SkillsTrain N+ Course

I moved here from South Africa last year and got work in a warehouse. One night I was sitting and thinking to myself how much in life I took for granted. When the opportunity to study was there I never took it. Now I am thirty two years old, married and have two children. Life is going past me and I have nothing, but then I got the skillstrain leaflet throught the door and I signed up for the CCNP course. The beginning was hard but now I have done seven assignments and it is going very well. I always thought that a working man will have trouble studing, but to my suprise its not. It is more fun to study than to sit in front of the telly. Thank you skills train for giving all of us working people the chance to make some thing of our life and for showing us that there will always be a opportunity.

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-Andries

PC Engineer (A+), Network Engineer (N+), CISCO Qualification (CCNA), CISCO Qualification (CCNP)

I throught that the computer hardware aspect area is a "no go" area for me, I even use to think those people who repair or assemble computers are wizards, but the way Skill Train has organised its course material is awesome. It has really broken everything relating to the computer hardware into simple understandable parts for me. Though I have not realy known how to carry out this arrangements practically but I now understands how this parts relate to one another. And I believe that at the end of my course, and after attending the practical class, I should have become one of those "wizards" as well.

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-Anthony

I WORK 12 -16 HOURS A DAY AS A DRIVER AND I AM AWAY MOST OF THE WEEK . IT HAS BEEN HARD FOR ME TO KEEP UP MY STUDIES AND SOMETIMES A BIT SLOWER THAN PROBABLY MOST STUDENTS BUT I HAVE STILL MANAGED TO KEEP AN AVERAGE OF ABOUT 90%. SINCE I DID'NT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE INSIDE OF A COMPUTER I HAVE LEARNED ALOT AND I AM STILL LEARNING.

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-Wayne

My main aim of joining Skill Train is to become a certified technician as well as own a small business of my one day - having said that I can now see my dreams coming through. I started by sorting out friends and relatives computer problems, but recently it has now spread to people calling me on the phone.The publicity I am getting which is down to friends that I have helped free of charge is making me happy and my toubleshooting skills have grown from strenght to strenghth.

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-Wise

I enrolled as a skills train student on the A+ certification and N+ certification course in Januray 2007 and have also been looking for employment, since then and have been called in by many people for interviews which is really pleasing. Thanks to skills train I am now able to develop my skills and expertise further in the IT field and am able to progress I know what I want to do in the near future now.

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-Vijay

I am going to start this on a bad note in 1997 I was suffering with my back at work, my doctor sent me to hospital were I had a x-ray and was told that I had kidney stones, they put me on a drip for 4 days but at the end I had not passed any stones so I was sent home and told to go back to work.

I returned, but my work included a lot of lifting and after a few hours I was on the floor in pain and an ambulance was called which took me to a different hospital, they put me through a cat scan which showed 2 prolapsed disc's and I was taken in and operated on the next day, this put me down hill very quickly as I could not do my job anymore, but I found skillstrain and signed up for the A+ N+, this was going great until last year when I was diagnosed with IBS so I had to stop the course as I felt down in the dumps and thought why should I carry on.

I started going to a councilor who helped me get my head back on track, so I started the course from the start again thanks to skillstrain allowing me to do this, on Monday the 16th I am going into hospital to have a camera put down my throat as they have seen a lump in my stomach on a scan that I had, I just hope that it is not what I am thinking it could be. but after all these illnesses I am still going to pass my courses as they don't stop me from working on computers or talking to a client, so if you feel down in the dumps there is always something you can do to pick yourself back up.
At the start of my course I took on as many courses as I could one was to become a web site builder which I passed using frontpage, this will help me with the N+, but now my head is only on the A+.

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-Christopher

Having worked in the mining industry since 1979 until being made redundant in 1986, I was unemployed for a period of time. In 1990 I returned to the mining industry until a severe accident in 1991 finally put me out of work for some 3-4 years. During this time my wife gave birth to our youngest son, who was born at 27 weeks, some 13 weeks premature. I soon realised that my prospects of employment had been dramatically reduced due to age and ability or should I say disability. It was at this time that I decided to take steps towards widening my prospects on the job market by retraining for a new career.

It was then that a leaflet about Skillstrain popped through the letterbox. I decided to give the number a call, and within a few days a representative was with me explaining the courses available and the qualifications it was possible to gain. I didn't need time to think, I was so impressed with what was on offer I signed up there and then. That was in July 2006, and now April 2007 I have almost completed my studies for the A+ and feel confident that I will pass the exam. I am really looking forward to starting the second part of my course, which is the N+, and hope to do as well with that as I have done on the A+. Thank you Skillstrain for showing me that life doesn't end just because of personal trials and tribulations. I won't say it has been easy, but what it has done is show me and maybe many other people out there that learning a new skill is more than possible.

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-Robert

I have just submitted TMA 11 and to date all my marks have been above 90% which has given me a new lease of life and hope. This May not seem special to most but to me this course is truly my second chance.

When I was 15 my father passed away suddenly and my mother turned to drink, my family had fallen apart and with my exams around the corner the only person I had was my girlfriend at the time and wife of today. My mother soon after took her own life and left me in pieces. I swear if it was not for my wife I would have just curled up in a ball and just vanished.

I did take my exams and actually did quite well but unfortunately with all I went through I rushed out of school and into work leaving behind any hopes of my original dreams in the IT sector. I did well in my work and soon became a self employed carpenter supporting my wife and now 4 children until April of 2006. Now I have not gone into all the details of my life but due to the extreme grief that I had encountered and over working I suffered a near fatal heart attack. Obviously this scared me but more to the point at 35 years of age I feared more about leaving my family as my parents did me when I was 15. Anyway I obviously pulled through and decided it was time to let go of the past and get the qualifications I needed to get into the world of IT, to re gain my dream. So after a heart attack, a serious drop of income as I had to go bankrupt, 4 kids and nagging wife I have now completed Section 1 Part A.
If all else it was nice to get that off my chest and I thank you for reading a personal part of me.

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-Jason

When I was about 15 years old, I had no idea about the road ahead of me. I didn't have a clue about what I was in for and the hardship that would test me. It started out like this. I was in High school at the time and was really intimidated by the other students, who were all much bigger than me. Some of them were racist, others just loved to push their weight around. I was in that situation for quite some time. After the hardship I suffered, I decided to break out of the nutshell I was in and take action against them. I got some of them expelled and others got away with it. I had to leave as they became more and more aggressive. Before I left, a few of my relatives in my homeland, Bangladesh, fell ill. Me, and the rest of my family went to visit them, and support them anyway we could. We were their for about 4 - 6 months, but it seemed like a holiday, for most of the time anyway. My parents decided to stay there for a while I came back with my brothers and sister.

When we got back, I was in even more of a mess when I found out I no longer had a place in school because of the amount of time I had been away. So I went along with my brother to The Learning Resource Centre to try and find somewhere else where I could learn and study.

When I heard all the places were full, I decided to go college and take up a course in IT. I thought I should get some qualifications in rather than waste my time starting a year behind. I started a GNVQ in IT, got the best marks in the class, with the best punctuality and attendance, only rivalled by the only girl in our class.

After I finished my first year at college, I decided to take up some serious work. So I got into a market research company in Central London. The pay was great and the experience was very fulfilling. After a while had passed, I thought of it as a dead end and realised I would be doing my future no favours by sitting there and just working deeper into a black hole, well, that's what it felt like.

A realised I had to take action, so I went onto the internet in search of something which would help me progress deeper into the IT industry.

That's when I saw it, it was like my questions had been answered. I clicked on to the link and left my contact details.

Later that week, I received a phone call from a really nice lady from skills train, I forget what her name is, she asked me what I wanted from life, what I wanted to do and what I wanted to achieve and whether I'm looking for new skills or a change of career. I told her I want to do something in IT as the whole concept of computers fascinates me. I want to make my future in computing. We had a little chat and then she booked in an appointment so the course advisor can come and speak to me.

A few days later, the course advisor came and knocked on my door. He was really friendly and polite as he asked me some questions. I agreed to do the course because I believe this qualification will get me VERY far in life and also help me achieve what I want to do, and the great thing is that I have total freedom to study whenever I wanted. But the thing I like about it most is that the tutors are really helpful and friendly.

I once called up one of the tutors and I felt a bit low on motivation, I explained my situation and I don't know what he said exactly, but it filled me with more motivation than when I had started the course. Now I'm studying extra hard and putting more time in, and because of the talk I had with the tutor, it really pushed me in the right direction, and my scores on my recently submitted TMA's prove it!

I'd just like to thank the tutor team for being so helpful and the course advisor for giving me this opportunity and the website which had Skills Train as a link, because at the end of the day, if they weren't there, I would not be on this road to success!

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-Muhammed

I DECIDED TO GO FOR A CHALLENGE, INSTEAD OF LIVING DAY TO DAY. THIS COURSE HAS REALLY OPENED UP A WHOLE NEW WORLD FOR ME, NEVER THINKING I COULD DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS.I HAVE STARTED WORKING ON MY OWN PC, WHICH IS NOW WORKING FASTER AND BETTER THAN WHEN I FIRST STARTED. I AM ENJOYING THE NEW KNOWLEDGE THAT I HAVE ALREADY PICKED UP, KNOWING THERE IS A VERY LONG WAY TO GO.
HELPING IMPROVE OTHERS WORK STATIONS OR PERSONAL PC'S/ LAPTOPS IS THE FULL AIM I HAVE, AND KNOWING THAT I CAN HELP OTHERS IS WHAT IS DRIVING ME FORWARD WITH MORE DETERMINATION.

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-Martin