I’ve actually finished 2 weeks of Sharepoint training from Setfocus, but here, I’m just going to talk about my experiences in my first week. And, by the way, I’m taking the night classes (T/Thur and every other Saturday).

I’ve never done something like this (online training), so it was very new to me. I got started a little late, so I didn’t have time to get things setup the way I needed, so I got a little behind. I have some tips for new students -

  1. Go through all your emails and read them thoroughly, following all the instructions.  They wouldn’t send you an email if it wasn’t important.
  2. If you don’t get something about the setup or the interaction or anything – don’t hesitate to call.  They have a great support staff and the staff is more than willing to help you out.
  3. When they tell you the upload speed is important – pay attention because it is.  Luckily,  I was in the process of changing from my local cable to AT&T Uverse.  My local cable provider’s upload speed was dismal at best,  and it really affected my first couple of days online.  Once I got a decent speeed from my provider,  it was a piece of cake after that.
  4. Start reading from the very first.  They usually give you a few chapters to read before your first class.  You will be way ahead of the game if you do this.
  5. If you’re a VB.Net guy, take this chance to learn C#- do all your labs in C#.  You’ll thank me at the end of the course,  I know. VB.Net is a great language, but there are 8 C# jobs out there for every 2 VB.Net jobs.
  6. Test your polycom setup as soon as possible since this is an important part of the class interaction.

I have been working in the .Net world now for over 8 years, and the first week, as an overview to ASP.Net I was surprised that I actually learned new stuff during that week.  Things were a little bumpy, overall, but now that I’ve got everything straightened out (thanks to all the staff at Setfocus who helped), it’s very smooth and I’m looking forward to the rest of the class. I’m very excited about my future possibilities now, thanks to SetFocus.