CompTIA discouragement

[BoodaGazelle]

After retiring from 37 years as a software engineer, I got bored, and decided to look at getting my CompTIA A+ certification
to see about working in a new area. With my experience, I obviously know quite a bit of the content already, but also understand
that I will really have to study to pass this. I have been working with Mike Meyers book and videos, as well as Professor Messer's.

Most of the time, I have been getting about 80% correct when I take various test exams found online. The other day, however, I
took one that I had not studied for, and got only 44%. This was one on configuring mobile devices, mostly about email. The test
seemed to be completely about which TCP ports to configure various email services, such as POP3, IMAP, et al.

This made me want to drop the entire CompTIA project. The video even admitted that nowadays, no one sets these values, as they
just use the built-in apps on the phone or tablets.

I know this is not a question, but more of a rant, but I figured I would see if anyone would tell me to stick with it, it will still be worth it
to get your A+ cert....

Thanks,

Mitch

 

[Ralston18]

This:

"The video even admitted that nowadays, no one sets these values, as they ust use the built-in apps on the phone or tablets."

What is that quote about "in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king"...?

So if you have the knowledge and skills that no one else has or may not even pay attention to - then you/your skills are valuable.

Especially when those "no ones" manage to mess around with and otherwise misconfigure the built in apps.

You can fix.

If that is your goal then stick with it.

Just a thought.....

 

[Newtonius]

Honestly it depends on what you plan to do with your certificate. The A+ certificate is primarily for people who want to have certification to show while applying for IT support role jobs. Like Field Engineers or IT helpdesk support. With your background experience in software engineering being so extended you would be an ideal candidate for software based jobs.

If your plan was to move from software to hardware, then A+ will be a big plus - but then you have other certifications to look at for various other job roles such as Cisco certifications, ITIL CCNP, etc.

In the end it all depends on what you want to do with A+ cert and what your situation with money is now. I mention money because simply put you could just buy a bunch of server equipment and learn hardware troubleshooting and installing as a hobby.

tl;dr
It's a nice Cert to have for IT SUPPORT jobs but if you only want it just to have it then it would be more beneficial to explore the topics on your own time and explore new hobbies in various hardware through buying your own equipment and experiementing.

 

[BoodaGazelle]

Thanks for the replies. I freely admit to being torn. :-(

The main reason I would still like to have the A+ under my belt is that I am interested in forensic computing, and I
think it would be required for something like that.

I really do not want to go back to development. But I used to do tons of Python (scripting, not Django/web), and *nix shell scripting (Bash, Expect), and I was thinking about taking some courses in Windows PowerShell, just to try something different.

I also have thought about trying to learn Selenium, as I have done screen scraping with Python/Beautiful Soup, and I like the idea of figuring out how to drive Web interfaces...

Mitch