Qualifications, Qualifications Qualifications.....

[firefox_2006]

Hello

Hope the summer holidays is going well for most people, whether you are having a summer clear-out, or like me planning your fantasy premeir league squad lol.

I have been working as an IT Technician in a secondary school for a few months now, and I am enjoying learning new technical skills. Prior to being an IT "techie" I completed my teacher training (PGCE) and before that I spent 4 years at uni doing a computing science degree. I am a proactive person and always looking at what I want to do next. A friend of the family who has worked in the IT industry has recommended that I complete the MCSE qualification.

My question is this
a) How beneficial is this course?
b) How do I go about doing it if it is beneficial (would the Open University do it)
c) whats the cost involved
d) How easy is it? (Its Micropoo so it cant be that hard, wait...it probably is)

I would not like to see the time spent getting the teaching qualification going totally down the toilet, so I have been looking into posts that combine IT and educational aspects such as E Learning

I seem to have spent most of my life learning and none of it earning, and just exactly how many qualifications do you need to have to get anywhere in this business?

Firefox_2006

[j17sparky]

What is it your wantinng to do career wise?

MCSE is a well reconognised qualification, and worth having if you want to be a system admin, and would be a good start if you wanted to teach MS systems to students.
You can study at home, at most colleges on a night class and through alot of testing organisations.
Cost varies alot from place to place. If you just want the qualification you can study at home and just pay for the exam. Or night clases at colleges seem reasonably priced.

How easy is it? Well thats upto you but one thing ive been told is they want you to do it the "microsoft way". For example theres several ways to get to the device manager but only one way is "correct".
I havnt actually done the MCSE exam myself but am confident i could pass it first time. Ive been told by people who have done both the MCSE and the (cisco) CCNA that the MS one is a peice of pish compared to the CCNA, and from my experiannce the CCNA is a peice of pish itself.

I belive the whole MS exam(s) are multiple choice so...

[sidewinder]

^Umm...an MCSE is not just 1 exam. It WOULD be easy if that was the case
I think its a total of 7, broken down into various sections, and the last few you can choose a specific one

With experiance already the first few exams shouldnt be that hard, but its probably still worth looking through some books to discover 'Microsoft's way', which isnt always the most logical way or the way you would do things in real life

With enough studying the others shouldnt be too bad either.

Me personally, I'm one exam away from the MCSA, I need to re-take the 70-291 but while I could probably do it, revising the material is incredibly boring, so I end up learning about other things. Ironically the ones after the 291, that would take it upto a MCSE look far more interesting. Its just a question of motivating myself to do the boring one