On this page we feature students who are either currently attending or recently attended a Boot Camp at Koenig. We encourage them to share their experiences in India with their friends across the world. If you are planning to join a Boot Camp at Koenig, you will find this section interesting. And, of course, you can hope to be featured here soon !!!
The mere mention of it conjures up thoughts of the Taj Mahal, Bollywood, the Himalayas, Kashmir, Bengal tigers, IT outsourcing, cricket, beaches, beautiful exotic women like the amazing Aishwarya Rai, spicy food, and even poverty. These all come to mind when one thinks of India. It is at once both wonderful and awful. In the few weeks that I've been here I became ill three times, was involved in my first ever auto accident, developed insomnia, visited the Taj Mahal, passed several certification exams, and made some wonderful acquaintances with some very friendly Indians. Here's my story.
I am an American originally from Dallas, Texas but I currently live on the British owned island of Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory. It's a small island due south of India that's literally in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I run a small, proprietary messaging network based on Microsoft Exchange 5.5 and Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. I sought training and certification because it is likely that my organization will perform an upgrade to Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003 in the very near future given that Microsoft ends its support of NT at the end of the year.
I was working in a different position when this job fell into my lap, so to speak, and I wanted to have some formal training so that I could adequately perform my duties while having the requisite technical knowledge to justify my methods and motives at work. Thus, I registered for A+, Network+, MCSE Messaging 2000, Upgrade to MCSE 2003, MCDBA, and CCNA at Koenig. I have just finished up all of the MCSE 2000 and 2003 core exams and now I am working on Exchange 2003. I also completed A+ and Network+ before I began MCSE. I have put a bit of effort into this article and I hope that you can use it as a reference guide before and after your arrival.
The Research
I originally decided I wanted formal training in August of 2003. My initial searches were strictly limited to Singapore. I had heard of Global Knowledge from the US and their widely available brochures so I sought information there first. I also checked out a couple of other local firms in Singapore that are in the business of IT certification. I met with the respective representatives from each of these schools during a trip to Singapore. The prices of these schools did seem quite steep, but I didn't know of any better alternative and I really wanted the certifications. Therefore I was all set to begin school with Global Knowledge in January of 2004. However, when January came around my leave was cancelled due to some unforeseen scheduling conflicts. As I became doubtful that my goal of IT certification would materialize, I began to search for other options. It was at this point that I decided to broaden my horizons and look beyond Singapore. First, I searched Thailand, which is a wonderful country that I had been to twice in the previous year. I found a school in Chiang Mai that would have cost me the equivalent of $25,000 US for a boot camp schedule similar to the one I registered for at Koenig. Needless to say, I continued to search. As I thought of all of the countries within reasonable flying distance, all of the obvious ones came to mind: Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and even Australia. Despite my broad search, there was nothing in particular that caught my attention. However, shortly thereafter it became obvious to me that I should be searching for a school in India. I had wanted to come to India since I had accepted an offer to work on Diego Garcia two years ago. It was perfect; I could combine the holiday of my dreams with my goal of computer certification. Surely with all of the publicized IT outsourcing and one billion (one gigabyte, as I tell my instructor) people, they must have at least one IT certification school, I thought. So with a Yahoo search of "MCSE India" I came to know about Koenig-Solutions. I immediately noticed how ridiculously inexpensive the prices seemed. Could this be real? Is it legitimate? I studied the web site for a few days and checked the internet for other sites that may have something to say about Koenig. I searched Yahoo again to see if I could find any message boards with reviews of Koenig. I really didn't find much in any forum, other than one message board revealing how intense the school is and that it is no party. Even a search of www.indiamike.com - an excellent resource for everything about India - turned up nothing on Koenig. It turns out that most of the objective information I used to form an elementary opinion on Koenig came from Featured Student articles just like this one. The Featured Student section of the Koenig web site is quite a creative concept.
The Preparation
Once my interest level was piqued, I naturally contacted the school by sending an e-mail to info@koenig-solutions.com. This led to a series of e-mails between me and the training manager, Mr. Sandeep Dhawan, which spanned several months. I asked Sandeep about anything and everything that crossed my mind. He was always quick with a response; I never had to wait longer than 24 hours for a reply with a more than adequate answer for any query. Koenig even made an extensive effort to become approved for the American Montgomery GI Bill so that their training could be reimbursed under this program. Unfortunately, US law won't allow non-degree related educational institutions outside of the US to qualify or my training would have been free. However, if there is a similar program in your country that you would like to use to pay for your training, you can be sure that Koenig will make an exhaustive effort to determine if they can qualify.
After yet another vacation postponement by my employer in April, I was finally permitted to take a three month leave of absence to attend school near the end of July. I arranged my flights to arrive on August 3rd and depart on October 16th. My training was scheduled to end on the 9th but I wanted an extra week just in case I failed an exam, wanted to take an extra exam, or if I decided to do some traveling within the country. I'm glad I did as I will use the extra time to take an additional exam and a short trip. After my flights were booked, I planned a trip to the Indian Embassy in Manila to get an Indian visa. I then sent a deposit of $500 from my credit card to the Koenig Paypal account. It was both surprising and impressive that Koenig accepted Paypal. That was an early indication of something I have come to realize in the weeks since - they are very flexible and accommodating.
The Arrival
The initial arrival at the airport seems to be the most daunting experience for every Koenig student. Everyone is concerned about arriving at the airport only to find a bunch of strange faces but no one there awaiting their arrival. The typical late night arrivals by most students do little to ease the burden of that feeling either. I will admit that I had similar feelings, but they were mostly due to the fact that I had changed my flight plans to an arrival time two days prior to that which I had informed the school. Mind you I was already in the Hong Kong airport when I sent the notification e-mail to Koenig.
I also had no guidebook and no idea where to find a hotel and from reading the India Mike forums I learned of the typical scams run at the Delhi airport by a few unscrupulous locals. How would I convince a cab driver to take me where I wanted to go safely without driving me all over town or scamming me in some other creative way? Where exactly was I going? I had no idea in which part of the city Koenig was located. Where would I begin? Not to worry, though, as their process of receiving students at the airport is very efficient and systematic. Even with only five hours of notice there was a guy at the airport waiting for me and holding a clearly visible sign with my name on it and "Koenig" written below it. The guy, who turned out to be employed by the Rangoli Hotel, was near the front of the crowd of people and I spotted him right away. It was quite a relief to see him there. He handed me a welcome packet that included 1000 Rupees ($22 US - divide by 45 for US dollars) and I followed him to the car. My flight arrived just after midnight and I was in bed by around 3 AM. Needless to say, it would be wise to plan your arrival a day or two before you intend to begin training.
The School
My initial impression of the school building itself wasn't great. I don't know what I expected, be it a facility typical of a five star hotel or whatever, but I just didn't expect what I saw. From the outside it looks as run down as any other building on the street. I guess I expected that with all of the western money flowing into the school that there would be a nicer facility. However, on the inside it is decent. The classrooms are clean and more than adequate. They are not large but most of them are designed for one on one instruction and there is plenty of room for that. Each has a minimum of three capable PC's, a whiteboard, and an air conditioning unit so you're fully equipped with everything you need for a sound, comfortable learning environment. The one on one method is certainly a unique option in the certification world and they implement it well here at Koenig. This method allows you to proceed at your own pace, without having to worry about waiting on other students in the class to catch up with your knowledge level or worrying about struggling to keep up yourself because everyone else in the class learns the material more quickly than you. Your instructor is much like your own private tutor and will adapt to the pace and the style that suits you best. There are around 40 teachers and on average around 35 students, so there is a readily available pool of instructors. The instructors are all highly qualified, each with a college degree and certified in the particular course that they are teaching. If you have any problem with your instructor, it is easy to change to different one. Not many of those overpriced 25 students per teacher certification schools back home, if any at all, can make that claim. It is very doubtful that you'll be able to change instructors if you aren't comfortable learning from the one you have. Also, the scheduling is very flexible. In fact, the common theme here is that everything is flexible. Do you think that you can begin and end training on a schedule that suits your needs at one of the cookie cutter schools back home? If you are on a very tight schedule like me, Koenig can arrange specific start and end dates for your training. There are only certain times when it's possible for me to come and go from the island, so in that regard being able to schedule training at my convenience was not only a huge advantage, but also one of the deciding factors for me. Instead of being presented with options of dates for certain classes and arranging your schedule accordingly, they can design a bespoke boot camp for you beginning when you want, ending when you want, and including a custom training plan with all of the certification courses that you would like to take.
The training itself is intense. I would recommend taking the regular track to anyone with ample time unless you feel that you have enough knowledge to walk in and pass the exams with minimal help and preparation. I was no expert before arriving here, but I did have a little experience so I thought I could handle the fast track. If I could do it over again, I'd allow for more time by taking the regular track. It seems like I spend every day preparing for the next exam. Opting for the regular track would give you plenty of time to thoroughly cover the material and study for the exams. The fast pace and the immense amount of material covered in such a short time could very well be what lead to my insomnia the first month I was here. I would be up until at least 2 or 3 in the morning studying every night, but when I went to bed I couldn't fall asleep. I had all kinds of computer jargon running through my head. So another recommendation I have is to take them up on their offer of mailing you the course materials before you arrive. It will be an advantage to have read through these before training begins. The ideal way to prepare for each of these exams is to read through the book they provide you once and then read through the practice tests at least twice, if not three times. The last time you go through the practice test it is a good idea to hide the answers so that you have a feel for how well you know the material before you actually take the exam. The exams are administered by Mr. Subodh Choudhary, a very friendly guy. Exams are scheduled with him the day before you take the exam so that he can order it and prepare it in time.
I have two more recommendations for those of you taking the MCSE tracks. First, if you are new to the IT field and thus do not have any experience, it would be very advantageous to take Network+ before you begin MCSE. I found it to be an excellent preview of the various networking technologies and I breezed through that part of my MCSE training as a result. My final recommendation is for those of you taking the MCSE 2000 track with the MCSE 2003 upgrade. I ended up taking the two upgrade courses before my two electives (Exchange 2003) by pure accident so I could keep the same instructor throughout. This has also proved to be the ideal route because there is a smooth transition from MCSE 2000 to MCSE 2003. Because of this, even though I have cleared all of the core exams for both 2000 and 2003, I do not have any MCSE certification because I haven't passed the Exchange exams yet, but this is of little consequence because I will clear the Exchange exams in the next week and immediately receive both MCSE Messaging 2000 and MCSE Messaging 2003. Read more >>
