Any reviews of O'Reilly School of Technology courses and/or certificates?

Question

Has anyone had experience with O'Reilly School of Technology? I'm a new(er) front-end guy with 2.5 years of FT work under my belt and I have CSS/HTML down pat, and am looking to expand my JS knowledge, so I'm looking into the Client-Side Programming Certificate. Work would pay for it, so that's not a problem. However, if there are better certificate programs out there, I'd love to hear about them.

Answer 1

I got a Java certificate from there. I learned a lot and it was different than what you might think. At first I was like 'what's going on here?' as it seems the interface they use kind of hides the content a bit but you can see it while you type in their examples they give you in the lessons. Pretty soon, you're making things and understanding how things work.

You get an instructor who is really more like a tutor who looks over your projects and gives you feedback on them. They'll also answer your questions and help you out.

I'd say the weakest part is a lack of discussion groups with other students.

The University of Illinois thing helps too, although I haven't applied to any jobs in this area yet (I've still got a lot to learn and hope O'reilly releases the advanced Java series soon. I'm also looking into doing the Sun Cert stuff.

S

Answer 2

Cheers, Sam! I have registered in the summer for the Java course but haven't touched it yet (put it on hold as I am doing a uni course at the moment too and I am still not sure wheather to switch to PHP or not - I still like Java but not sure what the trends in employment will be on Java). So you recon it's worth doing it? How confident are you now on your Java skills (yes, I did read that you still have a lot to learn), but can you write some serious code based on what the course gave you? Also what do you know about how O'Reilly certs are viewed out there (btw, where are you based? I am in the UK). Cheers!

Ty

Answer 3

I'm currently taking the PHP/MYSQL certificate program. I like it mainly because I got during labor day which was 40% off the total price. I get feedback and response from my mentor within 24 hours. Each lesson has a lab/quiz or both but the grades aren't alphabetical. You only receive grades such as: Great, Terrific, Good Job, or Try Again. My main complaint is the delivery of the content which contains errors and broken links. I've emailed technical support several times (once per issue) and they haven't been resolved. I only received responses stating, "We'll look into it."