Is it worth starting to study for a MCSE?

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I am thinking about starting a home study course doing an MCSE? Is costs £4750 through Advent training and I'm wondering if it is worth it as I see a lot of talk saying that a MCSE will soon become out of date.
Please give some advice if you have studied this course through Advent or if you think that this qualification will be out of date soon.
Kind Regards.

 

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Hey fella

Welcome to the forum!

TBH, your question is a bit like asking 'how long is a piece of string?'

We'd need a bit more info than that to be able to give you some reasonable advice.

For instance, how much experience have you got in the IT industry? Studying/paying for an MCSE without around three years' experience is a complete waste of time and money, IMHO. You'll probably find most others on here will concur with that viewpoint. If you are looking at an entry-level role, then you would be better off starting with the A+ & Network+, then moving on to the MCDST.

If you already have the three or so years 'hands-on' necessary, then it may be worth your while looking at starting up an MCSE - but (and again, this is just my opinion) paying nigh-on five grand for what amounts to little more than the official Microsoft courseware, some poorly constructed support materials and a few other bits and bobs is an immense waste of money. You'd be far better off spending half that sum on a decent spec PC and sticking VMWare on it & using that to self-study, getting the MOC material as well as some other supporting books and a subscription to Microsoft's Action Pack (now known as their 'partner agreement')

Expect to take anywhere from between one to three years to complete it, depending on how much you study.

PS: This is not a slight on Advent in particular - I have no axe to grind with them. All training companies that take on students for MCSE courses with no previous experience and charge them a ridiculous amount of money for basically sod-all on the promise that they will walk into a 35k a year job want shooting.

 

Quoted for Truth.

 

I was offered after taking MCSE by a London training company a salary of £35k.
But having half a brain i asked friends in IT who suggested doing ECDL & A+ both worthy and sought after qualifications, these coupled with a few other 3-5 day courses enabled me to get a job.
The experience i got in a lowly paid job helped a lot & has enabled me to start studying for Network+ but m
more importantly by doing it at local college saved me ££££££££.

zebulebu is talking sense & by starting with the basics it will give you a stronger grounding which will help you along the sometimes rocky road in IT certification.

Oh and good luck!

 

I wouldn't recommend jumping in at the deepend with an MCSE, as people have already stated start with A+ and Network+ and work your way upto the MCSE which is still worth going for as 2000 and 2003 will be around for a long time to come.