Ok guys/gals I could do with some help..

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Here's the situation.

I am looking for some advice on certifications and the best route based on my background.

I have been proprietary trading for the last 4 years and need a backup in light of credit crunch mayhem.

I have been reading up on c# for the last couple of months and am looking to accelerate my learning. I know some VBA but C# is where I really want to go. I am competent with the basic syntax/operators and building of basic programmes but I need to push forward to something more in-depth.

I am looking at going on an MCPD course run by LSCE (anyone got any opinions on them, course advisor was quite pushy for a sale but anyway). I am looking at doing their weekend course which runs for 14 weeks every Saturday (6hrs a day) which covers MCTS then MCPD. My thinking behind this is at least I have a week between each lesson to fully learn and take in the previous weeks lesson. At £1900 its not the cheap option. I can take a break between each part of the course to revise and take the exam.

What I am getting at basically is, will I crash and burn by taking on this course. Do i need to have previous programming knowledge from a commercial point of view?

Also the course advisor recommends that I go down the web route, but I would like to stay within Investment Banking and finance and I thought that the Windows route would be more desired?? Anyone ever worked for an IB have any advice on this one?

Finally, to stop my rant, will it help me to become employable by an IB by completing the MCPD without having any commercial experience or will I be i the same situation and be no more employable but just have a lighter wallet?

Thanks in advance - any comments much appreciated!!

 

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Investment banks are generally particulary hard to get into, I wouldn't think they would touch you without commercial experience. Also in the current climate theres people floating around with not only commercial experience but commercial banking experience, banks can be very picky on what type of experience you have.

The MCPD is certainly worth getting as is some commercial experience.

 

DMarsh,

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated!

What route would you say would be better windows or web? Personally I would have thought windows as front office professionals use in house systems with minimal latency, but I'm no expert.

Would you also say that learning MCPD via a training provider is a good and viable way for me to learn or are these courses already tuned towards people who know what they're doing?

 

In general they want deep knowledge of how to create low latency, high concurrency systems, the MCPD does not do this, a computer science degree and a few years experience is a good start. The MCPD windows would be more relevant than MCPD Web however.

Knowledge of advanced math or a redbrick university education tends to help.

For general employability across all industries I would reccomend getting exposure of both desktop and internet development.

 

I'd say that a wide knowledge and experience of programming, in several languages, is the only way of definitely getting a job in today's harsh climate.

I haven't worked in banks, or anything similar, but everywhere else the main demand was flexibility.

In addition, I don't see much difference between 'Web programming' and other types of programming. They both demand accuracy and performance, plus also the ability to spot security holes before the code is committed. Perhaps the current crop of SQL injection exploits is because 'web programming' has been allowed to get sloppy.

If you are just starting then you need to look for a trainee/apprentice type job. With banks laying people off by the bus-load at the moment this will be quite hard to find.

Harry.