What can/should I do?

Nuwin

Ok, a little background. I went back to school to get into IT and when i was looking for what school/program to get into, it was recommended to me that I take a look at a tech school and get an associates because the credits would actually transfer to some local universities to complete a bachelors. Being that school and I rarely got along, this seemed like the shortest and quickest path to completing my degree. (Which I finally did...)

Anyway, at said school, you could opt out of the final and receive full credit if you passed a related certification exam. The teachers, and more specifically, the program director was full of study guides and resources for many of the certification exams. As you can probably guess, these are actually brain ****. (Confession: I used a well known **** on my first exam as it never crossed my mind to **** on an exam. I was transitioning to IT and never considered studying for certs prior to this. I had just failed the 70-270 exam and when talking to my teacher, he provided me these "amazing study guides" which I used and followed up with a near perfect score. I found TE right after passing that exam and have not used any **** since knowing better. I've come no where near a perfect score since for those who justify **** as "odds are you won't see that question." That said, still guilty.)

So I'm embarrassed to have attended that school and it doesn't even show up on my resume now that I've completed my Bachelors. I still have some connections to the school through a Google Group that people post to. Every now and again, the program director posts the "study guides" for the students to this group. I have been responding to these posts with information about CertGuard & what brain **** are and why they're wrong. I assume there are other students who are unaware of this just as I was.

So after all that, is there anything else I can or should do? Or have I done enough by putting the information out there that if you use those materials, you are cheating?

sidsanders

i have come across quite a few paper only folks (they dont last long), so its probably a good thing you are going the route of learning rather than the "other" way...

i dont think there is a single right thing you could/should do. you could notify msft/comptia/cisco/etc about what is going on at that location. that could have some impact on yourself. you are trying to warn folks, and in many cases that is the best you can do.

eMeS

IMO, the best thing that you can do is put it behind you.

You've made an effort to let people know the facts, and that's more than many would do. More importantly, you've learned from the experience and chosen a different path for yourself. I would call that "success".

Ultimately, you can only control your own behavior...

MS

dynamik

I wouldn't worry if you unknowingly used a ****. It's up to you whether you want to blow the whistle on them or not. It is sort of discouraging that they're turning out people with those credentials without requiring them to actually learn the material. That just devalues the certification for everyone.

Nuwin

Perhaps being for-profit has something to do with it.

At the same time, regardless of what method you chose, you only get out of it what you put in. There were plenty of people I saw accept the easy way and move on. I had the option of the easy way but realized that it didn't benefit me to be built out of paper.

At the end of the day, I agree though that the only person I can control is myself. This is just something that's stuck with me for a while. I feel like I'm compromising my ethics by turning away.

I suppose I'll just continue as I am and occasionally make posts about the dangers of brain **** and how to verify your study materials as legit. The cheaters will probably **** anyway, but at least an unknowing honest person should benefit.