incapable of self study!!!

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Howdo peeps this is my first post for a while so please be gentle with me

I was duped/missold/hoyked in to a course with Advent around 18 months ago and as i was out of work with a broken ankle at the time i opted for the loan/finance option (5k). Aside from the fact that the none existant proffessional tuition and general feeling of being left to my own devices, i am the only one to blame as i was terrible a studying at school so was silly to believe that age would have given me more patience to learn by reading books. that being said i am still totally hooked on anything that has a brain a hundred times smaller than mine and a million times faster and smarter so i know that computers are the way for me.
sorry this is dragging a bit, so ill get to the point. I am totally incapable of learning without having someone there to poke me every now and again and give me timescales/deadlines and more tasks and projects to do, so im thinking along the lines of an open uni course as my partner has done a course with them and was given assignments to do etc. if there is anyone that has a simalar situation to me aor just has some constructive feedback on this it would be greatly appreciated.

p.s on the extremely slim chance that anyone knows a way of getting out of an agreement with a traing provider that would be amazing

 

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Hi Lee,

The OU is a distance learning course, they have quite good materials but they are still a distance learning provider like Advent.

If you really find it that hard I would look at what your local colleges can provide, look for things like A+, OCR iPro, Foundation Degrees, HNC/HNDs etc.

It may be you have just had bad previous experiences with education and just need some help.

Beware that a career in IT is challenging, those minature brains don't build and program themselves, its your job to do it, so you must know everything they know and more !

The human brain is still far more densely packed with information and far more complex than any computer we have yet built. No one has yet built a computer that can reliably do much more than an infant. Its your job to tell the computer what to do, not the other way round !

 

hi, thanks for the quick reply.

thats a good point well put and i understand why you would think what your thinking.
its not that i dont understand the material im TRYING to learn its just that as i have only my limited self taught experience to go on and no actual practical experience, i find it very difficult to focus my mind on something that i only have theoreticle experience on. im actually a really quick learner, i just need to be shown something first though

 

I would honestly question whether you're suited for an IT career, then. Working in IT is very much like running on a treadmill. If you stop running, you get thrown off. You realistically need to set a certain portion of your week aside for self-study. That could be working on certs, reading white-papers, or following industry Web sites. If you're not doing this, you're screwed, plain and simple.

There's no way to sugar coat this: either you need to develop the capacity for self-study or you should be seriously considering a different career.

 

what he said^

 

You could try a college course where you a tutor taught, plent of colleges these days are doing A+ and beyond type courses. As for you agreement with advent if you are passed the cooling of period then there is probably nothing you can do.

 

Another good point well put.

Although, i think it would be fair to say that im not the only one that is really interested in computing but finds it hard to study and im also sure that there are a great many like me that are out there with their IT careers now, that benefitted from just a bit of practical imput. If self study is the only viable option then why do university courses exist. im not asking for somebody to stand over my shoulder until i take the exams, i just need more physical imput. With advent, theres been one workshop that consisted of taking a 10 year old pc apart and then putting it back together again.... (square peg square hole, lesson learnt). That literally is the beginning and end of their imput. Ive tried to find repair shop or something similar that could give me some unpaid work just to get some of that valuable experience but it seems to be the age old catch 22 situation of if i havnt got any experience how am i expected to get any..

On a more proactive note, if anybody could point me in the right direction for delving into the world of programming and the likes. useful sites etc

 

Good idea by Arroryn, get an old PC or two from your local recycling shop (I got one for £60) which you can practice taking to pieces etc. If you have an okayish computer you could download MIcrosoft virtual PC or VMware (choice is yours) and set up a virtual network on one PC to practice networking things together and troubleshooting any issues that arise.

But I personally think you should get a college course like Arroryn said A+ or ONC etc.

If programming is what you want plenty of colleges do BASIC and C++ the odd one still does Delphi.

 

Thanks Arroryn your feed back is much needed and appreciated

have to admit though that this is making my head hurt...
if i had realised that i wanted to get into computing when i was 16 instead of building, i would be 10ish.. years into my blistering career now .

i see what you mean about the A+ and programming sort of cancelling each other out, but i think that, even though this will sound silly to anyone reading this, the A+ has become somewhat of personal challenge to me and i believe that im going to have to become a hermit and pass this just to prove that i am even cut out to take the It world by storm.

 

good for you, now do IT

 

While I agree university courses focus heavilly on theorectical aspects, many of them also have a good practical basis, this can be especially true of tech colleges and more vocational courses like HND's or foundation degrees. Many degrees also have lab practicals and sandwich years. Some are part time allowing people to work while they study.

My HND course had many aspects of the A+ in it, an appreciation of hardware and systems architecture is still mandatory for a programmer in my opinion.

If you want to learn programming and find teaching yourself difficult I reccomend college, I could not code until I went to college and learnt a lot there. I've now been a professional programmer for 14 years. A career as a programmer is extremely taxing, the treadmill metaphor is especially true !

 

AT LAST!!!!!!! see thats all i needed, a good old fashioned kick up the back side.
cheers gbl