starting from zero. In this time the market will have changed again, there are also countless C++ developers out there who have years of experience on you.

I was a C++ programmer for 7 years and its a great language, so if you're commited all well and good, but career wise you might find C# a better fit if you just want to be a programmer in general.

I wouldn't even consider a commercial cert training company for learning C++ you should approach a local Tech college, they will generally teach you C and then C++. I'm not aware of any C++ certs that carry any weight either, you will have to prove yourself in other ways !

Hope this helps !

 

I've found that my local FE college was able to offer all the courses i wanted to do at a fraction of the cost of a private company.
OK it did take slightly longer, but the support on offer was 1st class, teaching was very good & the practicals offered helped to cover a lot of what i did not know.

The other plus point was as i was UB40 at the time i got fee remission on all the courses & only had to pay the exam fee's.