I am getting my bachelor degree in a few month. After that I`m planing to go for a master degree in software engineering. In the mean time I plan to take some certification too. I develop in Java and obvious plan to go on Oracle Java certification path. But as an addition to my knowledge (and proof of knowledge) I plan to take Cisco CCNA (only CCNA) and Ubuntu certificate. What is your opinion on the value of doing this? And opinion on the value and strengths of this chosen certificates?
A:
The Cisco certifications are very challenging to obtain and worth having.
The Java certifications won't do you any harm, because learning is never wasted, but I have two of them that I don't even list on my resume. I've never had anyone ask about them. I don't believe they're as difficult to obtain as the Cisco certifications.
I don't know about the Ubuntu certificate.
duffymo
2010-07-11 22:52:06
A:
My opinion of certification (in general) is that it is not worth a great deal.
At best, one of those certificates demonstrates that you were able to show a certain level of factual knowledge and (maybe) understanding of the technology at a certain point of time. Unfortunately, it does NOT say anything about whether you can apply that "book knowledge" to the real tasks of designing, coding, testing, implementing and documenting software. And it does not tell me if you still remember and/or ever really understood that stuff.
In my opinion, the attributes that help an applicant most are:
- relevant experience,
- a degree from a decent university (with a good GPA score),
- good language and communication skills (spoken AND written),
- good IT problem solving skills ... demonstrated at the interview,
- good attitude
Stephen C
2010-07-12 01:53:14