Details about my MCTS course

Hi there

Today I'll blog down the details of the courses and exams I'm going to take in an attempt to get MCTS certified.

An MCTS certificate comes in three different specialisations

• Web Applications
• Distributed Applications
• Windows Applications

I've chosen the Web Applications specialisation for myself.

This means that I will have to pass exams 70-536 Development Foundation and 70-528 Web-Based Client Development. Note that this MCTS targets Framework 2.0.

A student must take several courses in order to be prepared for the exams. You can check out the Microsoft courses for MCTS Web Apps here.

Because I already had some knowledge about the .NET framework, I decided to take a skill assessement first for both exams. This is a trail examination which determince your level of knowlegde and allows you to create a customized training course (and reduces the cost :D).

The people of InfoSupport offer good tools and high quality support to help you determine the most siuitable courses to take.

The skill assessements are much like the real examinations, but without the reward should you pass ;-). My scores are:

• 70-536: 60%
• 70-528: 43%

With these results, InfoSupport offered me a customised training plan. It turned out to be a blended plan, a mix of classical and self-paced training.

Given my current knowlegde of the framework, I can take a self-paced training course to prep for exam 70-536.
To be ready for the other exam, I will follow all the classical courses as advised by the training plan.

The courses at InfoSupport are scheduled for September and November of this year. Which gives me a couple of months to eat through the 1088 pages of the self-paced training kit.

I plan to take the exams in December 2008 and January 2009.

Guess I'll know what I'll be doing the next couple of months ;-)

Stay tuned...

Long road to MCTS

Hi there

Let me start off by how my desire to become MCTS certified came into being.

Nearly a year ago, I was really starting to hang of .NET development. I was learning lots of new stuff as was becoming more and more interested in writing solid good code, then going for the classic 'solution that I knew worked'.

At this time I came into contact with some cool people, like my colleague Eric Rogien. He was in the process of becoming MCTS at the time.
He shared his experience with me and from what he told me, it was really worth the effort.

Soon after, I had my first intake interview with the guys from InfoSupport Belgium. The purpose of that talk was to find out if I was 'MCTS material' ;-)

You need a certain level of knowlegde before you should attempting the exam, they said. It's not that you are going to learn a certain syntax, but it's more about learning new ways and design patterns, things you won't come into contact with in your daily work.

And that's really what is it. Becoming certified for me isn't about obtaining a piece of paper that will increase my market value, but more about learning the way to get the most out of the .NET framework.

After that kick-off, I started working on the pratical issues. How was I going to study for the exam, which traject was I going to take, where was I going to get the cash for it, etc etc.
These things nearly took me 6 months to complete ;-)

A huge effort just to get started, but it has been worthwhile, because I already leared a lot and met some cool people along the way.

Next time, I'll blog down the details of my MCTS course.

Stay in touch...

Welcome

Hi there and welcome to my blog.

Here you will be able to read about my journey from being a non-certified developer/analist to an MCTS certified one, and who knows beyond ;-)

I intend to 'blog' down my experience, cool things I learn, test results, etc etc.
So for those of you who want to become MCTS as well, you'll find some usefull reading here.

But first some things to know about me. I'm a 27 year old developer/analist working for the largest telecommunications company of Belgium.

I'm responsible for developing key business solution at an (sometimes) outrageous pace :D
The solutions I write are mostly for the .NET 2.0 platform, but .NET 3.5 is only a foot length away.

Besides coding, I spent my time running, climbing, hiking and playing the electric guitar.

I hope you'll find this blog useful and feel free to leave your remarks or send me an email if you have specific questions.

Cheers