OK, I give up; are ANY of these places any good?

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've been looking through the forums for most of the day, and frankly none of the training centres in the UK seem to be any good. There are horror stories everywhere.

So, what I am asking for are success stories; people who have attended places like James Thornton, and actually got what they paid for. I'm looking at doing a decent MCSE course.
Any takers?

 

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.

mate - one think you have to realise it.

people, when angry, tell the world of their problems!
people when happy only tell a few.

there is problems 1000 posts of people saying bad things and 10 of people saying good.

have you thought of doing it self study? cheaper.

 

SO true, mate.

They're the ones I want to hear from; people who had good experiences.

I'm thinking about it right now, as it goes. Right now, I don't know which way to jump.

 

By self studying you're not having to jump, if you start and then realise that it's not for you then you can go to a training provider, do it the other way around and you're out of pocket!

 

have a good read of this thread, and see if that helps.

 

I know this may seem like advertising (it isn't), or that i work for the training provider concerned (I don't) - so please bear with me!

First off the bat, by far the most beneficial route for you to take would be to self-study. For the utterly ridiculous sums of money that most tech schools charge (I've recently heard the figure going up to as much as ten grand) you could kit yourself out with a fantastic test lab that will provide all the experience you need, get a ton of books as well as some 'readiness test' CDs/DVDs and take a few months off work into the bargain to study full-time. Your only problem would be in getting a Career Development Loan to fund this... and thats where the real problem with self-study lies.

Not only do you have to be extremely well-disciplined to study a subject which - especially at first - can seem very daunting, you need to have the financial means to survive at the same time. I appreciate that this means the self-study route, for many, is a non-starter.

Finiding a good tech school can be a very difficult process. First up, you should realise that Cheeks' post is sound advice. When was the last time you took a CD back to a shop and said "Hey - thanks a lot for this - this album's wicked". I'm betting 'never' . People are much more likely to complain about things when they go wrong. Whilst I've no doubt that 95% of tech schools are as much of a rip-off as everything else in today's world, there's certainly an element of people living in cloud cuckoo land. ANYONE who believes the bullshit about sailing into a 40k a year job a month after getting their MCSE is stupid beyond belief. Irrespective of the patter of the salesmen, IT is a bloody hard industry to get into and, for each entry-level position, there are probably going to be about 200 people applying. All of this leads people to badmouth tech shools when their (unrealistic) expectations aren't met.

I was fortunate enough to get a nice redundancy payout which enabled me to kit out a home lab and take classroom-based courses as well. Bearing in mind this was a few years back now, i looked at most of the training providers and, in the end, went for Connectivity in Docklands. They're well worth a look - I understand they're cheaper than most other providers, and, whilst their admin/sales staff were pretty unpleasant at times, the training was second to none.

Even if you do decide to go with a training provider though, you have to realise that you MUST augment their classroom courses with loads of study at home.

Good luck!

 

its like anything in life, you get out what you put in.

I have gone with a provider, just started so won't comment as yet. As you can see from my registration date on here I have been attempting to self study for the past 18 months or so!!!!

I have 3 kids and work full time so find it hard to put the time and effort in. I do have the time but self study meant I could take it or leave it. A provider means I am paying for the priviledge but also means I will find the time as its costing me.

Good Luck

 

I know its a bit of a trek but South East Essex College in Southend are good, done my A+ there and know a few people who have passed MCSE there too.

They charge £995 for MCSE,MCSA, Security+ all on Saturdays if you need weekend studying.

Considering doing it myself once im a bit more experienced.

Southend 1 - Man Utd 0 at the moment!

Come on you Sea-Siders! Woo Hoo