RAD Computers Online Store

Fantastic question, and the answer is “YES!”

Thanks to our new online shop, you can purchase the courses online and finance them at checkout through Affirm, Klarna, or PayPal Credit, or purchase them with an existing credit card payment method.

Absolutely. But the experience of actually performing the tasks will still be lacking. It’s one thing to see someone do it, it’s another thing entirely to do it yourself. We ensure that instruction covers all three of the major learning types: visual, aural, and hands-on.

To reinforce the importance of experience, an employer will far better prefer a potential new higher that has practical experience rather than someone that’s merely educated vicariously through watching others.

Not yet! BUT… we would love to! If you have interest in helping us make our course available in a language not currently offered, please let us know! We would love have a conversation with you!

Great question!

We have the following requirements for the courses:

• Course 1 – History and Fundamentals – No requirements
• Course 2 – Build a computer – No requirements
• Course 3 – Level 1 Computer Technician Training – Course 2 or equivalent experience
  • Equivalent experience is building at least 1 computer from scratch and installing at least one version of Windows that requires a floppy disk and one version of Windows that does not, along with any Linux distro
• Course 4 – Level 2 Computer Technician Training – Course 3 REQUIRED
  • The fundamentals taught in course 3 are paramount to the information taught in Course 4. To skip it would be like trying to run before you learn to walk.

Absolutely not. The concepts taught in the training courses get more complex as time goes. We prefer our students NOT burn out on the learning process, so we opt to work at their pace. We continuously review and test their knowledge with each new lesson throughout each course to ensure knowledge retention and demonstratable practical skills.

Students are also encouraged to swing by our office during business hours and participate in our moderated student forums any time to ask questions, pick our brains, learn through osmosis, and share ideas!

Our goal is for our training course to be the best in the world for training people to learn how to repair computers under any situation.

Great question, and the answer is “no”.

Classrooms are boring, and hard to focus in. These courses are taught in our actual computer repair facility in Mesa, AZ, where students learn in a welcoming, engaging environment, absorbing all that the world of computer repair has to offer.

Despite not being in a classroom setting, the coursework itself is highly structured, building baseline fundamentals into talented skills WITH EXPERIENCE suitable for obtaining a job in computer repair or related IT positions, or even starting your own computer repair business!

It’s a mix of both online and in-person / hands-on training. Students will have online course work created by RAD Computers’ CEO, Mark Bush, who has been in the IT industry for over 25 years and is a CompTIA A+ Certified Computer Technician. Mark has over 20 years of educating both customers and enthusiasts alike on computer maintenance and repair techniques

Mark has created HUNDREDS of live computer repair videos and THOUSANDS of posts across the Internet providing informative tips, tricks, and techniques to help others with their computers. Now, he’s consolidated his knowledge together into this training course for any student to learn from the best!

Great question! EVERYONE wanting to learn to fix computers for the purpose of entering the field of computer repair or general IT work is invited to join.

While we feel this training course is best suited to teens looking to break into the field of IT at an early age, we’re happy to teach these courses to ANY enthusiast of ANY age that wants to learn how to repair computers on a professional level. The creator of these training materials, our CEO Mark Bush, began learning how to assemble computers at the age of 9 years old!

Our recommended age to start this is age 14 to 15, so that the student has the earliest opportunities when applying to jobs to enter the world of IT, but we’ve had students aged 12-14 learning from our unstructured training methods long before we put together our structured training methods!

Time, and money. Our program condenses a year of fluffy training available at universities into a 2 to 4 week training system dedicated to build the most favorable practical skills in the order of importance, and doing so in a way that’s fun and engaging.

Computer technicians are professionals in a professional field of work, as important as any doctor or lawyer, and can even make as much or even more than professionals with advanced degrees.

However, the training available in most schools, community colleges, and universities to get your foot in the door at an employer is lackluster, and more often than not offers no real-world experience. Reading books and seeing diagrams and practicing with outdated methods does not translate well into the world of computer repair, as technology is constantly evolving, often outpacing the information taught in schools.

Our Computer Repair Training School aims to solve three major issues computer enthusiasts often face when trying to apply for jobs in IT:

1. Companies don’t want to hire people that have zero experience in real-world repair scenarios.
   • “I read it in a book” does not equate to actually saving customer data or bringing a server back from the dead.
2. People with no experience and certifications often take a back seat to people WITH experience and NO certification.
   • “Why is this?” Because technology is expensive, and data is irreplaceable. People with no experience make mistakes, and companies do not want to risk their bottom line or their reputation on beginner mistakes.
   • This puts people in a situation where their lack of experience prevents them from getting the jobs that would give them the experience.
3. Small companies that are most suited for entry-level technicians and willing to take the risk are often left frustrated with the technician’s lack of practical knowledge.
   • Situations often arise that people are unprepared for. Our comprehensive training helps maximize the practical knowledge of our students in the shortest time possible, while instilling the talent they need to make good executive decisions, and providing a permanently accessible knowledgebase  and community they can always use as a reference.

We are confident that through our structured computer repair training, our students will be focused and engaged with their learning activities, and will emerge with enough knowledge and practical skills and experience to get their first job in entry-level IT positions, most of which start at $45K/yr or more.

Our Goals with our Computer Repair Technician Training are:

• Keep the courses affordable to the point that they would pay for themselves within the first month of a graduate’s hiring into the world of IT
• Provide up-to-date information at all times so our training is never outdated
• Create a fun and engaging environment for our students to gain real-world experience, which is valuable to an employer
• Teach the students the fundamentals of the various branches of IT: System Administration, Server Administration, Network Administration, Programming
  • Determine their natural talents and weaknesses as well as their interests and help them pick the IT path that would be best suited for them

We understand that our Computer Repair Training can be challenging, often introducing new concepts and new ways of thinking, so while we anticipate a mastery of our complete Computer Repair Training to take between 4 and 6 weeks, our schedule is flexible to the needs of our students.

Students are welcomed to provide us their schedules of availability, and we will do our best to work around their schedules, including after our normal working hours, and on weekends.

We provide two types of learning, online and in-person / hands-on training. We do BOTH during each course, with fundamental knowledge tested using online quizzes and skills tested throughout the duration of each course.

Our first Computer Repair Training Course is done completely online, at the student’s own pace, and goes over the history of modern computers and fundamentals. This is expected to take a student no more than 8 hours to complete.

Our second Computer Repair Training Course is done in-person, again when the student is available, and will have the student completely disassembling and reassembling a computer, and installing various Operating Systems to it using different installation methods and media. The computer is then theirs to take home and tinker with. We use a “disassemble first” approach because more often than not, computer components are damaged during the REMOVAL process rather than the installation process. We expect this course to take about 16-20 hours to master. Online quizzes will also be provided for grading.

Our third Computer Repair Training Course is done in-person, again when the student is available. Here, the student will learn the top 25 computer repair issues we face in our repair facilities on a daily basis. This is the HEART of our Computer Repair Training course, and we expect this training to take at LEAST 40 hours. Online quizzes will be provided for grading, as well as proctored in-person assessments of all practical skills taught during this course.

Our fourth Computer Repair Training Course is done in-person. During this course, we teach the student introductions to Remote System Administration, Network Administration, Virtualization (Server Administration), and Scripting (Programming). While the student isn’t learning nearly as many fundamentals as taught in Course 3, the foundational principles taught in this course are far more complex, and will require an equal amount of time, if not more, to grasp. We expect this training to also take at LEAST 40 hours to complete.

Great question!

RAD Computers will provide the following to students during the Computer Repair Training courses:

• COURSE MATERIALS
  • Course 1 – Computer History and Fundamentals
    • Nothing is required, it is 100% online learning.
    • If the student needs a computer to do the online learning, we can provide a loaner computer that will be required to be returned in the same condition it was received at the end of the program)
  • Course 2 – Build a Computer, Install Operating Systems
    • A desktop computer is provided to the student. It will be capable of running operating systems through Windows 10. The computer becomes the property of the student for their “Home Lab” and they are encouraged to tinker with it throughout the course.
    • A toolkit is provided to the student. It is the property of the student, and theirs to use both in and out of training
    • A flash drive is provided to the student. It is the property of the student, and theirs to use both in and out of training
  • Course 3 – Tier 1 Computer Repair Technician Training
    • Course 2 completion or equivalent experience is required for this training course. As such, the student should already have the “Home Lab” computer required for this course. However, if a student has not taken course 2 but has the required experience for Course 3 and no “Home Lab” computer, one will be provided to them for a small additional fee. The computer will be property of the student.
    • An upgraded toolkit is provided to the student. It is the property of the student
    • A larger flash drive is provided to the student. It is the property of the student.
  • Course 4 – Making a Game Server – Intro to System Administration, Networking, Virtualization, and Programming
    • Course 3 completion is required for this training course. As such, the student will have a “Home Lab” computer already.
    • A router will provided to the student. The router is property of the student
• Additional Resources
  • RAD Computers private repair knowledgebase
  • All repair techniques covered in each course upon completion
  • Access to a private forum for students, moderated by RAD Computers staff and select moderators with experience of forum administration, cybersecurity, and required IT knowledge

Your student will come to our Mesa computer repair facility, conveniently located off Guadalupe Rd and the 101, on the Tempe/Mesa border.

They will see real customer interactions, understand how to better assess how people convey the issues their computers are experiencing, and understand how to classify them into workable issues.

This is something NO COLLEGE can provide!

NOTE: Due to our STRICT privacy policies, the computers our students repair are NOT customer computers, but replicate the same issues our customers experience on a daily basis.

Great question!

First, we provide all required materials, including a full desktop computer, monitor, keyboard, and mouse that will be required for Courses 2, 3, and 4.

Second, each course increases not only in challenge, but in value to future employers.

• The skills developed in Courses 1 and 2 are less valuable than the skills developed in Course 3
• The skills in Course 3, while great for entry-level Computer Repair, do not establish the same amount of value to an employer as the skills developed in Course 4.