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A+/MCP
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Posted by: cwaring

I'm about to start on an 'Ambition:IT' course in Leeds. I'm quite excited about it. The course is 26 weeks, with the first half spent in a class-room learning environment with the last half either work-placement or an actual job.

The A+ and MCP are both, apparently, the industry-standard qualifications most required by employers. (The former, at least. Not sure about the latter. It is Microsoft, after all ;))

I don't really care what anyone thinks. I'm doing the course and that's that :) Beats sitting at home most of the time!

Nevertheless, I know that a number of IT Professionals frequent this board and would welcome their comments. At least try to keep them positive, please :D

Posted by: cyril

Yes better than sitting at home.

But I would recommend setting up your own IT business.

It will take 10 to 15 years of hard work to start with, but is ultimately more rewarding and profitable to be your own boss.

Sadly, none of my IT business ideas have turned profitable yet, but luckily my property business is OK.

I might even have to go back to contracting for merchant banks (sigh).

Posted by: gblades

I would not say that the A+ certification is requested by employers (possibly different in the US) as a lot of people applying for jobs would have this experience from playing with computers.
UK companies will see it as evidence that you have the knowledge required though so it will still be a very valuable qualification when going for a desktop support type job and should certenly get you an interview.

The A+ certification looks to be very good and will certenly teach you all that you need in order to be able to maintain computer hardware and support windows desktop machines. The MCP will give you basic knowledge of windows servers so you will be able to maintain user accounts, printers, and backups etc...

CompTIA A+ course details
Boson A+ practice tests

Posted by: iankb

If you don't have experience, qualifications are the only thing that employers can go on. They seem to be quite important for customer support jobs, since they show a standard and formalised level of knowledge.

I think that they are a little less important for development jobs, where either experience or the ability to learn is probably more relevant. However, if they are looking for trainee developers, qualifications will still be the main guide.

With limited experience, qualifications are still the best way to get an interview.

Having been in computing for 35 years (or 40 if you include my vacation jobs), I would be a little annoyed if employers required me to have qualifications. They didn't even have computing courses at university until after my first year. And IBM employed graduates in classical languages (e.g. Latin, Greek, etc) as programmers, since they thought that programming was all about languages, without the accents. :p

Posted by: groovyclam

Actually the thinking was that the classical languages require a certain amount of logical processing to handle the grammar.

Having done both those languages to O-Level and also having gone into programming, I think it was quite a good indicator at the time.

Posted by: iankb

I can't say that I agree with IBM's thinking unless they are looking for bog-standard coders. A good programmer is into lateral thinking, the knowledge of where to look for answers, and the ability to solve problems. A language scholar tends to be more into book learning and memory.

I suppose a scholar of dead languages is in a better position, in that they don't have to think in real-time, and there may be a certain amount of contextual problem-solving involved. Thinking back, I was top of my class in Latin, so maybe they were right. :D

Posted by: pukka

O-levels what are they? ;)

thats right its a old persons GCSE :)

i am doing self study MCSE. not that i need it as i have my own IT company, oh and i am 23 so you are never to young to start. :)

do your MCP which is 1 of the core moduals, i would recomend doing your MCSE/MCSA or what ever you field is.

i have some cds if you would like to borrow them. i will be happy to put them in the post for you.

oh and the books i use are the microsoft press ones. i have read others and they is some craps ones out there.

Posted by: cwaring

Well, I'm going to wait and see what the prescribed books are first. What are the CD's you have? If they're seperate to the books (maybe some example tests, etc) then I might be interested. You could PM or email me so we don't clog this forum with our personal stuff :)