Programming Certifications Advice

Funny no one has replied this, ‘because I think you have asked a very good and important question, a question that I wish someone was there to answer for me couple a year ago when I first started I.T, ‘because I ended up going round and round before I finally know what I wanted to do. I’m going to give you a couple of hints.

I think the first thing you need to do is decide is what career path you want to take, do you want to be a Web Programmer/Developer or a Software/System Programmer or both, Database Administrator/Developer, I.T Analyst/Consultant, Network/Systems Administrator. These could be broken down further but I’m going to stop at this.

Then you need to decide what technology vendor’s products and technologies you specialize in, now this part is pretty important and confusing, but in my view there’s really only two ways to go; the way of Microsoft [VB, C#,.net, asp, SQL Server, MS Access, Windows Servers & IIS, ] or the way of the others [Java, Perl, Delphi, Oracle, MySQL, JSP, CGI, Apache, Linux, Unix and all the other open source stuff] or both.

Now this is where it can all go wrong for you and where it all went wrong for me not knowing what set of technologies and language(s) to learn and master and the fact is you can’t know all.
   
But in my case I end up trying to learn too many stuff, though it’s not entirely my fault I put part of the blame on a couple of I.T guy I knew then who kept giving opposite and conflicting advice, I can still hear there voices [Olu: “VB is for kids do Java”, Ekene: “Microsoft is crap don’t learn anything Microsoft”, Kayode: “no, no, no, C++ is the Best”, David: “Andrea, leave all this programming and go into networking that’s where the money is”, Ekene: “and if you want to do networking don’t do anything Microsoft” Kayode: ”I think you should now switch back to VB.net, its now better than Java” Olu: “VB.Net is still for kids learn C#”] so round and round I went form COBOL to FORTRAN, VB to Java, Small Talk to C++, Window to Linux to UNIX, Perl to Asp to Jsp, SQL Server to MySQL and I can go on. And after 2 to 3 years I knew a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but knew non in-depth.

Then about 2½ ago I decide to go the Microsoft way and since then I only bother myself with tools and technologies that are either Microsoft or are Open Standard, and it’s a decision I have never regretted. I am not saying you should go with Microsoft Technologies ‘because I don’t want to start a Microsoft Vs Others debate here, but whatever technologies or languages you chose to learn one thing you can be sure of is that there will always be a job for you.



Then certification, this depends on what career path you chose.
This is a complete list of all Microsoft certifications based on area of specialization;
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcpd/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcitp/default.mspx

Myself am a web developer, and if you chose to be a web developer supporting mostly Microsoft technologies here a list of what u need to learn and certified in;

Programming Language - Vb.net or C#, ASP 3.0, ASP.NET 1.1, 2.0
Scripting – JavaScript, VBScript, HTML, CSS -XML/XSL/XSLT
IDE’s - VS2003, VS2005, Dreamweaver
Graphics - Firework, Photoshop
Database- SQL Server 2k5, MS Access
Servers – Windows Pro XP – Server 2003, IIS
 
Certification - Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) - Web
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcts/webapps/
Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) – Web
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcpd/default.mspx

Good luck.

Andrea
MCTS, MCP

Andrea, you're too much

I just realized i've been going in too many directions too.

Your advice was helpful to me. i hope it was too, to the guy that asked

No one can help you to choose the language or technology you need to go into, the best someone can do for u is to give u resources to read and u decide. You are the only one that knows what your interests are.

Think about your

Mathematical Skills
Logical Reasoning
Problem-Solving skills
Interface Design
Project Management
Work habits

and many other more. evaluate and come to a conclusion. good luck

If u feel you have a good or excellent logical and problem solving skilll. well yea u may consider programming. goodluck

Leanr ur C++ very well, know how to do things then from there u can go on to other languages as most languages follow similar pattern and structure of coding