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    I've been involved in IT for 25 years, mostly with small businesses.  I taught myself most of the operating system, development, and networking technologies that I implemented for each of the companies that I worked for.  Most of my programming experience began with dBase, then FoxPro, and then Visual FoxPro.  My career evolved and I took on many positions where I served as network administrator, desktop support, and software developer.  I am currently employed and hold the IT Director position with a small company.  This company does not require any custom software development and I am feeling the urge to shift my career back to software development.  I have used Visual Studio for some small projects in the past and would like to get trained and certified in that development environment.

    Having said all that, could anyone recommend a training/certification path that would update my programming skills and enhance my resume so that I can pursue a software developers position?  Any recommendations for a tech school or company that provides that training?

    Thanks for any and all suggestions.
    Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:19 PM

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    Hi,

    You may like to look at this link http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-vstudio.aspx

    With regards to training, I would search on www.prometric.com for a test centre near you. Many of these provide classroom training, and if they don't, then they will be able to point you in the right direction.

    I hope this helps!

    Brian
    MCDST
    MCITP - Enterprise Support Technician - Charter Member
    MCTS - Vista Configuration - Charter Member
    MCTS - Volume Licensing Specialist, Small and Medium Organizations - Charter Member
    MCITP - Consumer Support Technician
    MCTS - Windows Server 2008, Active Directory Configuration
    • Proposed as answer by Brian_Jones Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:34 PM
    • Marked as answer by Rubel Khan Friday, January 8, 2010 7:50 PM
    Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:31 PM
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    Hi,

     

    You will find this information in the link provided by Brian, but since you asked for recommendation, I would like to add following.

     

    You have mentioned, you used Visual Studio, depends on the version (2005 or 2008) there two exam paths (2.0 and 3.5) currently available. Since you are staring fresh, let’s go for .Net 3.5.

     

    Depend on your interest or project; you may focus on Web Development or Windows Development or may be both. There are others tracks available but these two are most popular.

     

    Web Development Path:

    MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5 ASP .NET Applications (Two Exams required 70-536 and 70-562)

    Once you complete MCTS, do some development and gain some experience and than go for MCPD: ASP.NET Developer 3.5 (One exam required 70-564)

     

    Windows Development Path:

    MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5 Windows Forms Applications (Two Exams required 70-536 and 70-505)

    Once you complete MCTS, do some development and gain some experience and than go for MCPD: Windows Developer 3.5 (One exam required 70-563)

     

    Hope this is helpful.

    Rubel Khan
    • Proposed as answer by Rubel Khan Friday, June 12, 2009 1:17 AM
    • Marked as answer by Rubel Khan Friday, January 8, 2010 7:50 PM
    Friday, June 12, 2009 1:17 AM
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    Hi

    Well at least you have most of the fundamentals of programming. Your main experience seems to be coming from the client side rather than web. How familair are you with the framework in general?

    My first suggestion to you would be start looking at what interests you, be it web or windows client development or mobile development. Then you start looking at what you should be doing exam wise. If you are not using the .NET framework actively as a developer you will find it hard going as most of the MCTS exams are based around the "how" as in how do you connect to a database in code, how do you use generic lists etc. The actual Pro exam for MCPD comes down to experience and its the "why", why do you do it this way rather than this way, why do you use web services in this case over GAC's assemblies.

    Without knowing your familiarity with the .NET Framework as a whole, its like asking a crystal ball.. sure we might get it right but its doubtful.

    If you are really keen to start anyways, take a look at exam 70-536. This is the fundamentals exam and covers most of the stuff inside the System namespace so it can get you programming quicker. Also its the base exam for any of the exams on .NET 2.0 or .NET 3.5 (because they both use the same version of the CLR).

    Once you have looked at that and hopefully passed it, it will put you in a great position to decide where you want to go.

    Now to help with this there is a really cool free online course called Rampup which provides you with online courses and projects to get your skills up quickly. Its also targetted at different types of developers who are looking like you to move from one tech to another

    You can find the info here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/rampup/default.aspx

    Once you complete the course, you get a 25% reduction in the cost of the exam!

    I have a blog post on the whole 70-536 which may be of interest to you

    http://certsandprogs.blogspot.com/2008/11/exam-tips-for-70-536.html

    HTH
    Blog: http://certsandprogs.blogspot.com
    • Marked as answer by Rubel Khan Friday, January 8, 2010 7:50 PM
    Friday, June 12, 2009 8:15 AM

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    Hi,

    You may like to look at this link http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-vstudio.aspx

    With regards to training, I would search on www.prometric.com for a test centre near you. Many of these provide classroom training, and if they don't, then they will be able to point you in the right direction.

    I hope this helps!

    Brian
    MCDST
    MCITP - Enterprise Support Technician - Charter Member
    MCTS - Vista Configuration - Charter Member
    MCTS - Volume Licensing Specialist, Small and Medium Organizations - Charter Member
    MCITP - Consumer Support Technician
    MCTS - Windows Server 2008, Active Directory Configuration
    • Proposed as answer by Brian_Jones Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:34 PM
    • Marked as answer by Rubel Khan Friday, January 8, 2010 7:50 PM
    Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:31 PM
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    Hi,

     

    You will find this information in the link provided by Brian, but since you asked for recommendation, I would like to add following.

     

    You have mentioned, you used Visual Studio, depends on the version (2005 or 2008) there two exam paths (2.0 and 3.5) currently available. Since you are staring fresh, let’s go for .Net 3.5.

     

    Depend on your interest or project; you may focus on Web Development or Windows Development or may be both. There are others tracks available but these two are most popular.

     

    Web Development Path:

    MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5 ASP .NET Applications (Two Exams required 70-536 and 70-562)

    Once you complete MCTS, do some development and gain some experience and than go for MCPD: ASP.NET Developer 3.5 (One exam required 70-564)

     

    Windows Development Path:

    MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5 Windows Forms Applications (Two Exams required 70-536 and 70-505)

    Once you complete MCTS, do some development and gain some experience and than go for MCPD: Windows Developer 3.5 (One exam required 70-563)

     

    Hope this is helpful.

    Rubel Khan
    • Proposed as answer by Rubel Khan Friday, June 12, 2009 1:17 AM
    • Marked as answer by Rubel Khan Friday, January 8, 2010 7:50 PM
    Friday, June 12, 2009 1:17 AM
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    HI HillTex,

                   If you want for Visual Studio Certification, You have to choose the framework i.e  .NET 2.0( Visual Studio 2005) or .NET 3.5 ( visual studio 2008) for Certification.

                   For both framework  there are

           1. MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist)
             
               and
            
           2.MCPD (Microsoft Certified Professional Developer)


    In both MCTS and MCPD there are categories like....

    (for .net framework 3.5)
    MCPD: Windows Developer 3.5

    MCPD: ASP.NET Developer 3.5

    MCPD: Enterprise Application Developer 3.5

    similarly for .net framework 2.0 these are available also.........

    For more details you can follow this link.

    http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-vstudio.aspx#tab3

    Thanks,
    Tapan Pattanaik
    • Edited by TapanPattanaik Friday, June 12, 2009 8:04 AM forgot mention some useful tips.
    • Proposed as answer by TapanPattanaik Friday, June 12, 2009 8:05 AM
    Friday, June 12, 2009 8:02 AM
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    Hi

    Well at least you have most of the fundamentals of programming. Your main experience seems to be coming from the client side rather than web. How familair are you with the framework in general?

    My first suggestion to you would be start looking at what interests you, be it web or windows client development or mobile development. Then you start looking at what you should be doing exam wise. If you are not using the .NET framework actively as a developer you will find it hard going as most of the MCTS exams are based around the "how" as in how do you connect to a database in code, how do you use generic lists etc. The actual Pro exam for MCPD comes down to experience and its the "why", why do you do it this way rather than this way, why do you use web services in this case over GAC's assemblies.

    Without knowing your familiarity with the .NET Framework as a whole, its like asking a crystal ball.. sure we might get it right but its doubtful.

    If you are really keen to start anyways, take a look at exam 70-536. This is the fundamentals exam and covers most of the stuff inside the System namespace so it can get you programming quicker. Also its the base exam for any of the exams on .NET 2.0 or .NET 3.5 (because they both use the same version of the CLR).

    Once you have looked at that and hopefully passed it, it will put you in a great position to decide where you want to go.

    Now to help with this there is a really cool free online course called Rampup which provides you with online courses and projects to get your skills up quickly. Its also targetted at different types of developers who are looking like you to move from one tech to another

    You can find the info here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/rampup/default.aspx

    Once you complete the course, you get a 25% reduction in the cost of the exam!

    I have a blog post on the whole 70-536 which may be of interest to you

    http://certsandprogs.blogspot.com/2008/11/exam-tips-for-70-536.html

    HTH
    Blog: http://certsandprogs.blogspot.com
    • Marked as answer by Rubel Khan Friday, January 8, 2010 7:50 PM
    Friday, June 12, 2009 8:15 AM
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    Brian -

    Thank you for the information and advice.  It is very much appreciated.

    Randy
    Friday, June 12, 2009 7:21 PM
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    Great information and great advice!!  Thanks to all for taking the time to provide this very helpful information.  It sounds like I need to get started down the MCTS certification path and choose either Web or Windows development (or both as one suggested).  Niall ... thanks so much for the information on the RampUp course and the link to your blog describing preparation for the 70-536 exam.  This is a VERY good place for me to start.

    Wish me luck on my road to MCPD certification.

    Thanks again to all.

    Randy

    Friday, June 12, 2009 7:36 PM
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    HI HillTex,

                 yes, exam   70-536 is necessary for  framework ( i.e 2.0 or 3.5) to achieve any  MCTS and  MCPD exam.
    Thank You
    Friday, June 12, 2009 8:02 PM