When it comes to any undertaking the foundations are essential. No house can stand firmly without good pillars, a company can’t see success without a good product, and you can’t start a new career path without proper education. This is why taking the time to choose the right quality assurance course will go a long way to making your QA career a success.
But what makes a quality assurance course good? When it comes to options there’s no shortage online or even in college, which makes the choice even harder. So today we’ll do our best to simplify the process to its core essentials and help you understand what you want from a Test Pro QA course.
Practical Experience Goes a Long Way
One of the aspects that are most often overlooked and yet make the biggest difference when it comes to courses is what kind of practical experience they offer. And by that, we mainly mean what kind of real work opportunities they offer that will allow you to build a portfolio straight from your studies.
Nowadays there’s no shortage of courses, guides, and textbooks available for any subject, and QA isn’t the exception. And what this means is that more often than not potential employers will look at your portfolio over your qualifications, especially if they don’t come from an established institute. All of this makes perfect sense ultimately, but it does mean that all too often we have seen qualified people who keep struggling to land that first job: And courses should offer the tools to avoid this.
That is why one of the most important things to consider when choosing a QA course is what kind of practical experience they offer during their duration. Will you be working on real projects during your studies? That’s great. Will they be commercial projects? That’s even better.
The basics are of course essential for any course, and that’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked. But if you are choosing between different good courses, then the one that offers you a real way to build your portfolio will always be the more appealing one.
Be Comprehensive Yet Efficient
Studies should prepare you for any potential situation at work, and that means that you’ll want a course that covers every possible angle from a practical standpoint. Knowing just the basics won’t help when an unexpected situation happens at work, and that ability to adapt based on your studies and a deep understanding of theory will make the difference between a successful career and a short stay at a new job.
However, that doesn’t mean that length and duration should be seen as a synonym of quality. When it comes to QA work is rewarding and demanding of course, but the core ideas and techniques don’t require years to learn. If the course you are being offered is going to take years then you should start questioning if it teaches what you want to learn: Chances are it comes with a lot of filler material to stretch the duration and costs.
From our POV it shouldn’t take you more than 6 months on average to get a job at QA counting from your first day of studies. So if a course doesn’t offer this timeframe there’s a real chance it offers raw theory more than any interesting real-life prospects.
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