Has anyone had any experience with the Whizlabs.com RHCE cert prep course? Any feedback would be greately appreciated.

Thanks,
Art.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in the Linux Certification forum and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Well, I decided to take a chance and enroll in whizlabs.com's RHCE prep course. So far, it has been decent, but we are only two 2hour sessions in. I will post back with more about my experience once the course is over and I have taken my RHCE.

Thx,
-Art.

I'm not really familiar with whizlabs program. Could you tells us a little more in depth about it (is it an online program, academic/textbook course, hands-on, or all the above)?

Sure Capt,

Whizlabs actualy offers a wide range of training options for different certs, anything from MCSE to CCNA to RHCE to SCJP etc etc, but their RHCE course in an on line instructor led class. The class is two hours a day for three weeks (M-F). My instructor holds his RHCE and is working toward his RHCA, and seems to be very knowledgeable. The people at whizlabs were very flexible with my schedule, and so far have been a pleasure to work with. There is a maximum of four students per class, and in my session, there is only one other student. There are study booklets (in the form of pdf files from 20 - 100+ pages), but for the most part, it is hands on. THIS IS NOT A BRAINDUMP!!! Do not expect to enroll and get a blow by blow description of the problems faced during the RHCE exam. It is recommended that you have two linux boxes (one to take the on line class and offer up FTP/NFS etc for network installs from the other box) and a test bed to install RHEL (I am using the eval copy of RHEL from RH) or FC3/CentOS4/RH9(not recommended). Throughout the course the instructor will need to log in to your test box for exam simulation and to help with troubleshooting, so a static IP or a service like dyndns is necessary. The class is not cheap ($599.99 when I enrolled) but whizlabs offers their 150% guarantee: If you don't pass your cert they will refund your money and give you 50% off another training course. As far as I can tell at this point, the class is comparable to the RapidTrack course offered by RedHat, but costs more than $1000 less. Once i finish the course and take my RHCE exam, I will post back with more.

Hope this helps,
Art.

Just wanted to give an update on the status of my class. My instructor has suffered the worst fit of bad luck over the past few weeks or so. He became ill and missed almost two weeks of class, and then shortly after, he had serious family business to attend to. We should be back on track now, I am actually waiting for class to start as I write this update. At least it has given me more time to self study I will post another update once class is over and I have taken the test....

Wish me luck

Well, after not a few bumps in the road, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! The instructor suffered a series of unfortunate events from illness to a death in the family. Then we were plagued with technical issues with any number of instant messaging services. (The default was yahoo IM) I installed a jabber server, and after some correspondence with Whizlabs.com, they installed OpenPHPChat on their site as a backup. (man I hate web PHP chat...SSSSLLOOOWWW) We have resumed class, and the instructor is even giving me additional support in the troubleshooting/install section as I am scheduled to take the exam on August 5th. Wish me luck guys!

Good luck on your upcoming exam !

please continue to keep us updated...

Best of Luck!!!

Thanks for your support guys! I will let you know how it goes...

Well guys, I made it. I was a little unsure after it was over, and then I had to wait three days before I got my results, but I passed by a wide margin Thanks for the support! I will post back with details of my little adventure a little later in the week.

So how helpful was the Whizlabs course? Could someone with some Linux experience take the course and pass the RHCE?

Short answer yes. As long as someone is halfway competent, the Whizlabs.com class should be enough. Long answer: I will just say this: When I enrolled in the class it was supposed to be completed by 7-1-05 and technically my class is not over yet, I just had to take the test for my job. My experience was rocky at best, but I alway received quick responses from the training coordinator for the RHCE portion of their training center, and believe he is committed to customer satisfaction. Just remember, the cert is over RHEL4 now, and there are some subtle, but big differences between the two, and the instructors I came into contact with through Whizlabs.com were certified under 3.


Hope this helps, and good luck
-Art.