My Microsoft Dilemma...MCITP: EA, Exchange, or SharePoint and COMPTIAs

cknapp78

Hey everyone.

Been lurking around here for a few days. Love the site.

Long story short...I am 33 years old and have been an IT Professional for over 15 years. I've done a little bit of everything from Desktop to Servers to Groupware to Architecture. The past 3-4 years I have focused almost exclusively on Exchange and SharePoint and had done so well that I managed to work as an independent contractor designing Exchange and SharePoint 2010 solutions for over 20,000 users. My titles have ranged from Architect to Design Consultant. Work was good for a while and then, because of the problems with the US economy, just as suddenly, work was gone. Just finished sitting home for 8 of the past 9 months without work. My wife and kids made it fun at least. I owe them alot. OK...that's the bad news.

Good news...just landed a full time Right-To-Hire position with a large Fortune 100 company in New Jersey as their Messaging Architect. Fantastic opportunity. Only took me 6 interviews and 7 weeks of waiting but I finally started last week.

Now the interesting part. As part of my agreement to come on board, I have 18 months to pass my MCITP: EA and MCITP Messaging certs. In addition, they would like me to focus on my MCITP: SharePoint cert and eventually my Citrix cert as well but those can wait until the others are done.

Here is my dilemma. Where the heck do I start? I have been a self made man. I hold absolutely no certs. I took an NT 4.0 Exam back in the day (over 13 years ago) and failed twice. I never looked back and my practical knowledge and experience speaks for itself. My issue is that I am not very good in test prep. Studying never came easy for me. Part of the reason why I left college after a year and a half and started working right away. High school was a joke for me since I really never had to study. This real world stuff is a lot different. In addition, I have a 3 year old son, a 6 year old daughter, and my wife has some pretty major health issues which means my study time is relegated to the late evening when the kids go to bed.

Any advice you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated. If you can recommend some study materials, test order, etc...Figure I might even make this a regular post so you guys can keep track of my progess and bust my stones when I start slacking off.

I will be glad to offer any advice I have in return, whether it be work related or not.

THanks in advance!!

CKnapp

cknapp78

Oh yeah...boss figured it wouldn't hurt to throw in my CompTIA Server, Network and Security Exams too.

One other piece of good news...I have full access to the entire Skillsoft training library.

CKnapp

NOLAJ

Welcome to TE! Given your experience I would start with the CompTIA's. You should be able to knock those out pretty quickly. They will also help get you in the testing mode to help prepare you for the Microsoft exams. As far as the MCITP's, I personally would start with the 70-680(Win 7). Then you will probably have a good idea what direction you will want to go.

I'm not real familiar with the Skillsoft training material. Some resources I would suggest to get started would be Darril Gibson books and Professor Messer's free videos. I used the LabSim videos/labs for my MCITP: SA exams. Granted I have access to them through my WGU studies, but they are VERY resourceful, especially the labs. When it comes to the Microsoft exams, the key is to lab it up, then lab it up again.

These are just some of the things I would suggest based on my own personal experiences. You will find that there are a lot of knowledgeable people here on TE that will probably be able to give you a lot of additional advice.

Best of luck on your studies!!