New Horizon Classes

ForeverIT27

So my company wanted some of the us in the IT department to get certified for 70-640 at New Horizon IT learning center. This is a very big test/certification. From what I can tell New Horizon has 7days boot camp for this cert then a few weeks for reviewing. Do you guys think it could be done in such a short amount of time? Did anyone took this test thru New Horizon? I would appreciate all opinion and advice.

Thanks

Plantwiz

Well, I don't know about your area, but where I am at, New Horizon is an authorized testing center, so taking the test 'there' is merely a formatity as it is one of the few test centers around.

New Horizon's offers classes, some day long, some week long and some others.

IMO, boot camp style classes are best suited for folks with a decent amount of experience and they are looking for a refresher or more specific experience in a particular topic. This is NOT the way I recommend someone first get introduced to a topic unless they are coming from an older technology and looking to learn the newest one semi-quickly (i.e. meaning a little faster than simply reading a text, but with an instructor (who one hopes is proficient in the topic) so you can read through information and come to class and discuss specific parts.

I've used New Horizon for a class over 10 years ago (so keep that in mind, things maybe have changed, and each center has a different pool of instructors) and was underwelmed with the instruction. I was proficient in the topic, but we were left to read the text and follow the step-by-step only. When asking the instructor for further information, the individual who lead the class did not know the answer. Later in the day he told me that he was taking a different job and only needed to get thorugh 'this week'. Frankly, I didn't care and if I had paid a lot for the class, would have been rather irritated but opted to not return for future courses.


So, will this be good for you? Don't know. How do you learn? What type of learning style do you have? Do you typically do well in a classroom setting? How much experience do you have with the 640 material? You may be just find buying a text or two and reading the material on your own. However, if you like to be able to interact, you may find the class a good fit. Call the center and see if they have any pre-view classes you might be able to see or if you can maybe audit a class for an hour just to get an idea...some of their bootcamps (IIRC) are rather pricy.

nosoup4u

I've had three classes through NH one back in 2009 and I recently got work to pay for 3 day classes for the 70-680 and 70-685 this last month

Each of my experiences were similar to Plantwiz. Our trainer was a nice guy and all but he couldn't really answer our questions outside of anything "material preparation" that pertained to the situations give to us in our labs or questions given by Microsoft's training. Now I don't want that to sound rude bcause I'm sure he was very knowledgeable and knows way more about IT then our whole class put together but I just don't think he was a great instructor. He basically just read off the slides or instructors manual and if we asked a question he said he'd cover that in more depth later but never did.

If I had actually paid for it out of pocket I would have been extremely upset. I don't believe the class prepared me for the exams and had almost NO practice tests or questions remotely similar to the tests. I purchased some books that a few people on this forum recommended in a post I did about it and found those were three times more informative then the classes I took.

I think these classes are setup for people who have very little experience in the IT field because there were two people that were coming from other fields and found the classes very informative but were not prepping for the exam while the eight others including myself were just sitting trying not to correct the instructor if he said or made mistakes during the demonstrations.


Best I can say is the labs setup by Microsoft using Hyper V are really nice but still expect to get yourself some 3rd party books and/or tests.

My 2c.

Lunchbocks

In my opinion, no. I have taken 3 NH classes, the last one being 640. The Cisco class got me to about 70% ready, but the 640 class only got me to about 50%. The labs are good, and the books are good, but they are not enough and there isn't enough time. For instance, AD CS is taught in 1 class, and AD FS and AD RMS are taught in 1 class. Unless you already have experience in those roles, you will need a lot more than what they can teach in such a short time.

For me I took the NH class, I used the Microsoft Self-Paced Training book (R2), Microsoft Server 2008 R2 Unleashed, CBT Nuggets, and Technet. Matter of fact, I used Technet pretty heavy for DNS, AD CS, AD FS, AD RMS, and AD LMS. All of these things combined got me to a passing grade, but not a single one by themselves would have gotten me there.

I am not knocking NH; if I didn't like them, I wouldn't have gone after the first class. But the 640 exam covers a tremendous amount of information, and a short class like the NH class isn't enough.

Good luck with your class and your exam.

ForeverIT27

Thank you for your replies, I have registered to start the 70-640 on Nov.26,12. for the mean time I will start reading my MS book and watching the Train Signal an Professor Messer's videos to get the ball rolling. Will keep you all up to date with my progress.

Cheers.

Lunchbocks

Great, just make sure you make the class work for you. Take advantage of the labs (NH has great labs) and keep asking your instructor everything you don't understand. It will definitely teach you a lot.