A Computer Course In 2009
March 2, 2009 by Jason Kendall
Filed under Online Colleges
Computer and network support technicians are constantly sought after in the United Kingdom, as businesses become progressively more dependent upon their knowledge and fixing and repairing abilities. Our country’s need for more skilled and qualified individuals grows, as human beings become consistently more dependent upon PC’s in the modern world.
How are we supposed to reach an informed choice then? With so much reward available, it’s important to know where to be looking – and exactly what to be looking for.
A fatal Faux-Pas that we encounter all too often is to concentrate on the course itself, and not focus on the end result they want to achieve. Universities are stacked to the hilt with students who chose a course based on what sounded good – rather than what would get them an enjoyable career or job. It’s a sad fact, but a large percentage of students kick-off study that often sounds fabulous from the prospectus, but which delivers a career that doesn’t satisfy. Talk to many university graduates and you’ll see where we’re coming from.
Stay focused on where you want to get to, and build your study action-plan from that – don’t do it back-to-front. Stay on target – making sure you’re training for an end-result you’ll still be enjoying many years from now. As a precursor to beginning a particular study programme, you’d be well advised to discuss individual career needs with an industry professional, to make sure the retraining programme covers all that is required.
Be careful that the certifications you’re considering doing are commercially relevant and are current. ‘In-house’ certificates are often meaningless. To an employer, only top businesses such as Microsoft, CompTIA, Cisco or Adobe (for instance) will get you short-listed. Nothing else makes the grade.
Proper support should never be taken lightly – locate a good company that includes 24×7 access, as anything less will frustrate you and could put a damper on the speed you move through things. Locate training schools where you can receive help at any time of day or night (no matter if it’s in the middle of the night on a weekend!) Ensure you get direct access to tutors, and not simply some messaging service that means you’re constantly waiting for a call-back during office hours.
The most successful trainers have many support offices across multiple time-zones. Online access provides the interactive interface to seamlessly link them all together, any time of the day or night, help is just a click away, without any contact issues or hassle. Find a training company that offers this level of study support. As only live 24×7 round-the-clock support provides the necessary backup.
The age-old way of teaching, with books and manuals, is often a huge slog for most of us. If you’re nodding as you read this, check out study materials that are multimedia based. Where possible, if we can get all of our senses involved in our learning, then we often see hugely increased memory retention as a result.
Fully interactive motion videos with demonstrations and practice sessions will forever turn you away from traditional book study. And they’re far more fun. Don’t take any chances and look at examples of the courseware provided before you sign on the dotted line. Always insist on video tutorials, instructor demo’s and audio-visual elements backed up by interactive lab’s.
Avoiding training that is delivered purely online is generally a good idea. Physical CD or DVD ROM materials are preferable where obtainable, enabling them to be used at your convenience – and not be totally reliant on a quality and continuous internet connection.
Considering how a program is ‘delivered’ to you can often be overlooked. How many parts is the training broken down into? And in what sequence and how fast does each element come? Usually, you’ll join a programme staged over 2 or 3 years and get sent one module each time you pass an exam. This may seem sensible until you think about these factors: Sometimes the steps or stages prescribed by the provider doesn’t suit you. What if you find it hard to complete every element inside their defined time-scales?
In a perfect world, you’d get ALL the training materials right at the beginning – so you’ll have them all to come back to in the future – as and when you want. You can also vary the order in which you move through the program if another more intuitive route presents itself.
One crafty way that training companies make extra profits is by charging for exams up-front and then including an ‘Exam Guarantee’. This looks like a great idea for the student, until you think it through:
Everyone knows they’re still footing the bill for it – it’s not so hard to see that it’s already in the overall figure from the training company. Certainly, it’s not a freebie (although some people will believe anything the marketing companies think up these days!) The fact is that when trainees fund their own exams, one by one, they will be much more likely to get through on the first attempt – since they’re aware of their payment and therefore will put more effort into their preparation.
Does it really add up to pay the training college at the start of the course for examination fees? Go for the best offer at the time, rather than pay marked up fees – and do it locally – rather than in some remote place. Why borrow the money or pay in advance (plus interest of course) on examination fees when you don’t need to? A lot of profit is netted by organisations charging upfront for all their exams – and then cashing in when they’re not all taken. The majority of companies will insist on pre-tests and with-hold subsequent exam entries from you until you’ve demonstrated an excellent ability to pass – making an ‘exam guarantee’ just about worthless.
The cost of exams was about 112 pounds last year through UK VUE or Prometric centres. Therefore, why splash out often many hundreds of pounds extra to have ‘an Exam Guarantee’, when it’s no secret that the most successful method is consistent and systematic learning, coupled with quality exam simulation software.
IT has become one of the most stimulating and innovative industries you could be involved with. Being a member of a team working on breakthroughs in technology means you’re a part of the huge progress that will affect us all over the next generation. Computer technology and interaction on the internet will radically change the direction of our lives in the near future; remarkably so.
And don’t forget salaries either – the average salary in the United Kingdom for the usual IT worker is significantly more than the national average. Odds are that you’ll receive a whole lot more than you could reasonably hope to get in other industries. It seems there’s no easing up for IT industry growth in the United Kingdom. The sector is continuing to expand enormously, and we don’t have anywhere near enough qualified skilled IT professionals to fill current job vacancies, so it’s not likely that this will change significantly for the significant future.