Has anyone done any of these courses? Would you recommend them? I understand it can be very useful in PC repair (for obvious reasons), but do you believe it is worth doing for £800?

More info: http://www.gloscat.ac.uk/msacademy.php

Matt

many years ago, did the full on mcse, all sorts of certification, job jobs jobs promised like gold raining down from heaven. course the following weeks saw the whole bubble burst...

seriously though from what i hear the course has been devalued over the years with not enough hands on real experience being built in, and too much learning by rote

:yeahthat:

It isnt worth the paper its printed on nowadays mainly due to the fact the course is all going down hill. A lot of employers with a decent IT department would rather look for people who think outside of the box. The box being the wonderfull world of microsoft software.

Just do the XP Pro exam (70-270 I think)

yep, MCSE is a total waste of time now. From my dads experiences, he's had people with MCSEs and dont even know how to do basic simple day to day operations supposedly covered in the certification :bang:

The problem with the Microsoft course is that every few weeks you get a letter telling you that you need updates

Microsoft certification covers many areas of IT, you are not MC by passing one exam, you need to do a series of exams to gain the certification.

The main problem with passing the certification is it can be seen as remembering stuff good enough to pass the exam and not being able to apply it in real world situations like Luke mentioned also it means you know the theory but have no real work experience which means you will find it difficult to get a job in that field.

My best advice which I have learned from others is that you choose wisely which area you study then get some books from Amazon, Sybex ones are good and look through the paper for old PC's to create your own mini lab if applicable and take the tests when you feel ready, much cheaper than courses and you have only yourself to blame if you fail.

Liam

If you wanna work in IT, apply for a job on a technical helpdesk

You will learn so much in a short amount of time.

I worked for compuserve before they were brought out by AOL. if you can deal with home users, you can deal with anything!!!!

OK,

If you get one exam you become a MCP and are therfore certified.

The trouble with the MCSE now is alot of people are hammering trancenders in order to pass the exam and have never seen a PC go wrong!!

However, if i was to pass one as i intend to, it would be a different story as i have now worked as an IT Techy in a corporate environment for 2 years now, so i have the hands on experience to match that kind of qualification.

There is a huge difference in people who leave school, study for MCSE and then go into the feild as they don't have a clue as it looks "diffferent to the book".

There is no substitute for experience in my feild as that is where you learn the most.

I have done Courses 2274, 2276, 2277, 2275 on that link, and they were good corurses, but i use the product all day so i have the hands on experience aswell.

alfie says.... learn linux really!! its the way forward i tell theee!

gregit said:

If you wanna work in IT, apply for a job on a technical helpdesk

You will learn so much in a short amount of time.

I worked for compuserve before they were brought out by AOL. if you can deal with home users, you can deal with anything!!!!

Click to expand...

:slayer: I did a few years with the ISP Plusnet, then nearlly a year with Torex Retail, and a year or so in a PC shop - I'd say yep if you can deal with home / business users over the phone with all the normal call centre pressures for stats etc, you can certainly handle the real world of IT support.

ahh... the helpdesk..

Caller: "Is this the helpdesk?"
Me: "Yes, how can i help?"
Caller "our server is on fire!"
Me "have you called the fire brigade?"
Caller "no! can't you put the fire out there or something?"
I put the phone down and tell the rest of the helpdesk..
Me: "Call the firebrigade and then me. I can't put a fire out form here"
Caller "well that's not very good is it?"

She called back after the firebrigade came out and asked how long will it take for tme to fix her Server.

Caller rings back 3 days later asking why her £20,000 peice of kit is not fixed yet.... As if the company just carry round £20,000 worth of netbuilders/servers/switches in the boot of the van for such an occaision

That was a genuine call i took working on Knowsley MBC's helpdesk 2 years ago!!

I'll stop now as i got to many of those dumb caller stories i went through.

Networking is the way forward now. In the future thin client systems for home users with the operating system on your ISP's server.

Its gonna happen. Lower costs for home users and software used on the ISP server to cut piracy.

Cisco CCNA is a good one. (1st year student for me)

I'm currently in limbo in what to do in september; go to uni and do a degree in computing or similar, HND (not HNC) or trainee IT job position, or something completely random (getting a job). Possibly Apprenticeship in BT - although there dispanding. I'm confused and bewildered.

I would definatly go for the job route. You learn so much more on the job (the right job anyway) than you can at any university. The only course really worth doing is the CCNA or JNSP(Juniper Networks Version of the CCNA). The Juniper one is better at this moment in time because all the 'decent' ISP's are going down the Juniper Platform route.

Ye i thought that too. Trouble is finding a trainee position in IT around rural Worcestershire (said in a farmers accent) is very hard to come by. The only 'IT' centre around here is 'Evesham Technology' (formally Evesham.com and Evesham Micro's) which now only employees about 100 staff, very small for a company saying it is number 1 computer seller in the UK. I wouldn't mind working for them though, you've got to start somewhere.

Yeah I started by supporting 25 WindowsXP Pc's and a Sun Solaris Netlink server with a NT4 Style Directory. I am now looking after 8 Linux servers, 1 Linux Based VOIP Telephony server running asterisk which also has a 24hr Payment line with live credit card auth etc , and now have someone under me supporting the windows domain its quite weird being 19 and directing someone whos old enough to be my dad. I have now replaced most of the functions of the windows server with linux and samba and I'm saving the company lots of money mainly due to the increased uptime and Client access licenses . So yeah knowing linux is a great advantage.

im 32 and about to start a job in IT (on Typhoon if i hadnt already mentioned it ) this is going to be right from the start for me. puters have never been my friend. should be an intersting 5 years. thats how long ill be there so after all the courses and that amount of experience i might just leave the raf and get a real job!

Dragging up a thread from the past...
My employer has agreed to pay for me to do an MCSE, and I don't care what any of you say about it being rubbish!
Yes, it's possible to get the certification without actually using the products, but if you do that you'll get caught out in the real world. If you've got the experience, the letters on the CV can back that experience up.
Besides, I feel like collecting letters. Today I passed an exam to become a "Veritas Certified High Availability Professional using Veritas Cluster Server for Windows 4.1"
Next, and MCSE, then maybe CCNA (did the entire course a few years back, but never sat the exam ), then maybe CCNP.
H

an MCSE isnt as bad as this thread makes out. the only thing that changed over the last few years is the number of people who've done it. you could get a decent paid job with just an MCSE not too long ago, but now there are too many people with one so the excess supply has driven wages down.

The guy who i share my offce with did his MCSE to get into IT, and he still had to start at a fairly junior level, but now he's our network admin and earns very good money (drives a nearly new s2000!). So its not the qualification it once was but its still an excellent foot in the door to the technical aspect of the IT industry.

End of the day, a lot of jobs require an MCSE or equivalent, and no amount of work experience will get you to the interview without that bit of paper, much like my degree, so its still worth every penny.