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Java

Stephen Shine
Stephen Shine
5,991 Points
Posted by Stephen Shine
Stephen Shine
5,991 Points

Java qualifications: are they worth it?

I've almost finished the java track here on treehouse and I was looking at doing a java qualification with Oracle. I was looking at doing it to the professional level.

The price is quite reasonable (about £160 per exam) but I was wondering if it was worth while?

My ultimate goal is to have a job as a java developer. I currently work with another Oracle product in my job called OPA and I have a masters in music technology (although I finished my degree 6 years ago and haven't worked in computing full time since).

Does anyone know if employers tend to value these qualifications? Or should I focus my time on developing programmes so I have real world experience?

Thanks

Simon Coates
Simon Coates
28,694 Points
Simon Coates
Simon Coates
28,694 Points

I think the perception is they don't matter that much. You should be able to find a few Quora threads that deal with that question in a lot of detail. I think the initial java certs are kinda lightweight. (The first cert is 70 multiple choice question with a passing grade of 63%. Given the limited subject matter, it's probably harder to fail than it is to pass.). You could post the question of if not the oracle cert, is there some source for certificates that requires verification of your skillset. I appreciate it's hard. The java certs seem lightweight and the techdegrees at treehouse and udacity seem expensive and time consuming.

2 Answers

Philip Gales
Philip Gales
15,193 Points
Philip Gales
Philip Gales
15,193 Points

I own a marketing business and have a couple large clients who do primarily Java. Whenever I ask them what it would take for an entry level position (with any business)they never mention the certificates. Instead, they always bring up having your own projects that are not tutorials, knowing (even at a basic level) another backend language, and then a list of knowledge like polymorphism, inheritance, etc..

My goal is to become an android developer (java based). After 2 semesters at a university, and talking with recruiters I feel like I am capable of entry/intern level positions and the knowledge required at treehouse to complete the java track does not seem much different. The largest difference is at a university you will have projects that you did yourself.

Stephen Shine
Stephen Shine
5,991 Points
Stephen Shine
Stephen Shine
5,991 Points

Great. Thanks for your advice guys. I think maybe the Oracle qualifications aren't a great choice.

Do you have any advice for creating a portfolio; what kind of projects to do? how many different languages to include? or even where to get ideas from!

Simon Coates
Simon Coates
28,694 Points
Simon Coates
Simon Coates
28,694 Points

places that offer techdegrees would probably describe their syllabus, if you want to get a list of technologies. Job postings will have a lot of clusters of keywords (spring, hibernate, maven, junit, jsf, beans whatever), and you'll get more action if you deal with other popular web stuff (AWS, XML, consume or create APIs, whatever database flavour the cool kids use). Oracle does have a lot of java certs, but you could look at what some of the more advanced ones want. (which part of java is your focus? are we talking web development, general applications, or android? )