Looking for course provider recommendations

**FatLazyContractor** · 10 January 2015, 16:57

Originally posted by Zero Liability View Post

In order to expand my skillset, I would like to do some courses in (advanced) Excel & Excel VBA, Java (starting at the beginning) and intro level project management (Prince 2 Foundation in particular). For Java, I am aware of udemy and pluralsight as reputable providers - anyone else got suggestions for any decent online courses for the aforementioned?

I also plan on doing the AAT LV 2 later but have not decided with whom yet; Eagle Education seems to come highly recommended for that, as opposed to Kaplan which is pricier. Suggestions on course providers for any of these would be much appreciated, as well as any insight as to their pricing.

Check Groupon for Advanced Excel courses.

**northernladuk** · 10 January 2015, 18:28

Do you ever have time between contracts or have you been in consecutive gigs? I personally would say just wait for a gap and go do an instructor lead course personally. It's an investment to your business so pay a little more and do it properly I would say. You'll learn a lot more instructor lead with other delegates so be better for you to apply in the long run. Particularly with the Prince2 as well. They actually teach you how to do the exam in the course so much better chance of passing. Do a 5 day jobbie and get practitioner at same time.

**Zero Liability** · 10 January 2015, 19:27

They've been consecutive but I plan on going permie soon anyway, at least for the next few years until I've built up a decent skillset.

**SpontaneousOrder** · 11 January 2015, 00:09

Check out JavaRanch for your Java stuff. You can ask any java questions, and ask them for resources. Once you get hang of knowing what it is you're actually looking for, the world is your oyster with the modern interwebs. Untold goodies at skillsmatter, etc etc, when it comes to actually writing good software.

**FatLazyContractor** · 11 January 2015, 10:40

For technical courses, you are much better off using online resources (most of them are free). The experience you gain would mostly be through building functionality/crunching code either on projects or in your free time.

For project management related courses, what NLUK said.

**Zero Liability** · 11 January 2015, 11:54

Great, thanks all. Regarding Prince2, which providers would you guys (or anyone else reading) consider good value for money?

**leovzla** · 19 April 2015, 19:44

You can easily get prepared for PRINCE2 Foundation by self study. There is a good PRINCE2 Foundation online course from mPlaza.pm
They guarantee you pass the foundation and their self study included all you need for PRINCE2 Foundation exam.
It also contains some PRINCE2 sample exam which helps you to get prepared for exam.

**jamesbrown** · 19 April 2015, 21:23

I don't work in IT, but I often work on problems involving computer simulation, so you can take this for what it's worth; when I learned Java around 15 years ago, I went on a 5-day instructor-led course with Sun Microsystems. At the time, I mainly used Fortran, so I wasn't a complete novice, but I may as well have been. It was worth every penny, because it provided the motivation as much as the foundation. The instructor was excellent and the material well-structured (much more so than text books, although I appreciate that these have likely improved over time). I don't know whether the current set of Oracle courses are similarly good and whether their standards are consistently high (perhaps others can comment), but I would strongly recommend some in-person instruction before you hit the books/online materials. I think the cost was about 3k back then, but it's probably cheaper now, given all the competition.

Looking for course provider recommendations