Advise concerning IT training - Computeach or National IT Learning Centre?

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Hi guys, I have just signed up to these forums after finding you during a Bing search!

I need some advise from the community concerning starting an IT course online. I'm a Mechanical Engineer by trade, but have been planning on doing an I.T course for some time as I wish to persue a career in this field. However finding the right training provider has been quite difficult.

Being an Engineer, I'm a hands on kind of person, so the area that interests me and pays very well, is Networking.

I have so far spoken to Computeach and the National IT Learning Centre.

I assume there are others as well, but it seems to me, that these are two are the main ones, though I probably wrong! lol

My main question is, what one should I go for? I bet a lot of you have used either one of these companies or have heard many stories about them. I quite like the National IT Learning Centre, but for some reason, the Networking course is nearly £1000 more than Computeach's?? Why, I don't know? The National IT Training Centre are also providing courses towards the new Microsoft qualifications, Computeach apparently are still only offering the older qualifications like the MCSE, well, according to the woman at the National IT Learning Centre I spoke too!
I read some positive and negative reviews online about Computeach and more positive ones about the NITLC, but these were from quite a few years ago, so it may be a different story now!

I would really appreciate any help and advise you guys could offer me about taking the correct next step. I really want to do this and am willing to pay a lot of money for the training, so I want to go with the best option.

Thank you for all your help.

Spencer

 

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Personally I would recommend avoiding both and doing Self Study for the course you are interested in. You wil save yourself a lot of cash, and wont feet pressured to finish the course in any particular time, apart from your OWN time constraints. I know places like Computeach, will say, but your paying for support you get, and the prospect of a job etc. However there is plenty of free support on this forum and around the net.

In regards to getting a guaranteed job from them, i know a few people at the last helpdesk I worked for who were studying with various training centres towards MCSA, or MCSE and were pretty sick finding out they are paying 4000 grand or whatever for stuff which they could have done for much much cheaper via self study. For example someone paid something daft like £700 for the MCDST. I manged to pick up the MCDST books cheap, and then the 2 exams to certify cost me £88 pound each to sit. I got lucky with my books, but look on ebay, and you will see even paying say £20 a book will be less than paying 700 to a course provider.

In the line above as well, you will notice that these guys were all doing the same job as me at the time. Helpdesk, which is a great place to start to your career in IT, and which is a place you can actually get to without the help of a training provider and then gain some experience, and Im sure with coming from a engineer background you will have heads up on a few people. Also if you have a bit of money to spend, again save spending it on a course provider, and use it to buy some decent equipment for playing about in preparation for your exams


If your gonna start somewhere, a good place would be I guess the A+ and then the N+. These are probably the two recommended for starting somewhere in IT on here

 

I would also have to advise going down the self study route.

I jumped in before i found this site and went with NITLC and spend nealry £4k on an MCSE that would take me 2 years. This was a person that had worked in call centres and retail for a living. Even if I did finish this course I would be way over qualified and proabably never get a job. The support they provide is also a bit iffy as they only send out a generic email every 6 months and they have a forum that wasnt used in months.

This was over 4 years ago now but I would decide on what route of certs you are going to take and buy the first book yourself and try and study that and then if you feel it isnt right for you then go the training provider way or look at maybe local colleges.

 

Avoid both, use the search feature on here to see what people have said about TP's in general in the past.

Look into getting an entry level job, get CompTia A+ and N+ by self study or a local college.

After you have an IT job and those certs consider a Cisco discovery course with a college or the OU.

At no point hand over thousands of pounds over upfront for something you know little about and have been sold by a man in a shinny suit...