MCDST discontinued????

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 all, ive just spoke to a reputale college in central london and they reckon the MCDST is/or will be stopped by microsoft, and including the module in the MCSE course??? the course ive been offered is both A+ and MCSE one after the other, the qualifications that will attain are..... A+,MCP,MCSA and MCSE does anyone have any views????D bobby

 

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.

I would certainly be questioning where the college got its information from here. It certainly HASNT been retired unless it was in the last week (as i only passed mine just over a week ago.

Regardless of that, MS doesnt have it listed as due for retirement here:- http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcpexams/status/examstoretire.mspx

Maybe the college have just retired their course?

Dave

 

As said above that is probably that colleges MCDST course the MCDST cert has not been retired and probably won't be until nobody remembers what XP was. And since xp is used by most businesses who will still be using it for years to come then MCDST will still be available.

 

Hi bobby

as far as I am aware they have a while left in them, but MS are slowly shifting over to their new style qualifications (which I have yet to wrap my head round) but I believe you can sit the 2003 exams for another two to three years and the qualification would still be valid after that. As an example I still have 3 server 200 boxes here that are live production servers.

I am currently on a course with a training provider that does what you are considering and I don't know if I would do it again as their input hasn't really been beneficial (especially compared to here). If it is a taught class then I would consider it, but then you lose the ability to work at your own pace.

If you dont mind me asking how much were they asking for the course?

To brake it down cost wise (and this is purely a monetary argument not one of relative merits!)

The two A+ exams come to £240 (but discount vouchers are available) plus the Mike Meyers All in One (£30)
so £270 for that.

Each MS exam is £88 and a MS press book for each (again 30 for ease of maths)

The MCDST is 2 exams and books £236
The MCSA is 4 exams and books £472
The MCSE another 2 exams I think so with the books £236

So £944 for those, add the £240 for the others and it comes to £1184 all in.

so thats the cost for each exam and a book, apply that to the course and see how much value you are getting.

 

no probs mate from start to finish,

A+ 5 weeks part time evenings 18.30-21.30 twice a week, think its 2 exams
MCSE 10 weeks same as above, i believe its a total of 8 exams, but after all exams passed i receive MCP,MCSA and MCSE certs

total cost= 1650 for the 2 courses and 88 for each exam paper, so quite dear but its with the london college in oxford circus

ps i believe that all the books and cds etc... are free and recieve unlimited practical sessions what ever that is???

 

Avoid this mate like the plague! they will not be teaching you the subjects just teaching you to pass the exam, these are known as boot camps and they are one of the major causes of Paper MCSE.

 

MCSE in 10 weeks, at 6 hours a week thats 60 hours total study. I think you'll find most people put thousands of hours of study and experience into their MCSE.

How can it be unlimited if you have a time limit of 15 weeks ? Do you have a time machine ?

Actually it sounds far too cheap, 90 hours tuition, £250 worth of books for £1650. That means they are teaching you for £15 per hour. Thats either expensive for a college (they run courses and lectures with 80+ students and get government funding) or cheap for a professional trainer, they typically teach one week courses for companies on site and charge £400 per day per student, normally small classes 5-15 students.

I expect this was a rouse to make you enrol on one of their standard courses.

 

oops:thanks for replies back people, from what i understand this is the full MCSE qualification, im only using these 2 courses to get my "foot in the door" at a company say 1st/2nd line support and then gain say 2/3 yrs experience and hopefully be a mcse worker then would any of you say that was a good move??

 

MCSE is no "foot in the door" qualification.

From Microsoft's site "An MCSE candidate should have at least one year of experience implementing and administering a network operating system in environments with the following characteristics..." - this does not appear to be you.

You seem to be going down the right tracks with A+ and MCDST. You will find a LOT of talk about "paper MCSE's" if you look around. without experience and know-how it can be worse that useless - actually a hindrance.

Get some entry-level certs and some experience under your belt, then look at doing further certs. Have you looked at all at the job market? there may be something that you could get started on right now.

Dave

 

Having the MCSE and no experience can make it harder to find a job since the MCSE is supposed to show your experience as a systems engineer.

 

Well to put things into perspective. i had seven years corporate experience as an IT manager, before i embarked on the MCSE course. i was told categorically (by a salesman) that it would take six months. absolute poppycock. the MCSE is a mammoth thing to get through. one exam alone took me 6 months (70-216) and that was full time study for hours every day. to complete the whole thing, it took me three years. it is possible to do it quicker maybe one year if your very very dedicated. but less than that is virtually unheard of, unless the person cheated.

 

I would yield to all the reliable experiences and opinion put forward by those who know and have the experience. Cheerio and best wishes in your quest for the MCSE