Student embraces course and goes from zero to Java developer in 15 weeks

[2008] There is a perception in the market that it takes years to develop the right skills to become a Java Developer. Not so says Compuways. By joining its Beginning Programming with Java, a previously unemployed student with no previous programming experience managed to get certified in 15 weeks.

“Armed with only a Matric certificate with mathematics and enough determination, this youngster joined our course and threw himself right into the thick of programming,” says Arnold Graaff. “Done over five weeks, two nights per week, it wasn't all smooth sailing as he initially struggled with a few topics in the first lesson or two.”

But this trend was not to continue and according to Graaff, as soon as the penny dropped, and he grasped the logic behind the theory and the practical, he turned it all around and was soon the best performer in the class managing to achieve marks of 70%.

The Beginning Programming with Java course takes a student from scratch and teaches them the basics of Java programming. The main difference is that the course itself is designed to focus on the fundamentals of programming as opposed to the language itself.

The Compuways course covers Java fundamentals; introducing data types, operators and loops; introduction classes on objects and methods; inheritance, interface and inner class; exception handling; the use of I/O; multithreaded programming; applets, events and miscellaneous topics; as well as graphical user interfaces.

“This particular student then moved on to the Java/J2SE Programmer for SUN Certification, which he also completed over five weeks, done over five Saturdays. He once again surprised all, passing the course with 72%, after which he then went on to write the international SUN exam in which he obtained 73%,” states Graaff.

The Java / J2SE Programmer for SUN Certification course is designed to lay the foundation of the fundamentals of Java and the correct use of the programming language in a variety of situations and applications. The topics covered in the course include: background about the SUN exam for the SUN Java/J2SE Programmer Certification; declarations and access control; arithmetic and logical operators; flow control; objects and classes; exceptions; inner classes; garbage collection; fundamental classes in the java.lang package; and the collections framework.

After the successful completion of the second course he then dived into the Java/J2SE Developer for SUN Certification and also completed this in five weeks.

“Firstly, he registered for this exam with SUN and obtained the guidelines for the practical project he has to hand in to SUN within a year, after which he joined our course which is intended to assist in preparing the project for the SUN Certification,” states Graaff.

“After using the course for preparation he obtained a mark in our course of 74%, and proceeded to hand in his project with SUN well before the deadline and obtained a mark of 76%.”

The purpose of the Compuways course is to teach the student international best practices in the design and implementation of a working Java Project. The course outline includes: background about the SUN exam for the SUN Java/J2SE Developer Certification; project analysis and design; project overview; implementation of the project; threading; DvdDatabase class; networking with RMI; the GUI; and includes a project wrap-up.

“After his SUN Programmer exam we notified clients about a student with Java potential, after which he was called to an interview by one of our clients who promptly made him an offer dependant on him obtaining his SUN certification. As soon as he received his results he started working immediately. He, like many of our students, is a real success story for us at Compuways,” ends Graaff.

Compuways has successfully delivered courses using Skype video conferencing to students in Cape Town with a fast broadband connection and Skype.

For more information about these and other courses please visit http://www.getcertified.co.za or http://www.compuways.co.za and click on the ETraining link.."