Career paths
- What is the difference between a career path and a course?
- A course teaches one subject. A career path is a structured journey toward a role: it puts courses in order, and adds the labs, projects, mentorship and capstone that turn subject knowledge into the ability to do a job. A path typically runs for months; a course runs for hours or weeks.
- Can I take a single course without joining a path?
- Yes. Every course in the catalog can be taken on its own. The path is the recommended order plus the practical work around it, not a paywall around the content.
- The same course appears in more than one path. Do I study it twice?
- No. A course is referenced by a path, not copied into it. If you complete networking foundations as part of one path and later start another that includes it, you have already done it.
- Which path should I choose if I have no experience?
- An entry path. Every path states the experience it assumes on its own page, and the advanced paths name what to complete first. Choosing an advanced path because the job title sounds better is the most common way to have a bad time — the advanced material assumes the entry material and does not re-teach it.
- Can I change path part-way through?
- Talk to us. Because courses are shared between paths, moving usually means carrying most of your completed work across rather than starting again. The exact terms depend on what you have already paid for, so this is a conversation rather than a button.
- What if I already know some of the material?
- Ask about skipping it. Where you can demonstrate a capability, a mentor can waive the requirement. A waiver is recorded as a waiver rather than as completed work, because the certificate says what you demonstrated and we would rather it stayed true.
Time, pace and delivery
- How much time does a path take each week?
- Each path publishes an expected weekly commitment and a total duration on its own page. Those are honest estimates for somebody starting at the stated level, not best cases.
- What happens if I fall behind?
- Self-paced work waits for you. Live classes run on a schedule and are the part that does not. If life gets in the way, tell us and we will look at pausing your enrolment rather than letting it quietly lapse.
- Are live classes recorded?
- Not at the moment. If that changes we will say so on the class page, and we will ask for consent before recording anyone.
- What timezone are classes in?
- Every class publishes its own timezone, and every time on the site is labelled with the zone for that specific date — so a summer class reads CDT and a winter one CST. Your local equivalent is shown alongside.
Labs, projects and the capstone
- What is a scenario lab?
- An isolated environment belonging to an invented company, with real faults in it. You are given the situation a working administrator would be given — a user who cannot log in, intermittent name resolution, a failed backup — and you diagnose, remediate, document and verify. Completion criteria are stated up front, so you know when you are finished rather than guessing.
- Do labs touch real customer systems?
- Never. Labs run on infrastructure built for training, in environments belonging to fictional organisations. No real customer data, no production system, and no part of our own internal estate is ever involved.
- Can I break a lab?
- Yes, and that is part of it. Every lab can be reset. Environments are cleaned up automatically when the access window ends.
- What is the capstone?
- An extended exercise in which you operate an environment you built through a structured set of technical and operational events. A reviewer reads what you produced and either accepts it or tells you what to fix. It is the one piece of work you cannot pass by attendance.
- Can I use my project work in a portfolio?
- Where a project is marked portfolio-safe on the path page, yes. Some material is not, usually because it describes lab infrastructure in more detail than we publish.
Certificates and claims
- What certificate do I get?
- A Certificate of Completion, where the path issues one. It records what you completed with us.
- Does it count as a formal qualification?
- No. It is not accredited, it is not issued by a certification body, and it is not a licence. It is a record of completed work, and we describe it in exactly those terms because describing it as anything more would be untrue.
- Does completing a path get me a job?
- We cannot promise that and we do not. What a path gives you is a set of named capabilities you can demonstrate, project work you can show, and practice explaining both. Whether that leads to a role depends on the market, the employer and you.
- Do you publish compensation figures or outcome statistics?
- No. We have not measured what our learners go on to earn, or how many are hired, so any number we published would be invented. Where you see those figures elsewhere, it is worth asking how they were measured.
- What does career-readiness support include?
- Resume review, portfolio review, technical interview practice, communication practice, and guidance on how roles in the field are advertised. It does not include placement, referrals, or introductions on your behalf.
Money and terms
- Why does a path show no price?
- Because the commercial terms for it have not been confirmed. We publish a price only once it is approved, so you will never see a figure that turns out not to apply. A path with no price cannot be bought yet.
- What is the refund policy?
- The cancellation and refund terms are on the training policies page, and the version that applies to you is recorded when you register, so a later change cannot alter the terms you agreed to.
- What happens if you cancel a class?
- You are told directly, and the cancellation terms on the policies page apply. A cancelled class is marked as cancelled on the site rather than quietly disappearing.
Question not answered here?
Ask us. If it is a question other people are likely to have, it ends up on this page.