I passed! This is gonna be long..

I honestly can't believe I passed. I almost failed, I got a 715 but hey I made it and that's what counts. The guy up front at the testing center said "Hey, you over studied!"

It's been really difficult the last few weeks studying, as my company has been bought out and they are downsizing my dept by half. I'm part of the half that's being downsized. After finding that out I decided I'd add the MCP (and the MCSA later on) since so many local jobs seem to harp on MCP status. I almost cancelled today's test because I had dental surgery performed Monday morning and I'm still recuperating from that.

Study time has been a rarity the last month due to our new overlords ditching Outlook and going to Lotus Notes (I'm guessing someone higher up has a cousin at IBM or something). I've had to pretty much handle the PST conversion for 400 users by myself. But talk about getting something done in the nick of time...I finished my test and didn't have time to update my resume before going to an interview today and they were quite impressed and really want me to move to MCSA status or even higher!

Now I've got another interview on 7/2 at a local university's pharmacy college, and I just got an email from a new call center that's moving in to my area wanting my salary requirements. I skipped cloud nine and went to ten.

Thanks to you guys, I looked in these forums for encouragement and found it in all the posts here. In case anyone is wondering what I used to study, I used:

MS Press Self Paced Training Kit
Exam Cram Study Guide
CBT Nuggets (skipped around a bit)
I think MeasureUp practice tests not sure though..and the practice test here.

I really thought they were going to tell me to reschedule due to a network outage, but I was back in my test where I left off in less than 5 minutes. Scared me to death! So yeah it's been a trainwreck getting this far, including my VMware Server dying on my Ubuntu box (I think a update killed a dependency but I haven't had time to look at it) but yay, I'm done (for now)! Any suggestions on which to tackle next?

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Comments

sprkymrk

Well congrats on the exam and the Interview.

I would go for 70-290 next. Good luck.

matradley

Sounds like you had a rough time. Excellent work on passing your exam - you deserve it.

Best of luck on the rest of your MCSA path.

I am preparing to write my 70-270 next Wednesday, I hope I pass! lol

manic

not to rain on your parade but what kind of experience do you have, and qualifications. i only see a+ net+ and mcp and forgive me for bitching but i just cant get a job in IT. at this point ill take anything just to get some experience. i have a+ and net+ and am working tward mcp and should have it by the end of summer at the latest. any tips perhaps? forgive me for kinda hijacking your thread.

arwes

manic wrote:

not to rain on your parade but what kind of experience do you have, and qualifications. i only see a+ net+ and mcp and forgive me for bitching but i just cant get a job in IT. at this point ill take anything just to get some experience. i have a+ and net+ and am working tward mcp and should have it by the end of summer at the latest. any tips perhaps? forgive me for kinda hijacking your thread.

Before I got my A+ in 2001, I had two years of experience doing phone support for a local ISP. I really walked in, realized the manager was a guy I used to buy electronics from at the mall, and was hired (with crappy pay to boot) for phone support the same day. I was just there for the experience though really. I wish I could've stayed and been a Sys Admin, but the pay was atrocious and they forced admins to sign 3 year contracts.

In 2002 I got the Network +, and I don't think it had anywhere near the recognition around here that A+ or CCNA does so I really didn't get much use out of it until I went job hunting in 2004. All totaled, I have about 5-6 years of IT experience, and I had a customer service job before going to my current job because there was a drought of IT jobs in this area. So if you're looking to break in, it's still all in who ya know in my area. But IT is really still an afterthought in my location. Most of your technically skilled workers in my area are moving off to Dallas or Houston to make the big bucks, but I've got strong ties here and would like to stay put if at all possible.

If you're just wanting some experience, try calling around to various not for profit organizations to see if they would appreciate any volunteer IT help. I've never done so but a gentleman I worked with at the ISP had in the past and received a great letter of recommendation for the time he worked there.

eltoro

Congrats and good luck on 290!!!

royal

Congrats!

manic

thanks for the info man! not for profit is tough though i have bills but something to look into none the less. thanks again!

Megadeth4168

Congrats!