Benefits of being a MCPD [modified]

[Dave Parker]

It gets your company partner points, and most employers seem to be after these so I'll probably get certified at some point just for that reason.

[Oakman]

smcnulty2000 wrote:

Okay, that clarifies a lot of those Borg episodes.

But it still doesn't explain those guys in berets shooting Germans from ambush in WWII.

Jon Soap Box 1.0: the first, the original, reborn troll-less

[Ed Leighton Dick]

I have my MCITP in database administration. It's similar to a MCPD in terms of requirements - two MCTS exams and then the MCITP exam.

BRShroyer wrote:

How long does it take?

For me, about a year of late nights to do the three exams. My employer paid for them but did not give me work time to study.

BRShroyer wrote:

Is it worth it? How much will it help my career as a developer?

Yes, I think it was worth it. I have a development background, so I used the studying to fill in the gaps in my SQL Server knowledge; I used the exams primarily as incentive to finish the studying. The certifications themselves haven't gained me anything yet (and may never), but I'm fine with that because that wasn't the point. One more thing: Don't kid yourself about how much you'll learn from this. Studying for a certification can give you a good foundation, but it definitely doesn't teach you everything there is to know about something. I'm constantly finding new things about SQL Server that I wonder why they didn't include in the material for the exams. However, it did show me that there are a lot of options I wasn't aware existed, and I now know much better what questions to ask to get the answers I need. Ed

[Jerry Hammond]

No, the singular is correct 'cause certification makes me stand out form the crowd :::rim shot:::

"My interest is in the future because I'm going to spend the rest of my life there." - Charles F. Kettering

[Naturality]

if(Ω < 1) *resistance = futile;

"Sir, I protest. I am NOT a merry man!"

[webatxcent]

As a business owner as well as a certified developer (MCAD) having certified people is necessary to maintain Microsoft Certified Partner status for the organization. For those of you that don't know being more than a registered partner requires at least two certified personnel on staff (which certifications depend on which "competency" recognition you seek from Microsoft). Because of this Certified Partner requirement, myself and one of my lead developers went through the cert process despite believing in the general concensus voiced here that experience will generally trump certifications on a CV. Why you might ask is that of value? We didn't want it for validating ourselves to our customers--they already know we are good at what we do--we did it for the boatload of use licenses and support you get from Microsoft on just about every product they publish including all of the betas and RCs which we need to stay "good". Bill. www.xcent.com

[webatxcent]

I crammed in three for MCAD in 6 weeks, mainly because we were encroaching on the exam retirement dates.

[Yusubov E]

Well, being a certified programmer does not hurt once you really studied for this exams and have years of experience in .NET development. It just add a value in your soft. However, value and/or credibility of this certified professional goes down whenever lack of practical experience became evident. Thus, getting this certificates just for fancy title or BIG BUCKS does not work. You should prove your compitance with accurate decisions and solutions in your company/community.

[xExTxCx]

1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111 68 111 101 115 32 116 104 105 115 32 109 101 97 110 32 105 109 32 97 32 103 101 101 107 63 Does this mean im a geek? I suppose that the answer to your question is, yes.:cool:

[Ashley van Gerven]

Same here... I passed 2nd & 3rd mcad exams in March since they were retiring them. The bonus is that MCAD doesn't expire like the newer certs. Plus they had free re-take if you didn't pass ;)

"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza

CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.

[James Lonero]

Brad, it seems weird that your boss wants you to be certified and also wants you to rewrite the software. If he didn't have the confidence that you could do the job, why is he asking you to do it. If he has the confidence you can do the job, then why is he asking you to get certified. If your experience and work does not speak for itself, then your boss is not a good manager. If it is upper management pushing for the certification (saber rattling), and if you are good enough to be trusted with the rewrite, then your boss should be batting for you to upper management. He should find a way to either make it easy for you to get into and pass the test or push back to upper management informing them of the importance of this project. But, from your writing, it seems that your boss is weak and just a puppet in the hands of his manager. He cannot stand up for his people, but bend to the wind to assure that his projects fail. If your boss cannot stand up for you and the challenge you have ahead (as well as clear the road for you), then get out of that company. Find another company where your boss will let you do your job without the non-essential interruptions. Also, the certification is a bunch of BS. What happens in two years when all have moved on to Windows Developer 4.0? Will your certification be valid? (There should be a grandfather clause in the certification process that allows for valid certification over all [the same product line] for at least five years.) If your boss want certification, he should look into more software engineering/architecting certification tests like OO design, software testing, design patterns, etc. To base a certificate on a particular operating system, library, IDE, program, or one specific framework. Just a waste.