IT training/courses

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Chameleon

Guest
Hi there

I started working in finance at 18 and now still am, as an accountant. It's not a bad job, but just like many people who use these boards (I would imagine), I also have a passion for pc's generally. I want to learn more, both for my own personal development, but also cos I'm not sure I wanna still be an accountant in 10 years time! ;) I've had a look at local college courses that I can attend, which include things like Visual Basic (which would be useful for advanced macro stuff in excel, etc in my current job), c++ (sounds interesting), 'Computer maintenance and installation', html/java, XML, java, Computer Studies (HNC), ASP, PHP, SQL courses. Most of these seem to be OCN/OCR/edexcel or non accreddited, in terms of the course type/qualification gained.
Basically, knowing nothing about what qualifications work where, I'm looking for advice on which route would be best for me.
I have no IT qualifications currently, but have built pc's for own/friends/family use for about 10 years, have come across and worked out most windows related and common hardware related problems. I'd rate myself as an advanced user, at least relative to the average user. I would like to be able to do programming, at least some basic stuff to enhance my use of macros and general functionality of some windows applications like excel, but dabble an awful lot in 'support' type stuff, e.g. all family/friends/work colleagues/friend of a friends cat' mother's uncle's [insert hardware or software here] stopped working.
It'd all need to be in my own time (so evenings really) and likely funded by myself.
Any advice gratefully received.
tia

Cham
 
W

Will

Guest
Open University do courses for self-study. I'm waiting on my prospectus from them (still).
 
S

Sibanac

Guest
If you want to learn how to program the best advice i could give you is to start with a complete well structured language, that is strict on programing styles.
That way you will have an easy time learning other languages on your own.
Dont look at the fact that the language you are learning has no practical use at the moment for you.
Also make sure the course teaches programing structures and algoritems.

So i would advice taking a java or c++ course first. These caurses tend to have more emphasis on stryle and algoritms then VB courses.
If you have a fundemental understanding of programing and Java or C++,
you will be able to aquire a usefull knowlage of VB in a matter of weeks while the other way around would be much harder.
 
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xane

Guest
The "class" based languages of C++ and Java are a bit daunting to someone with no programming experience, you might want to learn C first although it is not strictly necessary.
 
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Sibanac

Guest
true, but i dont like sugesting C cause it lets you do so much nasty coding and its so easy to pick up bad habbits.
Pascal is probebly still one of the best languages to learn how to program but good luck finding a course for it (cant speak about delphi since i havent realy looked into it but its class based aswell)
 
C

Chameleon

Guest
Thanks for the replies, they've been very useful to me.
How about in terms of IT 'support' type training also. Is it best to go for a certain qualificiation that is more recognised or opens up possibilities to get a more advanced qualificiation? Maybe it's best to head for one of those microsoft certifications? What's the best route to go about achieving that?
What I don't want to do is spend time and money getting some mickey mouse qualification which means nothing to anyone in the industry nor gets me '1 step' up the ladder on the way to a 'real' qualification. Obviously I'm not gonna achieve this in the short term, but i'd like to know that I'm heading in the right direction.
 
Q

Quige

Guest
I don't know if this will help, but I can say what I did. This is I guess more of a support option.

I had basically been unemployed for a long time (ex fine art student), but decided that I liked fiddling with PC's well enough to try to get work essentially doing that.

I started doing some voluntary work for a local charity which had a small network for office staff and also a public access room for WP and internet.

Since I seemed to be enjoying that I looked for some training with the aim of the getting a job. I had the luxury of taking a full time course. I wanted something that was practical

I did an HNC in Computing at Brighton University/Polytechnic ... the course included some low level background stuff, binary, buses, clocks, TCP/IP and networks, installing DOS and Windows, locally and from across the network (3.11, 9x & NT4 workstation and server - can you tell this was a while ago!), and a little bit of C and VB programming (enough to know that while I enjoyed it, I probably would never be good enough to do it for money.)

Unfortunately I understand that this course has been cancelled, and I don't know of any other's with that sort of mix of things.

With that qualification, I then applied for a trainee desktop technician post in local government, and as posts became available moved up until I am now looking after servers and so on, and getting to learn about corporate level firewalls and other fun stuff! And no longer have to deal with users in the flesh so much. I guess this process took about 4 years and resulted in a wage increase of about 12K over that time.

When I started it was very much that you could take the time to troubleshoot problems, work on it and use the type of skills that you've already got from supporting friends and family. New computers were set up and software was installed by hand. These days things seem much more ... if there's a software problem we'll just reimage the thing from scratch. There's no time to do the 'find out what went wrong' thing.

And on the whole this works well as the user can be back up on their PC a lot quicker ... as long as it's a software problem, not underlying hardware.

Things I would look for in courses if you are thinking of support work, would be a course that gives you;

a good practical understanding of networking, LAN and dial up, TCP/IP, adapters, routers, switches etc.
Practical uses of Windows 2000/2003 technologies (RIS, Software installation via Group policy, DHCP, DNS, WINS, Terminal services)
Good understanding of Windows 2000 Professional.
Any other disk imaging technologies such as Norton Ghost Multicast or Imagecast.
Centralised management for auditing and software control/installation/repair.
Remote management of client workstations.
ITIL processes (incident management, problem management, change management etc.,)

And of course you've got to be pretty good with people to the extent that you can be patient and for the majority of the time, polite in the face of users stress (My Boss is going to kill me if I don't get x done by y"), or stupidity or wilful desire to "not know anything about computers other than the absolute minimum to do my job."

MCSE courses are probably OK, but the phenomenon of 'Paper' MCSE's is well known, people who have studied the books, passed the test, but never actually used that knowledge in the real world. I'm not sure they carry the weight they once did.

I think A+ certification is supposed to be an industry recognised qualification, and does cover a lot of practical stuff.
Computer Maintenance and Installation

There was a good article I read recently from the perspective of being a self employed support person. I'll see if I can dig it up.
 
C

Chameleon

Guest
Originally posted by Quige
With that qualification, I then applied for a trainee desktop technician post in local government, and as posts became available moved up until I am now looking after servers and so on, and getting to learn about corporate level firewalls and other fun stuff!
Click to expand...

:eek: I work as an accountant for local government too. BHC?

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply, that's all very useful info. The courses you linked to were those I had looked at and I notice the maintenance and installation one starts again in february, if I'm definately too late for the september start. That one looks like it might b a good place to start :) If nothing else it might give me a better idea of exactly the area I might like to work in ...... eventually ;)

thanks again quige
 
A

Ash!

Guest
I'm Currently doing an A+ * Net+ course from a company called Microscope. The course material is a bit on the pricy side. Best part of a £1000.00. I did get some prety decent hardware with it though for diagnosing a raft of PC problems. It didnt really hit me that hard int he pocket as my employer paid for the course under the self development programme they run.

As said previously A+ is the industry standard qualifiaction for Computer support. With the experience you have got you may find the course content of A+ pretty basic. If you want it, I have a cd at home with a list of sample course material from the A+ sylabus and exam prep questions. Send us a PM with your address and I will burn it off if required.
 
Q

Quige

Guest
C

Chameleon

Guest
Ahh escc, my gf works there :) Thanks for the links.
Thanks for the offer and info Ash!, I'll look into a little and let you know. Happy birthday btw :)

Cham
 
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