Need Some Good Advice On Professional Course To Choose

Hi Guy

I think you are both right step and channel. Though I mayn't seem to have solution to your request at this time but  I will like to encourage you to look forward for numerous lists anytime from now.

Guy, know you that it  requires strong determination to follow and achieve one's objective. Why?.There are 1001 reasons for not doing something but only 1 reason for doing it.

Hoping with for the countless list.

Good luck

you are  a computer scientist and you do not know what you like.

from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_scientist

Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems.[1][2][3] Computer science has many sub-fields; some emphasize the computation of specific results (such as computer graphics), while others relate to properties of computational problems (such as computational complexity theory). Still others focus on the challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to describing computations, while computer programming applies specific programming languages to solve specific computational problems. A further subfield, human-computer interaction, focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable and universally accessible to people.


# 4 Fields of computer science

    * 4.1 Mathematical foundations
    * 4.2 Theory of computation
    * 4.3 Algorithms and data structures
    * 4.4 Programming languages and compilers
    * 4.5 Concurrent, parallel, and distributed systems
    * 4.6 Software engineering
    * 4.7 System architecture
    * 4.8 Communications
    * 4.9 Databases
    * 4.10 Artificial intelligence
    * 4.11 Visual rendering (or Computer graphics)
    * 4.12 Human-Computer Interaction
    * 4.13 Scientific computing
    * 4.14 Didactics of computer science / Didactics of Informatics

Hi johnpeace, i doubt there is any such thing as a professional computer scientist because computer science as a discipline is very very wide and vast. If there is, it may take you a lifetime to achieve such. You have to choose one of the subfields of computer science and be a professional in that. e.g a professional Software developer (and again software development can still be broken down into different fields) or a professional Systems analyst or a Network/Communications expert e.t.c
So do more research on the subfields of computer science and choose one. Goodluck!!

Hi johnpeace, since you've decided you want to be a programmer, welcome to the club. I hope you are prepared to drink a lot of coffee and read lots of books.
I believe that by professional courses, you mean a certification. If that is what you mean, you can prepare for any certification exam of your choice and then register for and write it at the nearest prometric testing center to you. If you can't do that you'll have to go to a computer school (not just any computer school) where you'll be specifically trained for the exam of your choice. The most popular ones are NIIT and APTECH.
Popular certifications for a programmer are SCJP (First Stage for a Java Programmer), before SCJD and other sun microsystems based certifications. There is SCJA which is before SCJP but SCJA is not a prerequisite to SCJP. However SCJP is a prerequisite to SCJD and other sun certifications.
There is also MCSE which is a microsoft certification you'll need to do more research on that. I think(I'm not sure) MCSE is the prerequisite to other microsoft programming certifications. With this, you'll be developing applications based on the .NET development kit.

Others are MCDBA (Microsoft) and OCA which is a prerequisite to OCP and OCM (Oracle) for database administrators.

There are also other certifications for Web developers, sun has its (SCWCD).

Other certifications are also available for hardware technicians and Network administrators e.g A+ CCNA,

Johnpeace

Asking advice on the direction you should take will leave you confused because developers here will have different views based on their own experiences. There's a lot of information about certifications and different programming languages on the internet.  Why not do a bit of research on different programming languages and the market for them? It will make it easier for you to decide.

Once you've decided on the language, learn to use it properly. Programming is very involved and can be very frustrating hence the need for coffee, tea or paracetamol. The key is to learn the basics and then practise a lot using small projects and working your way up. After that, you can consider certification. Certification, without experience, has little value. There are too many certified professionals who know all the basic concepts but find they are out of their depth when it comes to solving real business problems.

Good luck!