MSCD Course versus self-paced tuition?

Steve · Guest

Can anyone advise on a suitable course of action.

I have very little experience in .Net development but I
have expertise as detailed below. I was thinking of
taking an intesive in-house course(2-3 weeks) to acquire
MSCD certification. Given my expereience as detailed
here, do you think it would be too great a task and would
I be better completing a self-paced course?

Experience:
20 years experience in systems analysis (5 years UML)
15 years expert development in Visual Foxpro (object-
oriented development tool)
5 years VB 5/6.
10 years expertise as a SQL DBA/Developer.
Full SDLC project design development and implementation.

hadi · Guest

Hi Steve,

Looking at your details and long list of experience, you
should have acquired a higher and respectable management
duty, such as a project management.

I fully respect your deep motivation in learning a new
language as in .NET environment. I can't give you an exact
value of time as it should be you that can measure how much
time should you acquired in order to learn a new language
based on your current skills.

Intensive in-house course is a valuable source although
it's quite expensive, since you can interact immediately
with someone expert in order to consolidate and solidify
your knowledge and idea. I would highly recommended you to
pass each test step by step and finally you will be expert
in the .NET itself :)

In order to decide whether you learn it by yourself or
attending any course, you can pick up a Certification books
such as (70-305) and test yourself how far do you
understand the explanation in the books and how long do you
need to understand it. If you can understand it easily,
then it should be allright to use self-paced methods,
otherwise attending a course would be a great benefit for
you. Remember there is an amount of time in order for
someone to absorb a knowledge.

Rgrds,
hadi

Scott Brookhart · Guest

Steve,
I have for the most part gone the self-study route and used the
certification process not only as a marketing tool for getting work, but
also to quickly get me up to date on the important technologies.
Your SQL DBA experience will be quite beneficial towards the MCSD,
your VB 5/6 experience will help, but may also be confusing when learning
VB.NET.
It might actually be easier for you to take on C# and forgo the confusion
between
VB 5/6 and VB.NET. .NET is more object oriented than past technologies and
while this is
significantly better, it may prove a learning curve depending upon your past
experiences.
Good luck..
Scott
MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA

"hadi" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
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Hadi · Guest

Thanks for comments Hadi,

Amusigly enough, I am indeed a project manager but I also
believe in knowing the tools that are used by the people
I am managing.

From your comments it doesn't appear that a course would
be entirely beyond the realms of possibility which is
good to hear. Naturally, it will be very intensive and a
close call whether I can pass all 5 exams at the end of
it.

Thanks

Steve