If there's any chance you'll be enrolling with a training company which is still pushing 'in-centre workshop days' as a necessary part of their training, then listen to these typical downsides met by many students:

- Loads of travelling - multiple visits and sometimes 100's of miles at a go.

- Weekday only availability to events can be usual, and with two or three days required at a time, this is usually problematic for many working people.

- Let's not overlook lost vacation time. Often, we get four weeks vacation allowance. If over 50 percent is used in classes, then we aren't going to be doing much vacationing.

- Training events fill up fast and will likely end up bigger than you'd hoped.

- You may prefer to move at a somewhat more suitable pace - rather than be dictated to by the rest of the class. This can create a classic case of 'classroom tension'.

- Don't ignore the increased cost of driving and over-night accommodation either. Often, this will cost a lot of money - from hundreds to thousands. Sit down and add it up - you'll be (unpleasantly) surprised.

- Quite a lot of attendees want their training to remain private thus avoiding all come-back at work.

- Who amongst us hasn't avoided posing that question we were dying to ask, just because we wanted to maintain the illusion that we did, in fact, understand?

- Often, classes are virtually impossible to attend, where you work away for days at a time.

The absolute best situation is by viewing a pre-filmed workshop - with instructor-led learning available whenever you wish. Whenever you experience difficulties, get onto the live 24x7 support (that we hope you'll insist on with any technical courses.) Keep in mind, if your PC is a notebook PC, you could study wherever the mood takes you. Just do the study modules at any time you want or need. There's also no need to jot down any notes as you have the lesson indefinitely. The outcome: Less hassle and stress, money saved, and travelling is removed.

At its simplest level then, we can say programming is merely telling electronic equipment how to do it's task by use of unique 'languages'. As you may imagine, that dramatically over- simplifies the task. When you get to the level of 'Windows' on your pc, its likely you'll find close to 100 unique programs running behind the scenes, enabling the operating system so you can perform tasks. In fact there are two different types of computer programs. We have the operating-system software, that's low-level, and the 'applications' software. Among the most well known operating systems globally is Microsoft Windows. Windows is actually a very complex group of programs, all inter-acting with each other to control everything - the space on the desk-top, how you interact with it, your internet & network access, all of the storage-mediums & all the connecting devices.

For the most part, the average IT hopeful really has no clue how they should get into a computing career, let alone which market they should look at getting trained in. As having no commercial skills in the IT industry, in what way could we understand what a particular job actually consists of? Deliberation over several areas is required if you need to expose the right solution that will work for you:

- Personalities play a major role - what gives you a 'kick', and what are the areas that get you down.

- Is your focus to re-train because of a specific motive - i.e. are you looking at working based from home (self-employment possibly?)?

- Does salary have a higher place on your wish list than other factors.

- With many, many areas to train for in IT - you'll need to get some background information on what differentiates them.

- Taking a serious look at the level of commitment, time and effort that you're going to put into it.

For the majority of us, considering so much data will require meeting with someone that can explain things properly. And we don't just mean the accreditations - but also the commercial requirements besides.

Have a conversation with almost any skilled consultant and they'll entertain you with many worrying experiences of students who've been sold completely the wrong course for them. Ensure you only ever work with an experienced advisor who asks some in-depth questions to discover the most appropriate thing for you - not for their wallet! Dig until you find an ideal starting-point that fits you. If you have a strong background, or perhaps a bit of commercial experience (possibly even some previous certification?) then it's likely the level you'll need to start at will vary from someone who is just starting out. If this is going to be your opening effort at studying for an IT examination then you should consider whether to begin with some basic Microsoft package and Windows skills first.

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