New C# .NET Web Developer

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Hi All,

I'm a 21 years old student (Bachelor, Small Business) from The Netherlands.

In the near future I would like to get my MCTS .NET 2.0 Web App certification.
Now there are some available courses for the exams, but they are pretty expensive.

Is it posible to do the exams with only the help of the available literature??
(Example: Microsoft Self-Paced trainingskit)

Thank's in advance,

Florian Kwakkenbos

 

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Hi there and welcome

 

Hi & welcome to CF

NB

 

That entirely depends on your experience with the language and programming, as well as how well you pick up concepts from just the books.

How long is a piece of string? Depends on the individual piece of string doesnt it.

 

Hi and welcome to CF!

Yes it is possible. But whether it is possible for you only you will be able to discover.

With determination and talent it would be doable.

Harry.

 

Hello and welcome to the forums! As others have indicated, you don't have to buy a book in order to pass any MCTS exam. If you're familiar with the material, then you'll likely do well. However, given your current experience level and the fact that there are a limited number of questions on the exam and a virtually unlimited amount of information about .NET 2.0, I'd highly recommend getting the MS Press book for the exam. Doing so will help you narrow the topics to just the information that is relevant for the exam. Be aware, however, that passing the exam and actually programming professionally are two vastly different topics. My advice is to wait until you get a little more experience before attempting to take the MCTS exams. Passing an exam will not help you in your career if you can't perform the work.

 

Welcome to CF!

 

Thank you all, I appreciate your reply's!

At this thread: http://www.certforums.co.uk/forums/thread23413.html, Harpistic reply's with the following statement: 'Generally, in web development, certifications aren't used or recognised, largely because the industry develops at such a rate that courses would hold you back. Especially at the stage you are now, where you would be better off focussing on developing a strong portfolio and getting some commercial experience beforee plotting the next step'.

She claims, getting certification would be a waste of time.
Putting time in the creation of a strong portfolio, would be more meaningful.
I'm intersted in your personal oppinion about this statement.

I would say, getting certifiction is even important, as having a strong portfolio.
Certification helps me to create a strong portfolio.

My next goal is MCTS .NET 2.0 Web Applications, certification.
In order to get this certification, you need to pass 2 exams:
- Exam 70-536 Application Development Foundation, 140,- euro
- Exam 70-528 Web Based Client Development, 140,- euro.
I want to purchase these books:
- MCTS Self-Paced Training kit for (Exam 70-536) 35,- euro
- MCTS Self-Paced Training kit for (Exam 70-52 35,- euro
- Programming MS Visual C# 29,- euro
- Programming MS ADO.NET 2.0 45,- euro
- Programming MS ASP.NET 2.0 42,- euro

I guess, I need 10 to 15 weeks to pass both exams.
What's your personal oppinion about this guess?

Florian.

 

I had no certifications (and still dont), yet I got myself a development job off the back of my own experience at my previous job - experience I got through volunteering for development opportunities.

Certifications, whilst I wouldnt say are more important than a experience - not by a long shot (I'd rather hire someone who has demonstrated the ability to do the job, than someone who has demonstrated the ability to revise for an exam), still have value.

 

Thank you for your oppinion about certification.

I share your oppinion that someones experience is more important in antagonism to certification.

Here at The Netherlands, in 90% of all demanded posts they ask for Microsoft Certification.
Is this the same in the UK?

 

nope. Of all the dev jobs I've applied for, I dont think a single one asked for specific certification. I've seen a few asking for degrees, but none for certification.

 

Alright, thank you very much!

 

I'm in the US and I have seen plenty of companies looking for certified programmers. In addition to the fact that it at least displays that you know the theory behind some of the concepts, Microsoft requires that partner companies have certified people on staff. Thus, if you want to be a Microsoft Certified Partner, you must hire certified people or have certified people on staff. That being said, programming is easier to test in an interview than the ability to design large networks, so if you're skilled, you may never need to get certified. I'm biased, but I'm a proponent of certification, even for programmers, simply because it shows a desire to keep learning and keep improving, IMHO.

 

No... learning and doing help you to create a strong portfolio. Certification simply shows that you passed an exam.

Certainly certification can motivate you to learn. But it's not the certification that helps you to create a strong portfolio... it's the learning that helps you create it.

The reason why certifications aren't very helpful in programming or Web development is because programmers and developers can PROVE they can do the job by submitting a portfolio of code. If you can prove you can do the job, the certifications are not as necessary.

The difference between programming/development and network/systems administration is this: administrators cannot PROVE we can administer a server or a network or provide IT support by submitting a portfolio. Thus, certifications are much more useful to techies than they are to code bangers.

By all means, certification is worth doing, if for no other reason than it can set you ahead of your competition. But don't think certification is anywhere near as useful as a portfolio... it simply is not. And this advice comes from someone who makes his living off of certifications!!

 

I've got to say that I'm a non-believer in certified programmers. Although I work in games now I believe that I worked with some in my previous dev job outside the industry. I'd noticed that if you started discussing material that fell outside of what they had to revise for their certification they were lost, so this told me that their cert was about memorising rather than understanding the concepts.

My approach to programming was to get a traditional education from a course full of content with information valuable for the rest of my career, keep learning to understand things, and show that I have the skill by creating a portfolio from the ground up.

It's the only way to become a good programmer.

 

Firstly I do think certification is useful, but only to prove you have stuided the subjects and have the core understanding.

Many employers in the UK know nothing of the cert industry, even those that do, don't necessarilly trust it.

Most jobs I've been for have an interview and one or more technical tests, then you have a trail period. So theres plenty of ways for them to test you, if you don't meet expectations they can let you go during the trail period.

Developers almost never supply a portfolio of code, normally because most it is copyright of previous employers. It would be like a network engineer showing their network diagrams to their new employer, its simply not done. Some developers may do a significant amount of work in their own time so can have something to show but this is fairly rare, probably because most programmers don't have time to code 50 hours a week at work on closed source then go home and start again. Development of anything significant can take 1000's man hours, thats why companies use development teams.

Front end web development is somewhat different because 90% of the code is readilly available on the web and development times are far less for scripting languages, so developing your own web site is quite common, where as writing your own OS, DB, nuclear power plant control software etc is quite rare...

Requests for certified programmers is becomming more common, but its still often more a nice to have.

Continual learning is the most important thing, certification can just help to prove learning undertaken.

In some industries programming and development involves advanced topics that can't really be put into a certification scheme, therefore much of the more valuable learning is on non certifiable topics, grid computing, language and compiler design, network protocols, file systems, file formats, algorithms, scalable architectures you will only get cursory references in cert programs to these aspects, it won't teach you the where, why, when or how to develop your own...