Lack of real life experiance hurting me

I've been in IT for 5 years and I learned Server 200, AD and I've had the chance to be around a Server 2000, 2003, and a little 2008 AD boxes. I'm comfortable with AD it self and general usage but when you get down to the nitty gritty stuff I tend to get lost.

I've been labbing for the last six months I can do the standard stuff like no tomorrow but when it comes to authoritative backups or DNS (hard to do real life when blocked by comcast residential) I've started doing practice exam questions and just bomb.

Where as the MCDST, MCITP:EST I could use my knowedge of working help desk for the last 5 years I could recall situations or events that would jog my mind where as past the setup and general usage of AD I blank.

I feel without an MCITP: EA cert in my pocket I will never get out of help desk and I'm frustrated that this is only the first exam and already struggling.

Besides labbing and just working hard and studying any suggestions to overcome this? I know everyone starts fresh but when your having to deal with issues on a day to day basis it makes things 1000% easier.

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rogue2shadow

I would say start trying to look for junior system administrator positions within your company. If they don't exist, it may be time to start looking elsewhere (as stealthily as possible).

"Helpdesk specialist" is usually just a title and the duties assigned depend on the company. What do helpdesk do at your company? (Password resets, system administration, etc.)

I think I would study the EA but wait till you actually start getting close to grabbing a position before taking the actual tests. The comparable situation is a CCNA constantly labbing or just taking courses but never having administered settings on a production network. I'm not 100% how the Microsoft side of things works in terms of the pro certs vs. the expert certs (MCM vs MCITP SA vs MCITP EA) but I guess what I'm seeing is you tell an employee you have a "pro" cert and you have no live experience and you just go back to square one.

Mods: I think this should be moved to IT Jobs/Degrees section

MentholMoose

wweboy wrote: »

I feel without an MCITP: EA cert in my pocket I will never get out of help desk and I'm frustrated that this is only the first exam and already struggling.

Most people struggle with these exams in one way or another. If they were easy then they wouldn't be worth doing.

When I was doing the EA, even though I had experience as a Windows systems admin, there were still topics I had little to no experience with. I just had to read about and lab those topics until I was comfortable with them.

dynamik

Practice makes perfect. If you're not using it day-to-day, you're going to have to make up for it during your lab time. It's a lot, and it's easy to get discouraged. If you stick with it though, and keep making small amounts of progress, you'll be amazed at where you end up 6-12 months from now.

Jander1023

I agree that daily study helps a lot. I am working on the 640 right now. I spent almost 20 hours this weekend reading, taking some notes and doing a little lab work. Each day I run thru test questions, over and over.

Which test questions are you using? How often do you go thru them? I start with the questions that come with the MS Press book. I run thru them about 4 or 5 times until I have them memorized. Then I purchased a 30 day online access to Self Test Software. I run thru their questions every day for a week until I have them memorized.

Now, tomorrow morning after work (I work graves) I am going to purchase the 30 day online access for Transcender. I am going to run thru their questions in exam mode first and see how I fare. Hopefully, I'll be over 80%. Then i'll run thru their questions all week and hopefully sit the exam Friday or Monday.

I find that using as many test questions as possible really helps. Many of the questions present me with scenarios that I would not normally see at work. Plus, I always seem to retain information better when I have gone thru it a few times. That's hard to do with the book since it is almost 900 pages.

Btw, I feel I am in a similar situation. I have been in help desk for about 5 years. I am finally getting motivated and trying to move beyond that. You definitely have to immerse yourself in the material. Build some VM servers for practice and lab a bit. For me, at least, I need to be in the material daily. I hope this helps and good luck!

Todd Burrell

I would probably recommend starting with the MCSA:2003 and the work towards your 2008 certification. I got my MCSE:2003 and that has help tremendously in helping with the MCITP:EA. So if you can go that path you will probably learn a great deal of stuff that will help with 2008 certs.

And these tests tend to be pretty brutal, but as others have stated - that's what makes the certifications more valuable.

I also agree with the advice about junior technician jobs. If your company does not offer these positions then I would look elsewhere, but you should be able to move up and get some on the job training. That will help you more than anything, because it is hard to learn this stuff in great detail just "playing" at home.

Good luck.

puppy001

There is nothing like the real world experience no matter how much you lab, though labbing will help a lot.