MCTS or MCAD or MCPD or MCSD

did you go straight for MCSD or did you get MCAD and get some experience first?

I've decided to go for MCAD, and then after working with that for lets say 6 months or so, take the extra courses to sit MCSD. Sound reasonable or do i want more experience inbetween?

Look at MCTS if you are interested in VS2005 (and .net 2.0). MS says it is geared more towards that area.

Anyway one of the exams of MCTS enables us to get credit towards 3 tracks - MCTS, MCPD and...(i forget the last one)

I saw that MS has an upgrade exam for MACD to MCPD.

I went for straight MCSD because I have over 12 years of development experience and very few formal qualifications in computing. I have in recent years done projects from scratch and i felt it would be wise to get some formal education on project development. Also if I am honest, i was doing a boot camp and thought it wise to get as much done as possible in that time. I was also aware that the new MCPD qualifications were coming out and i thought it might be good to do them after a bit of experience after the initial MCSD qualifications!

From what I undestand, correct me if I am wrong, the MCAD is the minimum pre req to be able to do the MCPD.

don't mean to hijack your thread!

anyone know if i am insane wanting to do BOTH the vb & the c# exams? reason i ask is, that where i am going to do they training, they have a thing where you pay a set fee which allows you access to any courses in your choosen "path". So i'm thinking, i'll do both right, as it won't cost me any extra..(well, will have to pay for the extra exam bit)
As background, I've done 3 VB6 courses, so not new to it (just have to upskill to .net) but c# would be new..closest i ever got to C was using samples of it to convert to javascript code..(don't ask)

If the cost isn't too much more i'd say go for the VB.net also. Most of the core work is very similar, in fact my trainer showed me lots of VB.net example and I was doing the C# course only. You will find that in the market quite a few of the banks use VB.net, so having the extra certification will extend your chances of gaining employment. Warning though... i found doing just C# a handful. Don't kid yourself about the amount of work you will have to do.

ya..i know, i'm going to be a very busy person for the next while. Full time job, kid, hubby and 2 cats...and this will mean classes 2-3 times a week, after work and on weekends..
but it will be worth it in the end..won't it..i keep telling myself that anyways!

..not for hijacking but for going for vb.net and c#.
Even if you have the time and money, I am not sure if you will have a great advantage in being certified in both languages.

i was insane

well..i'll start out with VB.net and see how i do. if i have the time i might do the c# anyways..
my long term plan is to do short term contracts, so if i have both languages, i increase my skills and hopefully can pick and choose my contracts accordingly...(well thats the idea anyways!)

at any rate, I'll be starting the MCAD in a couple weeks and then take it from there i guess.

with your certifications. I plan to work on MCTS for the time being.

I have my MCSD, and at one time, back when we were using Visual Studio 6. But VB.Net is totally different then it was back with VB 6.0. Syntactically it is very similar, but programmatically it is different. It is more like C++ was back then. Today if you can program in C# you will have no problem programming in VB.Net. I have been programming, in .NET now for over 5 years and I can tell you that the industry is currently starting to favor C# over VB.Net. So the long and short of it is take one language, and use your time to work on additional electives, such as SQL Server courses, or additional classes in Security.

..I did some reading on certifications, and thought MCPD would be the way to go for me as I am working on VS2005. I will have to do the MCTS first, as it is a prerequiste.

As you ask ab't MCTS exam I'm also preparing for this exam you can go through this site it will help you out http://seyed.ibrahim.googlepages.com/mctssqlserver2005 ,this website will guide you ab't our first exam i.e (70-431)code