What do you call the doctor who graduated last in his class?
A doctor, of course.
And, by extension, what do you call somebody who passes a certification test with the minimum passing score? Certified!
I'm glad to be done with it, even though I put off the second part over a year. I'm officially done with the 2005 certifications! Here's what I end up with having passed the two MCSD upgrade tests:
Part of the reason that it took so long is that I really didn't care in the grand scheme of things. The letters are nice to have on my cards... if I carried cards. Nice to have on my resume... but the companies I _WANT_ to work with shouldn't even care. Nice to brag about... if I cared to brag. Really, the biggest personal benefits I get for the certifications are that I know what others went through to get them (and thus, know how strongly to value the certs) and that I can contribute to my employer's points for Microsoft partnerships. All in all, the certification has nearly ZERO correlation to how much I know and study .NET.
This goes right into my next topic about how I feel about going back to school for my MBA... I already read a lot of MBA-ish books that my wife and father-in-law push my way. I already study blogs about business, startups, and leadership. While the letters would be nice on business cards (see above), my resume (see above) and for bragging rights (see above), what's the REAL benefit to me? Is it really worth putting in 8-30 hours a week for some indefinite period? Especially considering that the more valuable (i.e. better reputation) programs take more effort than the "one night a week" programs?
So... what's next? Probably a lot more reading and programming for fun... it turns out that using LINQ is somehow very enjoyable.