How to earn your MCAD?

Introduction

Look at any corner of a computer institute or a software journal and you will be showered by a number of suggestions and offers regarding certifications and exams available for software professionals. But which is the best one for you? Which certification will enhance your job prospects? This article will give you an idea of which Microsoft certification is good and how do you go about it.

Certifications

The certification, which I am going to discuss about, is Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD). This and MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer) are the key exams to be elite, where Microsoft is concerned.

To be a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) one has to take 3 papers and for Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD), 5 papers. There is a range of papers that one can choose from, to be either a MCAD or MCSD. If you do not have any certification in Microsoft and are just going in for your first paper then any paper that you clear will make you a MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional). The list below gives a details of the exams that you have to take to be MCAD or MCSD. The pre-requisite for stepping into the world of .NET especially VB.NET is that you have to be well versed with Visual Basic 6.

Exam Details

Core Exams (2 Exams Required)

From the Core exams you have a variety of papers to take like 70- 305 or 70- 306, in either case they are the more or less the same except that with 70- 306 you have to use VB.NET to develop forms and with 70- 305 you have to use VB.NET to develop web applications

 

MCP or MCAD is not just studying the MOC or the Microsoft publication books. It’s all about working with Microsoft and knowing the Ins and Outs of VB.NET. Studying the VB.Net IDE (Integrated Development Environment) on the whole and knowing every control and every tool provided in VB.NET environment makes you an efficient .NET programmer.

Few Tips

My suggestion for the elective exam would be 70-229 as this exam helps and makes you very good with SQL Server and that’s a must if you want to work in a company, which uses Microsoft products. Once you are done with MCAD you are ready to go ahead with MCSD, cause that would logically be the next step for a career path.

Useful Sites

There are also various sites, which you can visit to download dumps, these dumps are the ones, which help you in clearing the MCAD exam. But you should not just study these dumps as they are helpful but they will not help you in the future if your concepts are weak and you don’t have knowledge of VB.NET or anything related to that. The dumps are a great source of information for getting to know the questions and what do you expect from them. I’m giving a list of sites, which you can use for these dumps.

I have put in a rating regarding the source and how useful is it (1=GOOD 5= BAD)