Your opinion about the pricing of LV classroom courses?

[Blokk]

Hello!

I am just interested what is your opinion about the pricing of different NI Classroom trainings? At my workplace we have a certain budget for trainings per year, and I was thinking about to take the "Embedded Control and Monitoring Using LabVIEW" classroom course which is 5 days long with instructor. But as I expected, my bosses found this training way over too expensive (5 days training is 2780 EUR!). I can also compare this pricing to other trainings I took recently, for example a "Vacuum components & fittings" 1 day course (including practical session, 2 instructors, breakfast and lunch, plus certificate given at the end) was about 300 EUR, from a large company which is one of the market leaders in this sector.

What do you think? I think this pricing is really too high, specially if we consider the "only" advantage is that we have a real classroom environment with an instructor + RT hardware set. For sure, a good experienced instructor can make a big difference, but since I can access the online self-paced learning material (LabVIEW Real-Time 1-2) plus the document "NI LabVIEW for CompactRIO Developer's Guide" for free, the classroom training for such price is not that attractive any more...

I think a pricing in the range of 1500-1800 EUR would be more realistic. What is your opinion?

[jcarmody]

$500/day is not uncommon in the USSA.  I've seen courses at this price-point for a long time, so inflation hasn't touched them.

[Blokk]

OK, so actually this 500 USD is not far from the NI offer: 2780/5 = 556 EUR = 600 USD ...

If it was just around 300/400 EUR per day, it would have stayed inside the "magic" barrier I feel 🙂 It is very different when I tell my boss, hey here is this nice training, about ~1800 EUR!... When I show the offer of 2780 EUR, it just rings the bell "too expensive"... 😄

Anyway, I will play with the online training and the available documentations.

[Hooovahh]

In these class rooms do you get to keep the RIO hardware?  I remember at NI Week on Monday NI usually offers some kind of RT and RIO training class, and I think the price was around $500 (for just the one day) but you got to keep the RIO evaluation board you used all day, which I think is this one.  I never took the class but I was thinking about it, until my flight was delayed this year.  Being able to take a class and keep a $425 piece of equipment made it a much more attractive.

[Blokk]

Yep it would be cool to keep the hardware! 🙂 Also, the price could include meals, accommodation, pub-voucher for social evenings, and maybe foot-massage during the coffee breaks... I think for such an offer my boss would say YES!

Hmm, maybe I should share my ideas with NI Training? Also, the hardware of the practical training should reflect the main industrial interests of the region. Like if I take this training in Belgium, I would imagine to build and program an embedded controller for a beer-cooler... Yes. This makes just sense. In Ireland the project would involve a distillation column for whiskey, etc...

[Jacobson-ni]

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@Blokk wrote:

and maybe foot-massage during the coffee breaks...

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How much of a bonus am I getting for this?

Unless, of course, this is a third-party foot massage and the instructors can get in on that. If that's the case I'm okay with this.

[JÞB]

Foot massage therapy aside

NI prices per day per studii (the CORRECT plurality of student) are only marginally more than average.  The CPIs are more than marginally qualified.  TMHO. Your results may vary.  You will have an average instructor.

[Blokk]

It is a point.

I remember I had a virtual classroom training few years ago for Core 1 and 2. The instructor was very good (we had it even in our first language, Hungarian). So now I will look into these options, specially because the price is lower (about 1000 EUR).

As I see the Embedded training is not available in this format (makes sense, since it relies heavily on handling hardware). I am really thinking that next year I might try the CLA exam instead of CLD recertification, so I should find something useful for this plan in the list of available virtual classroom trainings...

Like the "Managing Software Engineering in LabVIEW". Hmm, what does "regional" means at the "course length" column: "Regional: 2 days, Online: 2 half days"? Here: http://sine.ni.com/tacs/app/overview/p/ap/of/lang/en/ol/en/oc/gb/pg/1/sn/n24:12419/id/1593/

[crossrulz]

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Blokk wrote:  Hmm, what does "regional" means at the "course length" column: "Regional: 2 days, Online: 2 half days"?

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Regional = in a classroom

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Blokk wrote:  I am really thinking that next year I might try the CLA exam instead of CLD recertification, so I should find something useful for this plan in the list of available virtual classroom trainings...

Like the "Managing Software Engineering in LabVIEW".

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Hate to say this, but Managing Software Engineering will not help much with the CLA exam.  There is a lot of good info in it, but for the sake of the exam, I would go with something more like Advanced Architectures, Object Oriented, or Actor Design (new course, I do not think it is available virtually yet).

[Blokk]

Thanks for info!

I will look into this "Advanced architecture" training. Actually it is also available in the "self-paced learning" online list.

I just discovered there is a new version for Core 3, not only Core 1 and 2. For fun, I will go through the new version of the Core 3 online course first. I might take the Advanced architecture as a virtual classroom training after that...Considering also the OOP one too, since it was somewhat hard for me via the self-paced online training, a good instructor might help...

Question: in order to become a CLA, do I need to master object oriented programming in LV?

I remember a couple of years ago I started the self-paced OO training, but I just could not "catch the thing"... But still very interested, would be nice to improve my LV skills, I feel I am massively stuck at the recent level. Ok, for sure my work situation does not support further progress of my programming skills: I only develop 1-2 medium sized app for our lab per year, and I do not have a LV mentor here to learn from (I program alone). Well, it is also a question what I want to do with my career in the future... 🙂