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Microsoft Certification (MCPD)

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  • 07-03-2012 8:27pm
    #1
    COYW
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,930 ✭✭✭


    Friend of mine is taking a few months off day-to-day work for medical reasons and was asking me about the MS Certs available. I have not completed them myself, so I can't answer his questions obviously.

    Has anyone here completed these exams? Are they worth the effort considering the cost? Are there any free mock papers from the exams available online that he can have a look at?


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    #2
    mickquinn05
    Registered Users Posts: 45 ✭mickquinn05


    Yep these exams are well worth while they would be way more highly regarded that college time, depends on what way your friend is headed eg. server administrator, applications and so on, they are fairly cheap about €65 per exam but the learning part is up to him/her self, a lot of good stuff on amazon, plus microsoft also have a lot of helpful guides aswell.


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    #3
    mark renton
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,696 ✭✭✭mark renton


    who exactly holds these in higher regard than college time mickey?


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    #4
    mickquinn05
    Registered Users Posts: 45 ✭mickquinn05


    The people who matter, employers


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    #5
    John_Mc
    Registered Users Posts: 2,790 ✭✭✭John_Mc


    mickquinn05 wrote: »
    The people who matter, employers

    I think you'd need the college qualification before these would be taken into account though. They aren't a replacement.


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    #6
    mark renton
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,696 ✭✭✭mark renton


    Please divulge - why would employers rate a Microsoft exam over understanding the principles of programming development?


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    #7
    mickquinn05
    Registered Users Posts: 45 ✭mickquinn05


    Agree, but you can give 4 years or whatever in college and still not have have any real world experience, but with these exams they show you can do the specific tasks, Its only my opinion but if I was heading abroad and applying for jobs I would rather have the MCITP than saying I spent 4 years in some IT in a place they never heard of


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    #8
    mark renton
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,696 ✭✭✭mark renton


    mickquinn05 wrote: »
    Agree, but you can give 4 years or whatever in college and still not have have any real world experience, but with these exams they show you can do the specific tasks,

    Fraid not son - you have shown you can pass an exam - Microsoft exams, though I havent looked at them recently were notoriously known for being easy to cram, just repeating answers from a finite number of possible questions
    mickquinn05 wrote: »
    Its only my opinion but if I was heading abroad and applying for jobs I would rather have the MCITP than saying I spent 4 years in some IT in a place they never heard of

    I think you might be underestimating the relationships between colleges in different countries


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    #9
    mickquinn05
    Registered Users Posts: 45 ✭mickquinn05


    Fair enough not gonna argue over it


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    #10
    mark renton
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,696 ✭✭✭mark renton


    Did you used to play football mickey?


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    #11
    mickquinn05
    Registered Users Posts: 45 ✭mickquinn05


    Dunno where this is going, but yeah years ago as in Under 14s


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    #12
    mark renton
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,696 ✭✭✭mark renton


    Doing research for social engineering

    Was a joke Mickey...


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    #13
    OneIdea
    Closed Accounts Posts: 249 ✭✭OneIdea


    COYW wrote: »
    Friend of mine is taking a few months off day-to-day work for medical reasons and was asking me about the MS Certs available. I have not completed them myself, so I can't answer his questions obviously.

    Has anyone here completed these exams? Are they worth the effort considering the cost? Are there any free mock papers from the exams available online that he can have a look at?

    Eh.. what about trying a FAS ( http://www.ecollege.ie/site/pages/courses.html ) online course, it might suite your friend, no travel, no pressure etc...


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    #14
    komodosp
    Registered Users Posts: 1,657 ✭✭✭komodosp


    I've done them in ASP.NET and VB.NET and yeah they are very thorough... ALTHOUGH probably only if you are going in blind and don't know what to expect in the exams like I did (and therefore have to cover pretty much everything). I imagine they are fairly crammable alright if you know what to expect.
    Please divulge - why would employers rate a Microsoft exam over understanding the principles of programming development?
    I imagine it's because they quite often (in my experience) just want a person who can do what they are looking for, program in desired language + framework, and aren't too worried if they can tell the difference between a linked list and a binary tree


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