Training Advice

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Hi guys

Im a signature away for committing myself to Advent, which will cost me a total of £9,500 over 5 years.

Here's the thing, I really don't have a great IT knowledge atm but at almost 28 years old I have decided to go for some real qualifications because hindsight has shown me that not taking school seriously was the worst mistake of my life.

I work 2 unskilled jobs which pay poorly so studying something enjoyable seems to be a great way of progressing in a career path.

Can anyone here tell me the benifits of the advent course, if its worth the money or even if Im in over my head?

 

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I have heard of advent but never used them, only thing I can say is thats a lot of money to shell out.
Another option to considor is self-study as most of the entry level courses you will probally be doing anyway through advent you can do by just buying a few books and setting up your own labs so to speak.
What courses are you going for?
If its IT Technician kind of route then Im sure most people on here would recommend Self-Study using Mike Meyers all in one and street smarts books doing the Comptia A+, costing you no more than £50-£60 pounds for the books and your entrance fee for the exam itself which is around £110.On top of that theres bucket loads of info on the internet and google

 

Another vote for self-study... which will save you 5 years and £9,500.

Start with the A+. Get yourself the Mike Meyers A+ All-in-One Exam Guide Sixth Edition, James Pyles PC Technician Street Smarts, and an old PC. That's basically all you'll need to get started.

Get yourself an entry-level job as soon as possible so you can start building the valuable experience that employers want much more than classes or certifications.

Best of luck!

 

I have to ask, £9,500 over 5 years for what? What are they offering, because it must be alot for that sort of time frame and price.

I'd say step away from training providers and try the self study route first. There are many benefits of doing it this way round. The money is the first major factor, self studying will cost you alot less. Lets take A+ as an example, 30-40 for books, and then about 220 for both exams. Network+ would again be 30-40 for books and then approx 150 for exam. Of course there will be other things that you'll need to pay for, such as exam preperation questions etc, but you'll still save alot of money.

Another thing, if you have no IT experience, how do you know you'll like it? If you pay nearly 10 grand on it, and then 3 months down the line, realise its a mistake, you stuffed. Self studying is an option where if you find you dont like it, you havent just wasted 10K.

Another bonus for self studying is that you can really learn at your own pace, with training providers you'll normally find there is a time limit and alot of pressure to pass exams or you'll quickly fall behind. You need to remember 5 years is along time, your life and circumstances could change alot in that time, will you be able to give IT Training your heart and soul for 5 years, consistantly?

I really hope you take this advice on board, because i've seen this situation so bad so many times and people regret going with training providers. Best of luck with what you choose. Stick around on the boards and we'll help you as much as we can, Certforums is a very good resource to help you and keep you on track!

 

Put the pen away and go and buy some books for self study.

 

i know where your coming from with the no taking school seriously im 35 and just started my second year at college.
as for a training provider route i went with schieddeger and wasnt that impressed with there level of service which is another story so wont go into it here, but i found i learned more from a few good books and as has been said before an old pc or two the dont need to be great machines as long as they work and can run win98 or even win 2000 i got mine free out of the local free ads paper they opnly really cost me the price of the os

 

Do self the self study.

Start with A+ ..........

Help and support is here
Look for second hand books on ebay

This should get you an entry level job with better pay than you get now.

Keep studing move up the job ladder, save your self that money.

Be warned you are very unlikely to jump into a well paid IT job without any experience regardless of what certs you have!

 

£9k over 5 years is a heck of a lot for anyone to be able to afford...

I am currently reading through the Mike Meyers A+ book and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I have also got the Street Smart book on order too. Doing this at my own pace, while holding down a job that pays my bills, feels the right way to go.

A lot of the people have been through the pain of spending lots of cash or signing up to large loans to fund training that just didn't come up to scratch.

As the guys in this thread have already said, get the books, get some cheap kit, and save yourself the money.

Oh... and you can glean a heck of a lot of info from Cert Forums.

 

OK I think home learning is the way to go!!!!!!

Next up is what area to study, I'm interested in web design, I like the creative aspect of it, is the study course widely different from other areas of it?

 

I'm gonna put my neck on the line here and say, If you dont already have a good understanding of Computers and I.T.

DONT SIGN THE COURSE!!!

The courses are designed to be fast pace and hard on you so they dont have to complete all yoru training.

and really...this aint a job for anybody, you really gotta love computers, you need a natural desire to dig around inside them to become a good technicain. If you dont have that desire, if yoru scare of playing with settings and screwing things up, this course aint right for you now. Come back in a year, once your found every nitty gritty bit of yoru operating system and hardware. once your screwed your computer up so many time you can reinstall it with yoru eyes closed. Buy an old PC. Find out exactly what the inside of a hard drive/cdrom looks like. If you cant name every bit inside yoru computer right now, you wont keep up with the pace.

Sorry dude, just my opinion. These companies claim to be able to teach you from scratch in teh time period. They cannot, I'm watching soo many people on my course who have no clue and are being told just to study the book more. They falling away like leave in autum. wasted money!!!

 

Self Study.

6 or 7 years ago i paid £2700 for 30 days training, received 5 days and then the company went bankrupt....

Lost it all!!!!!

Picked myself back up and did lots of certs self study.... it can be done!

Anyway dont sign up.... how would you feel if you lost all that money like i did??

NOT GOOD!

All the best!

 

You know, if we got 10% of all the money we've saved people by advising self-study methods...

 

Listen to all the above and tread carefully, don't even think about paying all that money to a training centre it is not worth the money and hassle. I'd advice you to get the A+ book and a computer and your set to go. If you're stuck with any technical query then come and ask of cert forums.

Welcome and best wishes, lets know how you get on or what you decided on hoping you've decided to go the self study route after all the valid advice.

 

Yep I'd have a decent deposit for house by now, I guess you have a house paid for as you been here a lot longer than me.