Although I got chance to write before, this happens to be my first IT certification review story. The rationale behind this effort is that I believe I need to give back to community from my recent experience.
The value of any IT certification is highly controversial such that some argue they don’t have any, claiming the utter requirement of field experience. Some people, on the other hand, think you’ve got remarkably less chance in job market in absence of them. I place myself somewhere between these camps. In my personal opinion, if they offer a comprehensive journey to a concrete aim of learning a field/subject, they are quite useful milestones in one’s career. On the other hand, they need to be supported with hands on practice in the field. As a person with stronger Ops background than Dev, I decided to take this exam while looking for a programming challenge as summer project.
Python Institute’s roadmap for certifications.
Certified Associate in Python Programming (PCAP hereafter) is the intermediate level certification offered by Python Institute. The others can be seen in above visual. Starting from the coverage, basics of Python is included in the syllabus. I found it quite relevant for somebody who just passed the entry level. Personally, I had some experience with Python before (web development in Django and Machine Learning in my Master’s thesis and paper.). I can easily say now, I wish I had this learning and certification before these projects. There are many concepts which I missed using due to lack of knowledge.
Second, I’d like to write about learning platforms. This is the most important section for me because the actual learning is more important than obtaining a certificate. Not having access to right platforms makes quite a disadvantage in this. There were two of them which I used. First one is the OpenEDG. They provide a free course for PCAP exam preparation with hands-on labs and code samples. Their material is more than enough for preparation on its own. Moreover, if you complete their online course, you automatically receive 50% discount voucher on exam fee. To be able to do that you need to sign up PearsonVue following the instructions here. You should be seeing your PearsonVue candidate ID in OpenEDG account after a successful integration. The only downside of this course is that they still have some outdated topics such as calendar and datetime modules in the syllabus although they are no longer in PCAP exam. The other course I followed was this one from KodeKloud. The content was satisfactory with relevant labs.
When it comes to exam, all the questions are multiple choice. Personally, I find it a bit awkward to have a programming certificate without coding in exam. However, the questions were well prepared that if you haven’t previously applied a concept (lets say multiple inheritance and MRO) by actual coding in labs, there is much less chance of correctly answering in the exam. So, I’m not sure about criticizing PCAP on this.
Conclusion
As a result, PCAP journey is definitely worth taking with the tools stated above. However, do not expect to become a senior developer after getting any programming certification. The real added value would come from your portfolio and previous projects. Therefore, I strongly suggest that just after obtaining the PCAP, begin a Python project using your freshly gained knowledge in the field.
Below, I’m adding a summary pros&cons section as TL;DR.
### Pros
# Syllabus is relevant and suitable for the level offered.
# Free course and 50% discount voucher offered by edube.org.
# Learning journey does not force you to memorize stuff.
### Cons
# Full price is not affordable for many.
# Absence of actual coding tasks in exam.
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