Just joined With Skills Train

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hi,

This is my First Post, so please be patient with me.

I have spent a little while looking around here.

I have had a Skills Train Rep round last night to register me with them selves.
I have been talked into doing there Cisco AA course, which is the A+, N+ and CCNA. The total cost, just under £3K .

The cost was not a big issue, as i am happy to invest into my future.
What really i wanted to check is are these Training Schemes a waste of money? Or do they give you the support when needed.

Do i have any time limits to comlete the course's? (i know i really should have read all the T&C's )

Can i expect a decent wage at the end of it? im not expecting a £80K PA straight away, but is it £20K+?

The Rep said that they give practical lessons, on taking there Pc's apart and stuff like that, which i think would be bennificial.

I have taken Pc's apart befoer i am happy installing hardware and software, but really wanted to learn it all and possibly get a job in this field rather than my current Job.

has anyone got any good advise, or information for what i should be Expecting?

Thanks for your time

Bobby24601

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Oh and another thing....


Does anyone know if all the Exams are included in this Price?

Thanks

Bobby24601

 

Hi Bobby,

To be honest the best way to find out would be to ask the training provider directly. Saying that, I would expect (and I'm I'm being more than a touch polite here) that they may put a touch of polish and a pinch of salt in their responses. You would be best to obtain a copy of the T&Cs from them and go through it with a fine-toothed comb.

Also, do a search on here for the name of your training provider - you will certainly bring up plenty of posts by others who have asked the very same questions in the past.

Hope that helps

 

Nothing much more that I can add. Just take a look around our fourms and make sure that you read those terms and conditions!

 

Hi,

Thanks for all of your replys.
I was with my parents, and We did ask the Rep about this, and was advised that the exams were included in the price.

But i was reading a couple of other posts here, and there is no definate answer.
I Think i might give them a call tomorrow, and ask them directly again. Not that i expecting too much to come out of it.

Yeah i think i might have to go through T&C's aswell.

Thanks

Bobby24601

 

lol I just checked out their web site and they have the infamous TV add on there, so I watched it.

Very good bit of marketing but what made me chuckle is twice they show people messing with a PC putting in a video card with absolutely no anti-static wrist straps in sight

This is a big no no in my book. First lesson for A+ techs is to not damage the equipment you are working on.

As for the rest, well it can be summed up in one word *HYPE*

 

Greetings

What you stated above worries me a little.
Its your hard earned cash your parting with,dont let them talk you into doing something if your not happy with it.

As has already been said take what they say with a large pinch of salt,they are after all just trying to sell you a product.

Best of luck.

 

Hi

Thanks for all of the replys.

I have now had a little bit of time to Read all the T&C's.

They say that all the courses are included in the price, but you have to pay to resit them if you fail.
There Guarantee, is just for the Course, not the resit of the tests.

I have got my parents to have a look at all the details aswell.

Cant really see much else, that was not quite explained enough.

I think im going to give it a go. I currently hate my Job, its more of the career that i would enjoy compared to my current job.

Im pretty sure that i will still learn alot out of these course's too.

Thanks again

Bobby24601

 

I started an A+ N+ MCSA course with them just before christmas and everything seems okay so far. As long as i get my qualfications i will be happy. I need some sort of deadline to work towards to keep myself motivated, so just studying books wouldnt have worked for me.

 

Hi,

Im glad everything is going ok with Skills Train. Did you have any doubts at the start?

I think im going to def do it. I need to get out of my current job.
I feel much happier finding information in my pack saying that all the courses are included.


Hope things go well

Thanks

Bobby24601

 

I am new to this forum and when i saw all the bad posts about skillstrain i panicked, so called them and asked if i had to pay extra for exams and they assured me i dont.
Just make sure you call them about any concerns you have before you proceed as you do have a cooling off period to cancel your course.
I should be ready to take my A+ exam soon so fingers crossed!

 

I guess I just don't understand why anyone thinks they need to pay some company the kind of money being talked about on this thread for privilege of teaching themselves, because anytime you do home study you are teaching yourself. Period. I know some people say they need the big stick of owing all that money to motivate them to study, but to tell the truth I don't really understand that one either.

A person is truly motivated to succeed at anything they do by what's inside them, not by external pressures. If you need external motivation to convince you to put forth the necessary effort to succeed at something is that really what you are interested in doing with your life, or is it just a passing fancy?

The only motivation that will ever get a person past the discouraging times that are sure to come when trying to break into IT is self-motivation. Nothing but the perseverance to follow your dream will succeed.

 

My brother in law used a tp to gain his MCSE and he has no complaints about what he paid to do his course. Like me he hated the career that he was in and new nothing about IT, now he is qualfied and enjoys his job.
Yes it sucks that my tp is making a profit but as long as i get my qualifications im happy. The only real winner is bill gates.

 

To what is this site dedicated? Are there knowledgeable people here willing to help anyone interested in gaining certifications? How much do they charge for answering questions? Do you really think that the people on this site are less knowledgeable than the people training providers hire?

Find out just how much you would spend for books, a few computers which you will need even if you use a training provider, and the needed software because you'll need the software for hands-on work whether or use a training provider or not.

Figure out the above costs, and then you'll get a reasonable estimate of what it should cost you to get certified. You can have all the support you'll ever need from a site such as this one. Why pay a training providers overhead costs and profit margin if you don't have to?

 

guess you're right. gonna go and find me some rope.

 

You should call them back and make sure which exams you are asking about. Confusingly, there seems to be two definitions of exam - the Skillstrain mock exam you do at the end of the course and the real-world exam that gets you your industry recognised certifications. It seems to me that Skillstrain constantly assume you are asking about their in-house mock exam. Though it's plain logic that anyone taking the course would be only interested in the real exams that get you your certification (in your case the CompTIA and Microsoft MCSA exam).

Contact them again and rephrase the question to "Do I have to pay extra for the CompTIA A+, N+ and Microsoft MCSA exams beyond what I've already paid for the course?" I think you'll find that you will still have to find the extra cash to pay for the real certification exams but Skillstrain allegedly reimburse you this money later.

Also, it's still a little unclear how this reimbursement procedure works and I have yet to hear of anyone on a Skillstrain/Scheidegger course in these forums that has reached the point of applying for this reimbursement after taking the certification exams. I'm still confused as to why Skillstrain you've already paid them and avoid this reimbursement process entirely.

 

The only complaint I have about skillstrain is the amount of time that they take to mark and return TMA's. I have found the tutors very helpful when I have been stuck.

I am doing Comptia A+ Network+ but don't expect to compl;ete this for about another year at least. Has anyone else done this in record time?

 

How long is it taking to get your TMA's back? Up to now I've been getting mine within 2 or 3 days which is not so bad by me. That gives me time to read and absorb the next material. I do recall however that the course terms and agreement documents state that it could take longer, something like 5-6 days. I would have thought this was to cover situations where, for some crazy reason, a student has no access to email and is sending his or her TMA assignments off by post using those floppy disks and dinky little TMA envolopes

That said I am a little unsure why TMA results are resticted to being sent via post to everyone. Surely it would be a trivial matter to include email delivery? In fact I would structure things so that email delivery of results would be the primary method with the slower postal method in place as the back up. Wer'e already able to communicate with our Tutors via email or the telephone, why not apply this same policy of using two fast communication methods to the results they send us?

After all, this is the IT sector we're all studying for and the basic technology of instant communications in this field has been around for years in all manner of forms