Prerequisit for MCTS

Discussion in 'MCAD / MCSD / MCPD' started by Shwetha, Jul 7, 2010.

  1. Shwetha

    Shwetha New Member

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    Hi,

    I am planning to self study C# and take up MCTS 70-536 exam. I have no experience in C#. So, I wanted to know are there any prerequisits to take up this exam like in minimum work experience or any other of the kind.

    Also, what are the certifications paths to go through to attain MCPD certification.

    Thanks
    Shwetha
     
  2. dmarsh
    Honorary Member 500 Likes Award

    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    You can take the exam without experience no one will stop you but in reality it's designed for someone who's been coding pretty much fulltime for a couple of years and has knowledge of windows development, C#, the .NET framework and Visual Studio.

    The framework is so big thats it's unlikely you will be exposed to enough of it in a shorter time period or have gained the prerequisite knowledge.

    Heres Microsofts official guidance :-

     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2010
  3. Shwetha

    Shwetha New Member

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    Thanks for the reply. It was quite helpful.

    But, the whole reason for me to take up the certification is to get back to job as C# programmer. I do not have enough experience even to apply for junior developer position. So, I wanted to take up the certifcation to get in depth understanding of the language and as a boosting factor in my CV.

    It would be great if you could suggest me the ways of getting through the certification. I am planning to study C# on my own. Are there any other things I need to do to get through the certification.

    Thanks
    Shwetha
     
  4. dmarsh
    Honorary Member 500 Likes Award

    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    Ok but some questions for you :-

    1. What is your experience level with Windows Development ?

    2. How many versions of Visual Studio have you used and to what extent ?

    3. How many libraries or frameworks have you used, which ones ?

    4. Are you familiar with Object Orientated development ?

    5. Are you familiar with any modern object orientated imperative languages like C++, Java, C# ?

    6. Are you familiar with Virtual Machines and Garbage Collectors ?

    7. How long can you study for fulltime ?

    What do you mean you do not have enough experience to apply for a junior development position ? What do you mean as 'back to', were you a C# programmer before ? If not what type of programmer were you and what experience do you already have ?

    You can get an indepth understanding of the language without certification, I would reccomend doing this first.

    The 70-536 covers the .NET framework, it does not really test on C# fundamentals, you should know these first.

    The MS training kit for 70-536 does a reasonable job as you can do in around 1000 pages, study this fulltime, work through MeasureUp test, add in some releavant experience and reading around MSDN and you might just scrape a pass.

    70-536 is a TS exam, but even if you pass it you will not be MCTS, you will need to pass an additional exam. Generally people take either the Windows or Web developer tracks, the 70-536 exam is also on some other MCTS tracks.

    If you have no relevant experience you should not attempt certification, its not an entry level certification, you need the pre-requisite knowledge to even stand a chance of understanding the objectives and passing the exam.

    Companies want experience and recruiters will filter your CV out based on years of experience, a certifiction is unlikely to make much difference without the experience to back it up.

    Why not learn C# from a good book and use that and your exisiting skills to apply for new positions and emphasize you are keen to learn?

    Its all explained here :-

    Visual Studio Tracks
    Visual Studio 2005 / .NET 2.0 Tracks poster
    Visual Studio 2008 / .NET 3.5 Tracks poster - View attachment VSMap.pdf
    Visual Studio 2010 / .NET 4 Tracks poster
    Developer 2008 Tracks poster

    Best of luck! :D
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2010
  5. Shwetha

    Shwetha New Member

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    Well, I am not new to C# or OOP languages. I have C# and ASP.NET before but worked on it for a very short period of time. After that I moved on to working on Siebel - CRM.

    I have been looking out for Siebel jobs, but most of the Siebel roles require at least 4 years of experience. I have been out of work for over an year and half now. So I am widening area of job applications. I am focusing on the technologies I have already learnt and worked on. C# being one of the area and also coz it has more job opportunities (even at junior level), I wanted to get back brushing up the skills.

    I am focusig on certifications coz, any agent I speak to regarding C# job opportunities, they ask how have I been using it recently (since my last job). Saying that I have been practicing it doesn't seem quite convincing to them to forward my CV to their client. So, I thougt if I focus on certification then they will have a proof that I have been using C# lately.

    I am trying to find ways to get an job interview, but gap in my work and less work experience (2 years in Siebel and 3 months in C#) are the negative factors.

    What do tou reckon? Is this the better way to go about?

    Thanks
    Shwetha
     
  6. dmarsh
    Honorary Member 500 Likes Award

    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    Its just a tough market at the moment, anything you can do to make yourself attractive could help.

    Under 6 months experience in a tech is generally not going to register with a recruiter, they generally want 1-2 years minimum.

    Three months experience is not really going to be enough to pass the exam, you need to know about all types of Windows development, I/O, encryption, threads, security, collections/datastructures, configuration, installation, events, processes, debugging, tracing, iterators, serialization, XML, binary, SOAP, compression, auditing, namespaces, libraries, interop, marshalling, Mail/SMTP, i18n, Graphics/GDI, RegEx, File Formats / Encoding, plus a few more...

    http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?id=70-536#tab2

    It could take you many months to get enough experience to pass by self study, at this point you don't meet the prerequisites so I'd not attempt the cert until you have more experience writing windows apps.

    Spend your time applying for jobs, in spare time write as many windows apps as you can, consider entering the Google Summer of Code etc.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2010
  7. Shwetha

    Shwetha New Member

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    I thought the same too. But the major experience I have is in Siebel. And that's a very narrow area of work. But most of the jobs require more than 2 years of experience.

    So, apart from C, C++ jobs I am also focusing on C# jobs. Which is the best way to get started with it.

    Thanks
    Shwetha
     
  8. dmarsh
    Honorary Member 500 Likes Award

    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    So you coded for Siebel in C++ ? Thought most of it was in Java ?

    Have you done any C++ Win16/Win32/ATL/COM/MFC programming ? A good knowledge of the underlying windows API helps you grok the .NET framework in many places. Also knowledge of Visual Studio from C++ can help a small bit.

    Knowledge of garbage collected languages like Smalltalk and Java can help a bit.

    The rest you just have to learn and practice, and theres a lot of it.

    Just buy some good books on Visual C# and work through them, then try and think of some interesting projects and code them or contribute to open source projects.

    Visual C# Express can be downloaded for free and students can register for Dreamspark and get a profesional version free.

    The Windows SDK can come in useful too.

    Its possible to even do without an IDE and compile from the command line, just using the .NET Framework, however as express is free I wouldn't bother unless interested.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2010
  9. Shwetha

    Shwetha New Member

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    No there was seperate scripting language for Siebel, similarto java script. But the underline coding of Siebel is through C++ functions and Java.

    I was planning to enroll to an online C# and ASP.NET course (from Computeach). They charge about £1680 which includes course materials and MCPD certification (including MCTS 70-536 ad 70-562). But its mostly self study and u will have an tutor assigned to clear ur doubts. But u will have to study on ur own. The agent at Computeach said that after my first MCTS (70-563) they will forward ny CV enrolled companies like IBM, Siemens, WH Smith etc and help me get job at junior level.

    It all seems fine. But the reviews about Computeach (on ciao.co.uk) are not quite good. And I was in an dilemma that, if I have to pay £1680 and do self study I can do it with enrolling with them!!! Also, I am not sure if the fact that they will help get job after first MCTS is certain or not?
     
  10. dmarsh
    Honorary Member 500 Likes Award

    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    I've self studied all my certs, I had a couple of courses paid for by work about 10 years ago but they were non cert specific.

    In my limited experience of people I personally know taking such courses they generally get a couple tutorials of average quality, the rest is largely down to them, any success at passing exams is generally down to braindumps that the students get handed.

    The 70-536 is really not an entry level exam, thats all I can say, it simply should not be sold or marketed in this way, its irresponsible or downright wrong for them to do this, they should at least carefully vet candidates to see if they meet the prerequisistes.

    They are not going to do you any massive favours in your job search, they basically tend to have a recruitment arm, if they can place you its extra cash for them, if they can't they can say they tried. You get the same service from any recruiter for free.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2010
  11. Shwetha

    Shwetha New Member

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    That's very true!!! Gosh!! ppl can be so misleading isn't it....

    I believe if u take up certs on ur own, it's a fraction of amount of what they are charging. The lady from Computeach is gonna call me tommorow. Will tell her am no gonna take the course. I bet u can have very good vacation with that money instead :)

    Will have to start digging Herb Schildt now :)
     
  12. JonnyMX

    JonnyMX Petabyte Poster

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    :yep

    Indeed...
     
    Certifications: MCT, MCTS, i-Net+, CIW CI, Prince2, MSP, MCSD
  13. Shwetha

    Shwetha New Member

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    @dmarsh: Thanks for the advice and the details :) It was realy helpful!!!
     
  14. dmarsh
    Honorary Member 500 Likes Award

    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    70-536 really was a tough exam, and so are the upgrade exams from what I hear.

    Yes hit the books for a while, great idea, when you think you are ready say in a years time look at the 2010 track.

    The new track has a lower point of entry at just one years recommended experience. You also get MCTS after just one exam.

    Exam 70-511

    There will be a training kit book but its not yet published :-

    MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-511): Microsoft® .NET Framework 4-Windows Applications Development
    (ISBN: 9780735627420)

    Unless you have a lot of experience with web development from say PHP or Java Servlets/JSP or similar the Windows developer route is probably going to be easier. I'd consider looking into the web aspect after mastering desktop development.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2010
  15. Shwetha

    Shwetha New Member

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    Sure, that's great!!! Thanks so mch :)
     

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