Training support for students is an absolute must - locate a good company offering 24x7 direct access to instructors, as not opting for this kind of support could hold up your pace and restrict your intake. Beware of institutions that use 'out-of-hours' messaging systems - where you'll get called back during office hours. It's no use when you're stuck on a problem and need help now.

The most successful trainers incorporate three or four individual support centres around the globe in several time-zones. By utilising an interactive interface to link them all seamlessly, at any time you choose, help is at hand, without any contact issues or hassle. Never make do with less than this. Support round-the-clock is really your only option with IT courses. It's possible you don't intend to study late evenings; but for the majority of us however, we're at work at the time when most support is available.

Workshops can be portrayed as a great feature by a lot of training schools. When you talk to the majority of IT students who've attended a few, you'll begin to see a common thread - they are viewed as a mistake because of many things:

- Many back and forth visits - sometimes hundreds of miles each and every time.

- If you're working, then weekday only events cause problems at work. Often you're looking at two or three days together to make it worse.

- Let us not disregard the lost vacation days. We typically get twenty days annual leave. If at least half is sacrificed to learning, then we haven't got much left for ourselves.

- Classes fill up fast and can be very crammed in.

- Maybe you like to work at a slower or quicker pace than the rest of the class. This creates the tension often found in classrooms.

- The cost of travel - arranging transport to the training facility plus accommodation can mount up every time you have to go. If we just assume an average of 5 to 10 centre-days costing 35 pounds for one night's accommodation, plus 40 pounds for petrol and food at 15.00, that becomes a minimum of four to nine hundred pounds of add-on cost.

- Keeping your training private from your employer is often very important to a lot of trainees. You don't want to lose any possible promotions, salary hikes or success in your job while you're training. If your work discovers that you're undertaking training in another sector, what do you think they'll do?

- Who amongst us hasn't avoided putting our hand's up, because we wanted to look smarter?

- If you on occasion work elsewhere in the country for several days at a time, think of the now-increased trouble of making the necessary classes, when time-off becomes even harder to obtain.

Wouldn't it be better to watch on-screen and gain knowledge from instructors one-to-one from pre-filmed modules, taking them at a time that's convenient for you and you alone. Do them at home on your PC or use your laptop to enjoy the sun. If you have any questions, then use the provided 24x7 live support (that you should have insisted on for any technical study.) It doesn't matter how regularly you would like to re-take a quiz or test, filmed tutors can never get frustrated with you! Plus, with this method, note-taking becomes a thing of the past. It's all there for you. Could it get any simpler: Time and money is saved and travelling is avoided altogether; and you've got a much more stress-free training setting.

Don't accept anything less than the most up to date Microsoft (or any other key organisation's) authorised exam preparation and simulation materials. Be sure that the practice exams are not just posing the correct questions on the right subjects, but are also posing them in the way that the actual final exam will pose them. It completely unsettles trainees if they're met with completely different formats and phraseologies. Practice exams can be invaluable as a tool for logging knowledge into your brain - so that when you come to take the real deal, you don't get uptight.

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