What qual's to take..

[Whiternoise]

What kind of courses are there in the UK that you can take in regards to PC Repair, etc. I want to get some kind of qualification as a fallback in later life..

The only one i could find was the A+ Certification (is £395 a good price for 22, 3 hour, weekly lessons?) but are there any others?

[badass]

What kind of courses are there in the UK that you can take in regards to PC Repair, etc. I want to get some kind of qualification as a fallback in later life..

The only one i could find was the A+ Certification (is £395 a good price for 22, 3 hour, weekly lessons?) but are there any others?

How good are you with PC's?
about 6 years ago now I wasted £150 of manuals for it only to see it was ridiculously simple!
The 2 exams you have 1/2 hour to do and each of them took me 5 minutes!. Yes I did pass.

[harry1]

lol^^ u could try doing a college course something like technincal pc maintenance

[villarule]

Im doing a BTEC National Diploma for ICT Practioners at college, and im hopefully going to go into working with PCs (repair, networking etc...).

In the first year, with did bits with binary and how CPUs process it, bits of programming, networking, about OSs and other bits around the world of computers and networking.

In the second year, im doing the networking route (Theres also a programming route) and the subjects we are doing are:

Web Site Management
Networking Operating Systems
Data Communication and Networks
PC Specification and Maintainance/Computer Hardware
Network Design and Administration
End User Uspport
Internetworking Basics

This is worth 3 A levels and then there is a HND which takes it to degree level.

[Whiternoise]

I would say that i'm good enough with pc's to buy a revision guide for the exam and pass that way, but i don't know whether actually doing the full course would make a big improvement in my practical skills

Computing at college seems to be basically system architecture and programming, so the theory side will be useful. I think it's the first year that you did, but in slightly more detail (two year course as an A2, i could have done the BTEC, but i wanted to do Maths and Physics as well).

I could probably get to grips with networking fairly easily.

Thanks for the info, i'll look into it.

[ps3ud0]

What kind of courses are there in the UK that you can take in regards to PC Repair, etc. I want to get some kind of qualification as a fallback in later life..

The only one i could find was the A+ Certification (is £395 a good price for 22, 3 hour, weekly lessons?) but are there any others?

A+ is childs play - if you are happy with your practical skills (basically can build a PC with your eyes shut and know what everything is and what it does) then I would recommend just getting the books and self-study...

I did it a while ago for about £150 which is a bargain considering the 2 exams are £90 to sit. Also to warn you like with alot of professional computer qualifications you have to re-certify (every 2 years for A+ IIRC) so probably not something thats ideal to fallback on if you had to use it.

If you have the knowledge you are fine for now - if you decide to follow that path then by all means get it if you think it may prove useful...

ps3ud0

[harry1]

and what do you do now pseudo?

[ps3ud0]

and what do you do now pseudo?

Im not in that field at all - working as a business analyst (well I deal directly with consumer pricing) for a local telecomms company...

I only did the A+ as something to keep my mind ticking over...

ps3ud0