UKIT in Tolworth

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Hello all. Nice to meet you. I am Paul.

I have been to the UKIT training centre in Tolworth with regards to dong a CIW course and it looks very nice. The people are all quite friendly and the two floors of training rooms they had looked very nicely furnished with a lot of high-tech stuff. I noticed one room of students as I was being led to my interview room all full of young men like myself who seemed to be enjoyed themselves in the lesson, which made me feel positive about the place. However, I just keep thinking that it looks to good to be true.

First off, I've done my research on this site about them (I suppose you could argue why I'm bothering to ask again, then). There were some unfavourable reviews but I'm still unsure as to whether or not I should continue with the it.

I have seen all the sites you have suggested about doing the CIW at home. But can you get a job with just the CIW? Or would I need to go on to complete Step 2 (MCAD) and Step 3 (MCSD) in order to get a decent job? If so, would it be better for me to 'go the whole hog' and do the entire course?

I've heard some pepole complaining that these companies say that you can complete the course in 48 days etc. To be far, they did explicitly state that it was 48 days worth of training at the actual building (about 25% of the total time - interviewers words, not mine) with a lot of home study.

Do they require all the money up front? If so, how would you recommend working while studying for this? I'm unemployed at the moment, but would take a crappy job anywhere to get some quick cash. Should I just work in a call-centre or something until I've raised about 6 grand and then do the course all in one?

As well as all this, I must confess that I started of in journalism, not computers, and only decided to change to web design after seeing the ad on the front of a job magazine in Tesco's. Do you think that I'm being a bit too whimsical in career change choice? To be fair, I was working in the internet department of a major publishing company before this, so I was working with websites anyway. Just writing for them instead of making them.

Sorry this is so long winded but I would appreciate any and all comments. Thanks.


ps. Sorry, I'm a fool. I called this thread ITUK. It's supposed to be UKIT! Oops!

[Mod edit - fixed title - Bluerinse]

 

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I can't help with the web training stuff but I can tell you Tolworth is a nightmare to commute to and from

Bump!

 

I think this has come up before.
No, CIW will not 'get' you a job - but then no certification (or indeed any other qualification) alone will.
What CIW will give you is a good set of skills and knowledge base to supplement your design skills.

I've worked as a designer before. If I was hiring the first thing I would look at is the portfolio - the talent or potential that the applicant has. But I would short list those who had a CIW certification over the gang of 17 year olds who had learned everything they know playing with a pirated copy of Dreamweaver.

Can't add anything about the organisation. The fact that you've seen the place is a bonus. The fact that it looks nice is either because it is popular, or they are charging too much...

 

it's not so bad depending on where you live. Trains every 1/2 hr to Waterloo....

 

Yuk trains, never use them. I was just thinking about the M3, M25 connection or driving into town

 

snob

 

Only in a BM of course

 

I’m on the course at the moment doing CIW and Developer. So far going very well and am enjoying it. You’re right, they are all very friendly here and the trainers are pretty good also. You get a guaranteed job (which I have in writing from them) once you’ve completed up to MCAD otherwise they refund your fees – which is fine by me! They claim to have placed 100% of their qualifying students and I have seen proof of this – photos, first names, types of companies etc. I have heard that some of the modules can be challenging but I guess that is to be expected. It all depends who you speak to as some of the students here seem to be breezing through it and for some others it’s a bit tougher. Still, I’ve got 18 months to do it and it beats going to college or uni as the classes are smaller so we get a much more personal attention from the trainer and it’s a lot cheaper. At least with a job at the end I have the means to pay off my debt! I’m quite a creative person and I love technology and computers so, from my point of view, this is absolutely what I want to do for a living. I am working at the moment but my shift is quite flexible so I can do this around my job. You can do a straight Monday to Friday 5 day module class or break it up into a combination of days and evenings over 2 weeks. At the end of the day my advice is that if you are not sure or just half hearted about it then forget it – find another career – or stick to journalism – I’m in for the long haul!

 

Hi i'm new but i'm thinking of taking a course at ukit i need a lone but i work in telesales everything seems fine but i want to know if it's good i've been doing computers since i was 12 and love them so is it a good training company or not, before i spend 5800 quids on the full course

 

(This is an article from Capital Letters in the Guardian
http://money.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1820401,00.html)

Guardian, Saturday July 15 2006
Tony Levene

QUESTION
I signed up in June 2005 with UK IT Training of Tolworth, Surrey for a £5,800 Microsoft certified systems engineer course. It promised "guaranteed employment and salary". One year on, I am no nearer getting a qualification, or a job. Can you help?
JM, London


REPLY

UK IT Training gave you a brief 30-minute interview and a simple aptitude test before accepting you on the course, financed via a Cooperative Bank career development loan.

The £5,800 fee is as pricey as many postgraduate courses with hours of tutor contact at top universities. But all you have received is a 900-page book and around a week of classroom tuition. And you discovered later you would need £1,300 more for exam fees - included in university courses.

The UK IT course is effectively "self-led" - you work at your own pace and book tuition when you can. You are 47. Your work history is patchy, so it should have been obvious you would have problems with the "self-led" idea.

UK IT boss Allen Richard Jackson (also running companies training inspectors for the home information pack scheme), promised Capital Letters to offer you some formal help so that you get some value for your money. But, so far, it has not happened.

End of story
.........................................................................

The directors of UK IT Training also have a Driving Instructor Training school (DITC Ltd.), and a Training school for plumbers (Building Skills Trade Centre Ltd). They subsidise these courses as well because, as we all know, there is a massive shortage of driving instructors on zero-hours contracts and Polish plumbers willing to work for the minimum wage.

It's good to see that you have been given names, dates, companies etc. to validate their 100% record. Just one question. Why, during the course of 3 ASA investigations, have they never supplied a single name of a student they have found a job for, a single member of the mysterious "association" who employ their students in such massive numbers, or demonstrated payment of a single penny in "subsidy"?

It could be that there is no limit to their philanthropy, or it could be that the ECDL course they offer as a foundation programme doesn't really get you ready for a course in the following areas...

-Identify the role of the Perl interpreter.
Implement and use basic syntax of Perl code.
Use scalar variables, expression operators and the STDIN data type.
-Control flow to create complex Perl scripts using Boolean expressions, logical operators and I/O redirection.
Use regular expressions to define and match patterns and strings in Perl.
-Use Perl arrays and the functions that manipulate them.
-Use Perl hashes and the functions that manipulate them.
-Create and call subroutines to reuse code in Perl scripts.
-Manipulate files and devices in Perl using I/O functions and filehandles.
-Use and manipulate environment variables and command-line arguments in Perl.
-Use Perl packages and modules to facilitate code reuse.
-Create object-oriented Perl scripts.
-Use Perl to interface with databases.
-Debug Perl programs and design Perl scripts to minimize bugs.

...or am I just being pedantic?