Private or Community College

I wrote in the forum for the first time 09/24 title New Career. If there is anyone else who could help me with that topic, I would appreciate it. I have another question that I forgot to ask. I want to know if anyone can help me determine which would be better training for me, acommunity college or a prvite school. The private school is called Fast Train and they are quite expensive-$6,995.00 for A+/Net+ classes. The local community college is not any cheaper. It has a required 68 hours, will prepare me for the CCNA and CCNP certs. as well as A+ and Net.+ according to the course desciptions. The cost @ FCCJ is $7,100. The college will take 11/2 to two years because of the required general ed. classes, and fast train will take 4 months. Also at fast train, if I don't miss over 3 classes during the 4 month program, and I don't pass the cert. exams the first time , I can go back through the school as many times as it takes to pass the certs. Plus fast train has job placement. I have already paid fast train for the first part of the school(A+/Net.+)but it isn't to late to get a refund. What should I do?

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Comments

mwgood

I won't pretend to tell you what you "should" do, but personally I wouldn't waste the time and money paying for classes. I think classes can be fun and definitely useful, but I would suggest getting an entry level IT job - anything - to get hands on experience, then do self-study to get your certifications, especially with the lower level certs like A+ and Net+.

Paying for a class is more understandable the higher and more difficult the certification, but why pay thousands of dollars for an A+ or Net+ certification when you could be earning money, staying out of debt, and saving yourself thousands of dollars.

I paid a grand total of $30 for my Net+ certification (the cost of my Exam Cram Net+ book). My exam fees were reimbursed by my employer.

Webmaster

mwgood wrote:

I won't pretend to tell you what you "should" do, but personally I wouldn't waste the time and money paying for classes. I think classes can be fun and definitely useful, but I would suggest getting an entry level IT job - anything - to get hands on experience, then do self-study to get your certifications, especially with the lower level certs like A+ and Net+.

My thoughts exactly

viper75

skynyrd wrote:

I wrote in the forum for the first time 09/24 title New Career. If there is anyone else who could help me with that topic, I would appreciate it. I have another question that I forgot to ask. I want to know if anyone can help me determine which would be better training for me, acommunity college or a prvite school. The private school is called Fast Train and they are quite expensive-$6,995.00 for A+/Net+ classes. The local community college is not any cheaper. It has a required 68 hours, will prepare me for the CCNA and CCNP certs. as well as A+ and Net.+ according to the course desciptions. The cost @ FCCJ is $7,100. The college will take 11/2 to two years because of the required general ed. classes, and fast train will take 4 months. Also at fast train, if I don't miss over 3 classes during the 4 month program, and I don't pass the cert. exams the first time , I can go back through the school as many times as it takes to pass the certs. Plus fast train has job placement. I have already paid fast train for the first part of the school(A+/Net.+)but it isn't to late to get a refund. What should I do?

I was almost in the same shoes as you 1-1/2 years ago. This is my suggestion from personal experience. Get your money back and put it towards college. When you're done not only are you going to have some Certs. but you will also have a degree. I don't think you will regret it. I know it will suck to take Gen Ed. courses but it will pay off. I have 6 months left and I'm done with school

. I attend night college 2 nights a week from 6pm-10:30pm. I have finished all my networking and core classes, now I'm just taking electives

. It sucks now but I will be glad I did it when I finish. I also have a full time job from 8am-5pm. as a MAN Admin.

I didn't go to College to learn A+ or N+ I had those Certs. already. I went back to school to get a Degree in Network Administration and to attend the Cisco Academy because my ultimate goal is to be a CCIE some day

You may also want to check with the College they should also have a Job Placement Center.

I would go for the College. Hope you make the right choice.

Good Luck!!! and let us know what you decide to do.

lazyart

$7000 is awful steep for the entry level certs.

Check the newspaper and buy 3 used computers @ $200-300 each. Get the Upgrading and Repairing PCs book (i think it's in 12th edition) at CompUSA for $50. Join a local users group. Tear the PCs apart, mix pieces, put them together again. Install windows. Repeat.

3 months later, get an A+ book and learn it.

I'll take the remaining $6000 as a consultant's fee.

There are much better ways to do this. I hope you find one. Or more.

garv221

Go to college. Education is something you will never loose or can be taken away. This "fast train" is just a big boot camp. Its a waste of money, any cert can be obtained on your own & actually in my opinion should be. Like I said, go to college. I had a Hell of a time at college, partied, got an education, experience, you can't go wrong.

sab4you

Not saying anything new here either - but spending that much on an A+/Net+ certification is a waste. Its IMO spending that on ANY certification is a waste as well, unless of course its your company spending the money LOL

If you can goto college and you havent, then goto college and if you really want the A+ or Net+ you can do that on the side no problem. Its not like these certifications require weeks and weeks of in class training with instructors, quizzes and so forth. Buy the certification book and read it at home and try things out on your home computer, while still getting a great college education for normal college stuff.

mikedeek

I kinda took a different approch ... just to explain it in a nut shell i went to a local college and had some general courses and i didnt like it so i didnt get my degree.... i didnt like how i had to take english and math courses when i wanted to major in computer science...so then i went to the chubb institute and got a diploma in network administration and engineering...now i transfered my local college and the chubb credits into a online college thats fully accreddiated

http://www.tesc.edu/prospective/chubb.php

this if for the associates degree but also its alot closer to my batachlors
(business major) it costs 5k a year (cheap that a local CC) and also you can CLEP out alot of the courses it usually take 2 years to get a BA me it took 8 months at chubb and another 16 months to get my BA.. and i also worked full time...they also take cert as credit i think MCSE is up to 16 credits

Now my education looks like this on my resume..not bad for a little over 2 years work

Thomas Edison State College, Trenton, NJ
BSBA Degree: Computer Information Systems

Thomas Edison State College, Trenton, NJ
AAS in Applied Computer Studies: Network Administrator

The Chubb Institute, North Brunswick, NJ
Network Administrator and Engineering Diploma

mikedeek