CompTIA or another course?

mrnothersan1

mrnothersan1

mrnothersan1

Associate
Joined
25 Mar 2011
Posts
847
Hi,

I'm thinking of doing a CompTIA A+ course, distance learning. Would you recommend doing that course or do you think another may be more suited?

I know CompTIA has exams whereas I'd prefer one with continuous assessment.

There are quite a few distance learning providers, but it's hard to know which are "dodgy". Any recommended providers?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks.
 
I bought a voucher the other week for 220-801. Will probably arrange something for end of the month / July time. To be honest I'm pretty confident that I could pass it just from my current knowledge / experiences, just not 100% clued up on some network stuff and performance based questions around command line stuff. I'm working my way through Professor Messer videos and having a play in Virtual Box, in conjunction with the exam objectives.

Mike Meyers book is meant to be a good resource and there is an official one from the Comptia store.

Not sure how well it'll be for getting me a entry 1st line job though, most adverts do say experience is essential etc. But you know in the Birmingham / West Midlands area... Hint hint nudge nudge.
 
Thanks guys for the advice :)

Any recommended distance learning providers? I wouldn't know where to start with just a book in front or me! I'm 17 at the moment.

Cheers
 
mrnothersan1 said:
Thanks guys for the advice :)

Any recommended distance learning providers? I wouldn't know where to start with just a book in front or me! I'm 17 at the moment.

Cheers
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Don't bother with them, if you've built your own computer then you're already well on your way. Have a look through the exam objectives on the A+ area, there are a lot but they're pretty basic / logical things to remember if you've got hands on experience of building computers and having Windows mess you around.


Nurple said:
have a luck at http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/
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MVA is very good, so much content on there. Started working through the C# for beginners. Probably should have done all this 8 years a go when I was actually properly into computers :/
 
Azza said:
Don't bother with them, if you've built your own computer then you're already well on your way. Have a look through the exam objectives on the A+ area, there are a lot but they're pretty basic / logical things to remember if you've got hands on experience of building computers and having Windows mess you around.
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Thanks :)

Not sure how well I'd get on without a provider giving me guidance, we will see :)

Obviously practice is required, any hardware etc required for practice etc?

Also will look at MVA.

I know Comptia uses Windows Server. Would it be beneficial to have a home server that I build and play around with to learn etc? Possibly virtualise...dev etc...
 
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Mrnothersan, make sure you swot up on fairly specific topics. E.g. I did the mock exam and like 90% of the questions were on laser printers lol. 4 or 5 of us techs were scheduled for the real exam just 2 weeks after the mocks, then we all got laid off suddenly :( Kinda dodged a bullet really as the company folded almost immediately afterwards. I think only 1 person did the exam in the end, but I still got the large red text book. Do you guys think it's still worth re-training myself with it, even though it's a 2009 edition?
 
mrnothersan1 said:
There are quite a few distance learning providers, but it's hard to know which are "dodgy". Any recommended providers?
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while I've not done compTIA I would say that as a general rule just get the book/ebook etc.. and pay the exam fee...

training providers are often a waste of time unless someone else if paying for you or you have motivation issues (and distance learning isn't going to help with that)
 
Haven't done compTIA, but I hear it's really basic and if you don't know it, it's really easy to get the curriculum and just learn off YouTube, books and the like. I'd say your good vendor exams to get under your belt would be...

CCNA
MTA/MCSA/MCSE (they're all Microsoft Server quals)
LPI (linux quals)

Cisco can be done either at a College/University, or you can just study on your own and take the exam at a test centre, same with the Microsoft certs.

Out of interest, what exactly are you interested in and why do you want to get certs under your belt? Bit of a hard question to answer really without more information.
 
Thanks again for the replies.

I want to do a course that will help me get a job (I'm interested in servers, networking, etc). I want a course that has an element of practical work and hands on experience (such as building a server to practice with) rather than just looking at books and websites.

I'd like to learn new stuff as well, things that aren't as basic.

So, a course that's got a practical element too - is comptia the best one??

Thanks
 
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CompTIA is abit of a waist now, we don't recognise it at work as a hard course todo. Think where you want to go within IT and go from there. So if your interest is Microsoft go the Microsoft. If you want to do networking go Cisco like the Network + > CCNA.

Of course I have no idea how much you know all ready.
 
matthab said:
CompTIA is abit of a waist now, we don't recognise it at work as a hard course todo. Think where you want to go within IT and go from there. So if your interest is Microsoft go the Microsoft. If you want to do networking go Cisco like the Network + > CCNA.

Of course I have no idea how much you know all ready.
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Thanks for the advice. Will take a look at the MCSE's and CCNA's.

Not sure what's best to do at my age - I mean, not bragging or anything, but I do know quite a bit about the server side of things as well.
 
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