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Education Technology

Training in a Foreign Technology Boot Camp? 40

Posted by Cliff from the intensive-learning dept.
Martin Clarke asks: "I've recently been considering undertaking a technology boot camp to get some more certs under my belt to help with my employability. I've always taught myself, but I feel like I need to get it done. I've came across an interesting option, a very well priced tech boot camp in Dehli from Koenig. Has anyone ever considered something like this? What other unorthodox training options have Slashdot readers tried?"
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Training in a Foreign Technology Boot Camp? More

Training in a Foreign Technology Boot Camp?

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  • But the occassional beheading becomes annoying.
  • I wouldn't get certs; they really don't help you much. Only experience helps you in the long run. But if you do want certs, I would self-study rather than pay for any kind of boot camp, especially one that requires significant travel. It comes out less expensive that way.
    • I wouldn't get certs; they really don't help you much. Only experience helps you in the long run.

      Unfortunatly, this is bullshit. Just troll the want ads. Microsoft certs, good or bad (BAD!) still get jobs. But if you have to get certs, get Cisco certs.

    • I wouldn't get certs; they really don't help you much.
      Disagree: Early in my career they helped me a lot! I can count at least two contracts that I would not have had without my MCSD. With recruiters, certs can really get your foot in the door. It is unfair, as some people with certs but no skills get jobs. But blame the game, not the player!

      Only experience helps you in the long run.
      Agree: In the long run, you will still need to have the skills and recommendations from former employers. I have s

    • I have to disagree strongly with this. I just passed my CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) examination after taking a week-long boot camp from The Training Camp [trainingcamp.com]. I might have passed the examination anyway, but the class was a real help in learning the terminology and character of the exam, which was instrumental in passing.

      While perhaps I could have gotten the same results studying on my own, it was much easier and more concise to have instructors that not only knew the field, b

  • Dehli? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by metlin ( 258108 ) * on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:05AM (#10467276) Journal
    Or perhaps you mean the Indian Capital of New Delhi? [wikipedia.org]

    Anyway, I would say just this -- get a degree. A degree is infinitely better than any certifications that you may take. While certifications are nice things to have, a degree speaks a whole lot more.

    If you have one, work on a master's part time. Much better than wasting money on these things.

    But that's just me. And personally, when I hire, I do not look for either of these -- degrees or certifications -- but rather technical skill and talent. Things like Opensource projects and other kinds of experience plays a bigger role than either of those.

    But ofcourse, you may come across PHBs who think otherwise. At which point it becomes a call of judgement.
    • Yes. See my comments here:

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=124846&cid=104 67001

      • Re:Dehli? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by metlin ( 258108 ) *
        Yup, agreed.

        Most people forget that shorcuts are short-term positives and long term negatives.

        While a PhD may take time, it's worth its weight in gold. However, then again getting into something like a PhD is quite pointless if you are not interested in the subject to begin with.
      • http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=124846&cid=104 67001
    • Thanks for your comments, I've already got my degree. :) I agree with you that hiring based on experience is the best way to go.

      However, I'm looking at getting into the contracting market where certs just seem so much more important than a degree. Where I have to get past a number of clueless salesmen acting as recruitment consultants who are desperately trying to find the certs that their clients are wanting.
      • Well, in that case, certifications would indeed be useful. You could try talking to the contractors and ask them what market is likely to be good, and what not -- usually, they've a pretty good idea of these things.

        Like another poster mentioned somewhere, SAP is another area that seems to be forever in need of people. You could try that, and you could get in touch with other contractors, who may be able to help you out in this regard.

        And another thing I've noticed in contractor based jobs is that you woul
    • Oh how I wish there were more people like you in hiring positions. I'm a self taught geek with half a CS degree, 6 years of Naval Nuke power experience and the best I can get job-wise is entry level/call center stuff.
      • I thought that the Naval Nuke power program was your golden ticket, let you walk into any 3MileIsland power plant (I mean that in a good way - that's the only one I can name off the top of my head) and get started doing whatever Nuke power plant guys do.

        Dang, I would like to think it is better than you represent just because I almost went that route.
        • It's supposed to be that way. But the reality is much more harsh than what you'd think. If you want to go into any other field, you may as well not even tell them you were a nuke. Even if you interview with someone who knows what all that entails, they start to question why you didn't want to work in ionizing radiation.

  • Over-glorified vacation... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by krymsin01 ( 700838 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:06AM (#10467490) Homepage Journal
    I guess the question is if you want to go to New Delhi or not. And if you want to pay a lot more money than if you went on vacation...

    Thinking about it, if I were a potential employer and you came to me and said: "I got my MSCE (or whatever) cert in New Delhi," the first thing I'd ask you is "Why?"

    I can't see a defendable position for that question. 1) You'll be studying the same material that you would be studing in a program in your own country. 2) You could have studied on your own and saved money. 3) You just wasted a lot of money by taking a course in ANOTHER country.

    • Thankfully you are not my potential employer, for people acostumed to jump accross continents the place where a certification was confered has little importance.

      Certifications are pretty much the same everywhere (that is why they are backed up by global companies), I have taken them in Asia, Latin America, the US and Europe.

      Your comment is frankly childish.
      • Exactly. Certifications are pretty much the same anywhere. It makes no sense to leave the country to get one, UNLESS the asker wants to go to New Delhi anyway. I don't think the fact that it was recieved in a foreign country will add any weight to the certification. And if the poster is used to jumping around the world, I doubt he'd be asking Slashdot if he should be making this trip or not.
    • Well going to New Delhi or some other cheaper place has an adavatage to taking course in the USA. Getting down to basic economics, the course itself is probably cheaper, so is the rent and living expenses. As for the quality of the course itself, last time I checked the certification exams are standardized so it should not matter which place you take it. I also think that the certificate itself doesn't even say that it was issued in New Dehli. So you don't even have to tell about it to your employer.
    • What's wrong in getting a certification from another place?

      Hell, I've gotten my certifications for various things in physics from places across the world -- simply because it gives me an opportunity to travel, and it helps me get another perspective of things.

      It's an experience. If anything, you should be glad that the candidate is willing to go to various places, learn, and adapt. Not to mention the familiarity with new places.

      Just out of curiosity, _you_ have not given me a reason - why NOT?

      It's not l

  • I know one person who does this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by anticypher ( 48312 ) <anticypher@@@gmail...com> on Friday October 08, 2004 @06:39AM (#10468314) Homepage
    I met one SAP programmer at a client site who gets all his training in warm, sunny locations. If I didn't know everything already, I'd probably follow his example :-)

    He loves to travel, earns enough from each SAP contract to take a few months off, and spends part of his travel learning "The Next Great Thing". I think he started as a DB2 expert, then went through the whole Oracle training series in places like Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. He calculates the cost against things like local cost of living, exchange rates, and vacation possibilities. He double checks the course is offered in English, rather than the local language, often the courses have American or Kiwi instructors. He also talks to useless lumps of s^W^W^W^Wrecruiters about where the market is going and which skillset pays the best to decide what courses to take.

    He had one example from when he was working in Colorado. To take the two or three necessary Oracle training courses local to Colorado, at US$3000-US$5000 per course, he could buy a ticket to Kuala Lumpur and take the courses at the equivalent of US$400, and still come out ahead. He spent a week in some tropical beach hut in the region to get over his jetlag, then 3 or 4 hectic weeks at the Oracle HQ in KL using the exact same materials and computers. Afterwards he had all the training on a specific product for his next contract, and a great tan.

    If you do this, you don't have to mention where you got your certificate, but if it comes out, then put a positive spin on it. "Yes, I picked up that certificate on my most recent around the world trip, while scouting possible lucrative contracts downunda. But your company's project really caught my attention bla bla bullshit bla..." At the very least, some time spent in a foreign country learning new job skills will also open your mind quite a bit more than most 'merkins. Yeah, that's it, its a learning experience.

    the AC
    • Thanks for your feedback. I was aware that it was going to be much cheaper to do the boot camp India (thats why I'm considering it in the first place). However, I hadn't considered that a potential employer might react negatively to where I got my training. Good spin on it though.
      • Any decent employer just wants good skills, and shouldn't care where you picked them up. Consider employer reaction as a litmus test for whether you want to work there or not. I don't think my contractor friend ever had a problem, but he's worked on every continent except Antarctica. Certainly he is in a very high demand market, with pitifully few qualified workers. I'm nowhere near the DB/SAP field, and I get asked about it a few times each year from headhunters.

        the AC
        Putting spin on bad news for over 20
      • Where do you plan on working?
        If you plan on working in India, it is probably a good plan.

        After the last three completely fuxored projects outsourced from my department alone - if someone came to an interview proudly announcing that he was trained in India I would show him to the door with a polite 'don't call us / we'll call you.'

        No offense intended, but the corporate focus is slowly shifting back from 'absolutely cheapest' to 'doesn't suck'. Thank God.
    • Because several other comments just plain suck.

      I don't see why you should hide the place where you got your certs, any place is as good as any other, and good employers know that.
    • Agreed, a friend has done this (well, Oracle and Sun Admin courses) in Australia. It cost him about 30% less than in western Europe. Another friend did this in Russia where he saved around 75% on some MS courses (and the course was in English). He was already living there so the visa wasn't a problem.

      Personally, I think going to somewhere even more exotic like India, Malaysia or Thailand for certification would be great. The price is low and the opportunities for relaxation before or after the course are

  • Not new... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sonamchauhan ( 587356 ) <sonamcNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday October 08, 2004 @08:45AM (#10468734) Journal
    As this BBC story shows this is not really new...
    Pensioner eyes up India treatment [bbc.co.uk]

    A British pensioner frustrated by the long waiting list for a cataract operation on the National Health Service flew to India for 20 minutes of eye surgery.

    The pensioner did run the risk of post-operative complications in a backward (compared to his country) foreign country. However, he probably got very good care -- several Indian private medical facilities are absolutely top-notch. (Sadly, public medical facilities are pathetic -- the majority of Indians would be truly blessed to have the NHS or medicare equivalent in India.) While you don't run the same degree of risk he did, if you go, be careful about food and drink... a 3-star hotel is pretty basic there. Also, Indian accents _may_ be a bit difficult for you to understand and the degree of skill in conversational English varies widely. (Perhaps talk to the instructor on the phone before signing up?) Also the price is a bit expensive for India. A google search shows other cheaper options: http://www.mcsecamp.com/. There's no question about bang for the buck in India though -- you may well find a very skilled instructor and excellent lab facilities. Or you may not. That's the risk - there can be more unknowns than where you come from.

    I don't have an MCSE, but wouldn't most employers show interest in the certificate, rather than where you gave the exam or which organization helped prepared you for it? Like the pensioner with cleared-up vison, it's the end-result that's important.

    Also, Delhi is a bit of a boorish city. For example, unescorted foreign females in Delhi can get lots of unwelcome male attention. Shimla is much better.

    • Dude, we all know that Shimla is much better for other reasons [victorborg.com]. ;-)
      • For smoking cannabis?

        Don't destroy yourself smoking dope. And if that attracts you to the Shimla/Manali area, don't come.

        Yes, it does grows wild in the mountains. But wise people don't ingest it. They only use the leaves as a skin rub when you have a rash -- it acts as a local anaesthetic, and may have other good medical properties when applied like that.

        • I meant that as a funny comment, but I *am* (originally) from India. And well, Shimla is a nice place but that helps too.

          *shrug*

          #begin rant

          Don't destroy yourself smoking dope.

          Well, that's true for just about everything isn't it? Alchohol, smoking, even coffee. But that's a very generic statement to make. Smoking dope != destroying yourselves, and I'm sure you're aware of quite a few counter-examples to your point.

          Besides, generalizing marijuana under the rest of the dope is not quite fair -- there is
          • Grow up child. Wikipedia isn't the fountain of all knowledge.

            No fatal overdose due to cannabis use has ever been recorded in humans.
            Except for a few who choked on their own vomit... and then there are the psychological and medical problems caused by this drug:
            http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/librar y /studie s/hlords/15105.htm#n14
            http://www.nida.nih.gov/Ma rijBroch/parentpg13-14N. html

            I know people who've used it for differing amounts of time, and _all_ of them show differing degrees of damage: from g
            • We could go on and on about this, but I'll just say this - the medical community in general is quite biased against the way research is often presented in this particular area.

              From the same page you linked in the first article, they contradict themselves in the sections 4.23 and 4.24. FYI, speaking from personal experience, there _is_ no withdrawal symptoms. And in the cases where people choked on your own vomit, they were most likely under the influence of either alchohol or other chemicals.

              And the secon
              • > I'll just say this - the medical community in general
                > is quite biased against the way research is often presented in this particular area.
                Your allegations of bias cannot discount the good hard research done on the damaging effects of cannabis.

                > they contradict themselves in the sections 4.23 and 4.24.
                Rather it's wishful thinking on your part. In 4.24 they quote an earlier report about mild withdrawal symptoms, but then say that the evidence makes the conclusion uncertain:
                This has provided the
            • Yay!

              I seem to have found a Slashdot bug.

              Foo bar.

              Something

              Something more

              Is this still Italic? Yup it is.

              Strange, the following code causes Slashcode to get foobared -

              <em><li>Something
              <li>Something more
              </em>
              • Jamie, you're right -- it does seem to be a Moz. renderer bug rather than a Slashcode one.

                It seems to render fine on MSIE 6.0, however both Moz. 1.7.3 and Firefox 1.0 seem to freak out.

                Should probably submit it to Bugzilla sometime.
          • I *am* (originally) from India

            Then you would know that "Sonam" is more probably a girl's name... ;-)

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