You may find it hard to believe but throughout my whole career I’ve never had any form of training. I don’t have any certificates that say I can write software, no professional accreditation, nothing. Never been on so much of a “how to turn a computer on” course. It’s amazing I’ve gotten this far with my sweet-talking alone…
That’s all about to end though. I’m going to be spending the next 3 days being trained on SQL Server 2005. This is the first company I’ve ever worked for that has actually followed through and put me on a training course! Of course, I don’t harbour any grudges. I’ve always been from the “pick up a book and read it” school of learning and it’s stood me in good stead thus far. I’ll be interested to see if this whole training thing is all it’s cranked up to be. I’ll keep you posted.
What’s so damn difficult about select * from contacts that it takes 3 days? 😉
Seriously though, it’s just a tad more complicated than MySQL.
I think that teaching yourself is the best way to learn. Having said that, training courses are useful because they should save you time. A few years ago I did a five day SQL Server 2000 course and it enabled me to get up to speed far quicker than if I’d been left to it. I also picked up some good real world knowledge from the tutor.
One good thing about my current employer is that they do invest a lot in training.
select * from contacts? That must be in the advanced course… 😉
I reckon the one good thing about training courses is it opens your eyes to a few things that you might not have come across on your own. At least that’s what’s happened on day one!
“..opens your eyes to a few things that you might not have come across on your own..”
That’s what I found with (self-)studying for the few MCP exams that I’ve done. The fact that I had a particular syllabus to cover meant that I was forced to delve into areas of, say, the .NET Framework that I wouldn’t ordinarily have stumbled across.