A+ consists of four exams and areas of study, but your only requirement is to get your exams in 2 of them to be considered A+ competent. For this reason, the majority of training providers stick to just two options. But allowing you to learn about all 4 options will equip you with a far greater perspective of it all, which you'll come to realise is an important asset in the working environment.

Alongside being taught how to build PC's and fix them, students on A+ courses will be taught how to operate in antistatic conditions, along with remote access, fault finding and diagnostics. Should you want to work towards looking after computer networks, add the very comprehensive Network+ to the CompTIA A+ training you're doing. This qualification will mean you can command a more senior job role. Also look at the networking qualifications from Microsoft, i.e. MCP, MCSA MCSE.

If you're thinking of using a training school that still provides workshops as a benefit of their course, then you should know about these problems reported by the majority of trainees:

* Repeated long journeys - 100's of miles a lot of the time.

* Monday to Friday accessibility to workshops can be usual, and with two or three days required at a time, this causes a lot of problems for the majority of students who work.

* Holiday days lost - the majority of IT hopefuls are given only twenty days of leave annually. If you use up half of that with educational days, that isn't going to leave much vacation time for most student's families.

* 'In-Centre' workshop days can become too big.

* The 'pace' - classes invariably contain trainees of mixed skill, so tension develops between students with more background knowledge and those who prefer a more relaxed pace.

* Quite a lot of trainees talk of the high costs involved with getting transport to and from the venue and paying for food and accommodation gets very expensive.

* Keeping your training private from your employer can be high on the list of priorities to a lot of trainees. There's no need to throw away potential advancement, income boosts or accomplishment at your current job just because you're retraining. When your boss discovers that you're undertaking qualification in a different industry, what are they going to be thinking?

* It's quite usual for trainees not to put a question forward that they would like answered - just due to the reason that they're in front of other people.

* If your work takes you away from home, you have the added problem that workshops can become impossible to get to - but unfortunately, the fees were paid along with everything else at the start.

It really does make more sense to be taught when it suits you -- not the training company - and make use of instructor-led videos with interactive lab's. Consider... With a laptop you have the ability to learn wherever you happen to be at that time. And 24x7 support is only a web-click away at times of difficulty. Repeat any of the classes if you need to - doing something over will help you remember it. And you can say goodbye to note-taking - everything is already laid on for you. What could be more straightforward: No travelling, wasted time or money; and you end up with a more peaceful study environment.

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