Advent Training Gone bust... what now??

Steven_NCS

Think I might be getting caught in the crossfire here...

MADROX

Steven_NCS wrote: »

Think I might be getting caught in the crossfire here...

no just bad timing and thread lol

Welshwoofs

Steven_NCS wrote: »

Shame you think like that, but I don't think I would be able to convince you otherwise. Even if I lined up the hundreds of students who are now earning a good living as plumbers and electricians or if you bothered to look at the student satisfaction surveys we post every quarter on our web site. We have a few students who have not been satisfied with what we have done, but very few and there are always other sides to every story. But I don't think I'd convince you, and if I tried you'd probably report me for promoting my company (which I was quite open about). So much for free speech. No doubt you'll post a scathing reply. But I'd be happy to show you round.

1. I have no desire to look around your establishment because I have no desire to work in the trades. I'm a senior manager in the online gaming industry.
2. Surveys mean squat. That's just fluff and PR. Save it.
3. Free speech is:
a) Something written into the American constituation and nothing to do with the UK.
b) A concept which enshrines the right of the population to speak out against government - again, in the USA.
c) Not applicable to private arenas anyway. There is no free speech on this or any other private or corporate website, you abide by their Terms and one of the Terms of MSE is no commerical advertising. The fact that you're ignoring those Terms and have chosen to prey upon people who've already lost money with yet another half-arsed training program rather highlights what sort of scruples (or lack thereof) your training centre has.

WARNING: For anyone reading this who wants to go into the trades DO NOT give thousands of your hard-earned money to these places. Do it properly, get the right exams via your local colleges where you'll train for minimum cost (and often for nothing). Proper time-served tradespeople laugh at these sorts of private training companies and the level of people they churn out and no amount of self-penned bullcrap about happy customers will change that.

MADROX

@welshwoofs. Any advice on getting into the gaming industry? i was hoping to get my mcse as something under my belt but i really want to get into the gaming industry, i play games, i dream games, i make games, i mod games.

a bit of friendly advice would help alot

Steven_NCS

Didn't think you'd listen.

Welshwoofs

Steven_NCS wrote: »

Didn't think you'd listen.

http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/plumbing-courses-feedback/455-new-career-skills-feedback.html

"hello lads,i done a new career skills course,paid £3500,and was ripped off.
so now doing a proper college course.just out of interest are you quallified up to nvq3 or you have got your nvq3 paperwork"


Very first Google result below your own company site. Need I say more? I'm not going to waste energy digging further because I know damn well what I'll find.

MADROX

welshwoofs wrote: »

"hello lads,i done a new career skills course,paid £3500,and was ripped off.
So now doing a proper college course.just out of interest are you quallified up to nvq3 or you have got your nvq3 paperwork"


very first google result below your own company site. Need i say more? I'm not going to waste energy digging further because i know damn well what i'll find.

!!!!!!win!!!!!!

Welshwoofs

MADROX wrote: »

@welshwoofs. Any advice on getting into the gaming industry? i was hoping to get my mcse as something under my belt but i really want to get into the gaming industry, i play games, i dream games, i make games, i mod games.

a bit of friendly advice would help alot

Biggest piece of advice - don't bother doing an MCSE, it's of no use whatsoever for the gaming industry.

As for getting into the industry, you really need to focus on what arm you want to get into. For instance my speciality is the moderation and safety of online gaming, specifically virtual worlds. Then you have people with a more journalistic background who become editors/producers and look after the game site campaigns, events and copy. There's marketing people and ad-sales people. You have the concept designers - those who come up with the ideas for features, gameplay and user-interface. On the development side you have your coders and your graphic artists. On the infrastructure side you'll have systems architects, database managers, security specialists and the crew who keep the systems up and running.

So that's a massively wide spread and you really need to hone where your skills and interests lay. This site gives a good over-view of the various positions and the sorts of skills you need for them. There are lots and lots of other sites about breaking into the game industry though so I'd also Google a bit.

From personal experience I'd say that the majority of people in this industry have done a related degree (especially for the more technical side of things), but there's a significant minority - myself included - who got in through sheer hard work and being stubborn. I started off on an ISP helpdesk as second line support team leader (self-taught tech) but I also spent all my spare time moderating/game guiding and used to bombard the company with ideas and suggestions. Eventually they called me in and gave me an assistant manager job. I've worked my way up from there and now work for one of the biggest titles in the world, in a senior position, working 100% at home and earning in the 40% tax bracket.

It is doable and honestly, throwing £thousands at training companies isn't the way to go.

MADROX

Thanks very much :-)

Steven_NCS

Hang on a minute - as I said in my post above there are a few folk who aren't happy. I accept that - you'll acceopt I think that you cannot keep everyone happy all the time. But out of the thousands of students we've trained, very, very few have any issues and loads more are successful. And as I also said there are always two sides to a story. And what you didn't mention is that that posting was two years old. So we don't have a bad record do we?

But I know you won't be interested in that will you? If I say something positive then according to you that's not to be believed - according to you it's promotional deceit. You seem very biased and not really interested in anything that challenges your belief that you know best. I'd love to give you the opportunity to change your mind.