I am currently training at a Microsoft Academy, the first of it's kind in South East England. I have read with frustration the posts regarding the worthlessness of the MCSE accreditation. I am using this course to get a foot in the door of the IT industry, I neither expect it to get me a top-dollar job or a top-shelf one at that. I do intend to follow up this course with maybe a Cisco networking cert and/or a Novell cert. Frankly, I have had a love of computing since a very early age and my first ZX spectrum, and now I'm sick of the building trade and need a change of direction. Surely these certifications provide a sound knowledge base from which to START? All of the naysayers comments seem to revolve around one thing, experience. Well I seem to remember after having passed my driving test it took me a little while to get used to driving on my own, with no instructor to point out or correct my mistakes. That my friends, is the way it is. Unfortunately no, experience cannot be bought, and no matter how many certs you have they will never be a substitute for knowledge gained from years in the field.... BUT, everyone has to start somewhere. Spare a thought for the people just starting out, regardless of what you may think of the MCSE, we have still paid for the course as that is where our interest lies. We are still studying hard to achieve the recognition, and then we have to spend the first four years or so of our employment proving ourselves still! There may be a slump in the IT industry of late, but we all know that after slumps there is generally a boom and when there is, there will be more than enough work to go around. Less of the bickering ladies and gentlemen please.