Did you have a trainer or are you self taught?

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Sorry if this has been discussed before

Your thoughts please: If you were taking the MCSA/E exams on your own did you wish you had gone with a training provider and if you went with a training provider; do you wish you hadn't and gone it alone instead?

All views welcome!

 

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Um, I did my NT4 MCSE with a trainer, along with all of my Cisco certs (bar CCDA), the 2k MCSE, A+, Sec+, etc were all self taught.
If I could afford to take every MCSE with an instructor i would, simply because of the length and depth of them, it gives u a bunch more opertunity and will power than slogging through 7 exams on your own!

with your experiance most other things should be doable by yourself, anything your REALLY new at i advise instructor led, but only by reputable instructors not the many cowbow operations that are around

 

I have gone with a training provider but purely because my employer has paid for my training. If I was to go it alone I would have definitely not have paid the price tag that was paid to my provider and would have without a doubt bought all the books myself and paid for the exams as and when I needed to.

If I had the money then I would have definitely chosen instructor lead training IMO nothing beats learning from an experienced other.

 

I used a provider, simply for the reason I was brand new to IT, so wouldn't have had a clue where to begin (and this humble Forum was yet to be born )

In retrospect, I'd still have chosen the same route - but I understand others' opinions regarding being in the Industry already being prob the best way to learn.

 

Both...sort of. I took a two-year course at my local college plus sat four "semesters" in the Cisco Netacademy. Otherwise, I do self teaching with a smattering of web training.

 

I went with a provider because the MCSE books made no sense to me as a newbie. The provider did give some help but it was still pretty much self taught. What I have found most fun is joining local colleges for evening classes; cheap, (£10 for 20 hours if you are on the dole) and beats the hell out of a book. Most providers bring you in for a boot camp after you have taught yourself whereas a college treats you as a blank sheet.

In future I'll go my own way.

 

A mixture of both

Several courses provided by my employer and lots of study and lots of lab work. Some in company time some in my own.

 

So far I've done the self-taught route in buy a book, read book and take exam. I'm hoping I can do the same with the mcse eventhough they are much harder than Comptia exams. I think with a good book and experience/practice you can pretty much pass anything. Though if work paid I wouldn't turn down lecture based learning.

 

The best use of lecture based training is done like this.

1. Get a full copy of the notes before you go and read them cover to cover. Mark the bits that you don't know.
   
2. Attend the course and squeese every drop of information out of the trainer - you are the paying customer. Get answers to the bits you don't know. IMHO no training day should last more that 6 classroom hours and should have lots of breaks your brain processes stuff while you are having coffee and lunch. Never stay late to do "labs" as your brain needs time to process the training day.
   
3. After the course go over the notes and any notes you have made. Any area that you are still unsure of contact the trainer. Be sure that you do this the week following the course.

This way you get three bites of the cherry