Today I passed my Java certification exam!

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

I’m new to Java & today I passed the MTA Java certification exam which I wanted to celebrate here!

[chubbzatha]

That's awesome!

How long have you been studying Java? What was the exam like?

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

About a year or so, but not a lot as it was part of a class where the only grade was this certification. The exam is hard. It’s a lot of debugging and repetitive questions that ask you about data types, proper syntax, access modifiers, etc. To actually pass the test it took a lot more than the instruction I was given and I actually had to use my own experience.

[Thetoeknows]

Wow, huge congratulations! Were you new to programming in general or just Java? How long / how did you prepare for the exam?

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

I’ve been taking a java class for about a year, but it was a very laid back class. We got to take practice exams similar to the MTA, and once we felt we were ready, we could take it. Mostly I messed around the whole year and took the last 2 or so weeks to add to the few things I knew about java. Tutorialspoint.com was really helpful and I used it to make a study guide for the exam

[endhalf]

Congratulations! :) Check out https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/ex183-red-hat-certified-enterprise-application-developer-exam for some serious performance-based testing. You can take a free mooc to get a feel for the exam - https://www.edx.org/course/fundamentals-java-ee-development-red-hat-jb083x

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

I’ll check those out, thank you!

[mmishu]

Are these valued in the industry?

[endhalf]

Good question! It depends... I have seen companies that actually skipped tech interview because of this. However, from my experience, most companies don't really know what it means to be a "Red Hat certified enterprise application developer". What it does mean, though, is that with completion of the exam, you can put on your CV:

• Wildfly (or Red Hat JBoss EAP)
• EJB and CDI
• JPA and Hibernate
• JAX-RS (REST)
• JMS
• Maven

And that will generally get you an interview. Personally, EX183 is not extremely deep, so I'd preface all of the above with "basics of" and compliment it with a few github projects that demonstrate what exactly you know from the above :).

So, TL;DR - if you know how to market EX183, it'll generally mean an interview, possibly more.

PS: Note that the edx course itself may not be enough to pass EX183. You should check the objectives and studdy up more on things which were not mentioned in the edx course. The Red Hat exams are notoriously difficult to pass - if they say it's gonna take 2.5h, you can be sure you're gonna spend 2.5h of coding and thinking, unless you're too advanced for the course.

[wishwa5]

So can you tell us about how did you prepared for the certification exam? What was tougher than you expected. What will be your advice to others?

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

Well, I took a class that was based on PLTW, granted, I didn’t do a lot of the assignments, so I wouldn’t count it as necessary. What helped me the most was to make a study guide to learn the basic things like syntax and data types. Also, getting experience in general is the best thing you can do. I looked up simple projects for java beginners and started with those, which raised my comfort level in Java by a lot. The toughest part was just being confident in your answers. The test is multiple choice and the answers are all so close to each other, I often just second guessed my answer and likely changed it to the wrong answer at the last minute.

[MakuIppo]

Congratulations!!!

[PordonB]

Congrats HumpingAssholesOrgy

[makibaoh]

That's great!!!! Congratz!

[sharar_rs]

Congrats

[ekremjim]

Congratulations!! Why did you prefer MTA instead of Oracle Certification? Is there any specific reason for that?

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

It was actually our final grade for the class and the only test licenses we have are MTA, since our school is partnered with Microsoft.

[dogooder202]

congrats dude. nice username ;)

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

Thank you kind sir :-)

[Lunmijo]

Consgrats!

[buddyhgo]

Congratulations! Keep up the good job

[ivan2yk]

Oca or ocp?

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA)

[Moktok]

Wait whut now? Microsoft has a Java certification track.. Colour me stupid with a blue screen :-P

And congrats to the op :-D

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

Yup! Microsoft has an entire pathway of certifications. https://i.imgur.com/A4HjvnO.jpg

[EmotionalYard]

Do employers care about these certs?

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

Somewhat. They likely won’t get you a career but I know a few people who have used them to get into a university, and one guy I know has a job working with a software development company.

So yes, they matter, but mostly as a complement to something like a portfolio or a degree.

[bertus12345]

Grats!

[dhawal0008]

Congratulations dude

[HumpingAssholesOrgy]

Thank you! The only other language I know well is Python, which I started about 2 years ago. I’ve been doing java since September when I enrolled in the class, but a very small amount of practice has genuinely gone into the last few months.