Self-taught MCSD

I've been a Delphi developer since it came out. I want to move our product
to the .NET platform, and while I understand many of the basics, I don't
have much practical experience with Visual Studio, XML etc. I figured
getting an MCSD would be a decent way to get introduced to this stuff, plus
get the benefits that an MCSD cert would provide. However, I can't see
paying a tech college $12000 + to learn this stuff - I don't have the
greatest opinion of these tech colleges. Has anyone here done the MCSD
training on their own from the MS books? Are they sufficient? I'm an MSDN
Universal subscriber so I have all the software I need. I'm generally
self-taught on most of the stuff I use now though I do have a 4 year honors
degree in Comp Sci from university. I have a number of years of design,
analysis, development, implementation and support experience. Is the
self-taught route a good way for me to go? Or, will I really miss something
trying to do this only from books and MS newsgroups? Are there better books
than the MS published ones?

Thanks,
Chris

 

I'm an MSDN

That's all you need.

 

yep, as long as you have the software to use you can learn all that you
need.

 

I am currently getting my MCSD.NET certification without courses, using
only books. That's exactly how I got my MCSD certification.

No, the MSPress books are not enough. They are buggy and leave out
important information that's on the exam. If you're doing your exams in
C#, buy the Que books by Amit Kalani for 70-315, 70-316 and 70-320.

A word of warning: the MSPress book for 70-300 is COMPLETELY USELESS.
Buy Que's ExamCram2 book instead. It's cheaper to boot.

Sorry Microsoft, I know it's your newsgroup, but your Training Kits suck.

 

Sorry Microsoft, I know it's your newsgroup, but your Training Kits suck.

Yet the vast majority of their other books are excellent - seems a bit
strange to me.

 

Is the self-taught route a good way for me to go?<<

Chris,

I am a self-taught MCSD (for VS6), and I've passed my
first two exams for the MCSD for .NET. I believe that
what you want to do can be done, but I'm not going to tell
you that it will be easy. For what it's worth, here's
what I've done (and am doing):

When I decide which exam I'm going to take I'll get a
short "basics" book for the exam, such as the "exam-cram"
series from Coriolus or one from MS Press. This is
usually a good start and a decent overview of the
technology.

I will then (this is the most important part) spend some
time actually working with the technology -- I'll either
do some volunteer work for a local organization or I will
set myself a task and a timeline and *do it*.

Finally, I will get a set of practice tests from one of
the reputable vendors such as Transcender, and I will take
all of those repeatedly until I can pass them all. At that
point, I am usually ready to take the exam and pass it.

I cannot stress enough that actually working with the
products is the most important training you're goint to
get.

I think you'll find that if you are an experienced Delphi
developer a lot of your skills should transfer fairly
easily: designing good apps is hard in any language, and
the rest is just syntax. }

Joseph H. Ackerman, MCSD
ACKnowledge Software

 

Thanks for the info. I was just about to ask how long people were finding
the prep took. It sounds like you're spending a lot more time than the 5 or
so days that Microsoft and some of the tech colleges talk about for each
exam.

I do have a lot of experience with stuff other than straight Delphi (i.e.
DAO/ADO/ADOX, Office Automation, VBA, Access, SQL Server 7/2000, HTML, ASP,
Windows Installer etc.) so I'm hoping I can pick up most of the stuff pretty
quick. My understanding is that one of the big brains behind Delphi was
also one of the main people behind C# so I'm thinking of taking the C#
route. I think I've read that C# builds on a lot of Delphi ideas (with a
lot of C mixed in of course). I've never really liked VB much compared to
Delphi, and I figure if I can get C# I'll be able to figure out the VB.NET
later if I need to.

 

Thanks, I am thinking I'll go C# so I'll definitely check out the Que books.
How much time have you found you had to devote to preparing for each exam?

 

Many people are self taught. Plenty of books that guide you are available.
The only caveat is that self taught requires the discipline and the time and
it usually takes much longer if you've got a regular job.

Wray

 

It looks like I'll be able to take at least some paid time off to devote to
this. I'm trying to figure out how much time I'm looking at though. The
colleges and the MS site seem to talk about 3-5 days to prepare for each
exam. Is that reasonble for self study if I devote full time days to it?

I will be using almost everything in the MCSD courses for building the new
platform for our software product. But, I'd like to finish the course first
rather than use our new project as on-the-job training for the MCSD. I'm
thinking taking the MCSD first will help me make good design decisions
before I spend a lot of time going down the right path. I will be putting
pretty much everything I learn from the MCSD cert to use right away once
I've completed it.

 

For 70-300 I studied an average of 2.5 hours a day for 4 weeks.
For 70-320 I studied an average of 2 hours a day for 6 weeks.
But that's because I was learning a lot of stuff that overlaps with
70-315 and 70-316, so I anticipate writing both in the same day in about
3-4 weeks.

 

If that isn't the truth, all I do when I get home at night and on weekends
is study; it's very hard when you work 50 and 60 hour weeks.

Sleep, what's that again?

 

If that isn't the truth, all I do when I get home at night and on weekends

Is there any point in living!

 

Doesn't feel that way a lot of the time, lol

 

it usually takes much longer if you've got a regular job.

I don't think so! If that's the case, those people should not be
employed. I mean, if you use the tools each day, the exams should be
easy.

 

Just because you are employed it doesn't mean you are coding in vs.net
everyday.

 

Hi,
I am a preparing for the exam 70-175, Distributed
Applications with MS Visual Basic 6.0. I am using the
MSPress book and some MS Certification CD's for this exam
I am planning to do some Measureup Exams afterwards.

Do you think that these have enough material for this
exam? Do i need to look @ any other bokks etc.

Self-study is my only option and I would appreciate any
help from you

Thanks

Vijja

 

Do you think that these have enough material for this

No.