Skills Train, Computeach

[georgebush]

Has anyone used companies like this in the past?

I'm looking to jump out of education and was looking at doing CompTIA A+, both these companies seem to offer them and since theres no provision for such things locally, the nearest being lancs uni I'm quite interested.

What kind of fees would I be looking at? I'm conscious that with having no prices online they will attempt to rip me off

[jcollings]

Never used them so I can't comment however if Lancs Uni is commutable for you I can highly recommend them. I have been on many courses there and so have my team and the quality is excellent.

[torledo]

Has anyone used companies like this in the past?

I'm looking to jump out of education and was looking at doing CompTIA A+, both these companies seem to offer them and since theres no provision for such things locally, the nearest being lancs uni I'm quite interested.

What kind of fees would I be looking at? I'm conscious that with having no prices online they will attempt to rip me off

Definitely try and get on a course at you're local college or uni either Comptia, Microsoft or Cisco.....much cheaper and without any silly claims of earning 35K a year upon completion.

[acrobson]

You could also try a company i use called Taitec Training, they offer centre based learning and distance learning packages, there prices are very competitive as well. If you have access to the courses at your local college etc, try those as your first port of call first. All you can do is compare. Best of luck.

Taitec

[petectid]

Take a look at this site, not recommending it as I do not know anything about them but they may well be worth investigating. There offering a free course at the moment, its all online training. LiveTrain

[ChrisH]

If you want to do the A+ and already have experience then I would but the book and take the exam. I doubt you would struggle doing it that way at all.

[georgebush]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, I think I'll get quotes of the 2 I mentioned and then taitec and livetrain whilst looking into self study. The quotes of earnings are funny though, I got sold the whole do a degree and earn x-amount crap at school and funnily enough all my mates who went in to trades earn double what I do.

Lancs uni is something I am considering but they dont offer CompTIA and the other courses of interest are nearly £1k, still depending on the prices I get I might go for it yet, I did my degree there so I know how good the facilities are.

[novtech_2008]

hi there i was quoted £1778 at £72 a month for 24 months with The home learning and i'm pretty sure it's roughly the same for Skills Train


Hope that helps novtech.

[Joanne]

I thought you could book the courses direct through lancaster uni?

I'd have a look at the website and give them a ring...

cut out the middle man!

[K.C.Leblanc]

Get Mike Meyer's A+ certification bible and see how you get on with it. That's how I did my A+, cost my less then £300 including the exam fees.

I personaly wouldn't take A+ seriousely enough to spend £1000 doing one, it certainly won't garantee you a job.

[strawberry]

A+ is a fairly straightforward exam in that its just about remembering facts, not like later exams where yuo have to apply knowledge. If you get a decent book, read it a couple of times and do all the stuff on the cd you'll be able to get through the exam easily i'm sure. good luck when you do sit it.

[NickHoughton]

I have done the distance learning thing - did an MCSA in Windows 2000
Did the following:
70-215 Server 2000
70-270 XP Pro
70-218 Server 2000 Network Admin
A+
Net+


Paid approx 3k but up front. All the exams were paid for and materials sent, but the support only was good for a finite time (2 years, this was back in 2002 though)

I would advise seriously against this. It is really expensive. And from the look of his car, the area sales rep wasn't getting a bad cut!

I didn't make any use of the support services and so the value for money was poor. Also, the one I used they offered training courses at their base but cost didn't include accommodation/xport.

Books are approx £20 - 40 per piece.
A+ and Net+ exams are approx 80 quid, if memory serves.
MCP exams are approx £110 inc vat.

Thus had I done the stuff myself I'd have been at least £1000 in pocket.

If you have any understanding of computers, the courses I did should be easy enough.
A+ is split into 2 disciplines, hardware and OS.
H/w is more interesting as looks at old 8086 architecture and the first IBM PCs.

If you can, get your employer to pay for your exams / external training.

A+ is pretty simple but quite interesting. MCP exams were totally different to the CompTIA, so google some test exams before doing any MCP exams if that's what you want to do.

[adina004]

There are many online training available for CompTIA A+ certification. I have passed in CompTIA A+ exam. I have referred CompTIA A+ Certification Video Training . I have cleared CompTIA A+ exam in first attempt by using CompTIA A+ Certification Video Training.You can also refer CompTIA A+ Certification Video Training for your CompTIA A+ exam.

Adina Cannon

[ICTNUT]

Stay away from Computeach, had no end of problems with them.

[BaccyNet]

Had SkillsTrain quote me for a course a while ago, took a lot to get the bloke to leave
Currently signed up with NITLC (IT Training Courses from the National IT Learning Centre) on their Technical Systems Engineer course. They are a friendly enough bunch, can be done all from home but they also offer workshops at their site as part of the course. One thing to keep in mind is the course length, mine was two years (will have been three so far in October) which is all the support covers (as with most companies). I'm not sure how anyone in the 'real world' could get that course done in two years but hey!

Good luck with whatever you decide to do