Complaint / Review
Microsoft
Ripoff education in their network software

I signed up to take Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer [MCSE] courses, about 9 years ago. At that time, single courses cost $1,500 to $2,000, and you could get a break by buying a special membership at the MSCE mill I went to, for $12,000.

I thought I knew what I was doing. The texts looked good from a distance. Once I paid my money, I discovered that Microsoft courses are really, really bad. Then, one had to pass 6 different exams, to get the MCSE certification. The exams borrowed from all the courses, which meant you had to take all the courses to hope to pass the exams. The exams cost around $100 per exam. It may be up to $200 now. The tests are set up to fail experienced network engineers. Some of them failed the exams, a 2nd and 3rd time through.

The tests are set up so you need a lot of on the job experience, to pass them. I thought paying for education got you the knowledge to pass tests, and then get the job, but this is not the Microsoft way. People already working as uncertified MCSEs found the Microsoft tests hard, and some couldn't pass them. Each text, then, ran around $200, which I was also not told up front. Also, to hope to pass the test, you had to buy test prep software, which was quite expensive. This was left out of the sales presentation.

With a salesman paid mostly on commission, no surprises in that. I ended up paying out around $15,000, for the tuition, software, and books. For almost nothing. There wasn't much I could do about it. Many other people were in the same boat, some had been laid off and were only given 6 months to get certified, and for someone without extensive previous experience, it was extremely difficult. I found learning foreign languages eaiser. And gosh, do the salespeople lie about the great jobs you'll get when you're all done. MCSE certification is much harder to get, now.

If you are planning on doing any advanced Microsoft Certifications, know that everything the salesman says is probably a lie, and you need to talk to people already working in the field, to get good information.