Today… I have succeed passing the SCJP exam. SCJP stands for SUN Certification Java Programmer… Yups… that means I’m now officially a certified Java Programmer :D .

In IT world… one of most interesting part is your capability is not judge only by your GPA. Why? Simple answer really because IT world is so huge, you can have 4.0 GPA but can’t programming in common programming language… this is very common in IT world (of course if there is one super programmer who could program in all programming language then we should spending our 4 years undergraduate degree for learning just all programming language in this world :P ). What expected in undergraduate program is you can solve problem in your job with knowledge gain from university. Meanwhile certification is related with how good you are with the IT tools. For example, SCJP exam test your knowledge about every side of Java programming language, it doesn’t teach you how to make a good class design, the university should have thought you that. Certification is proof that you have the required knowledge to use the tools.

SCJP exam consist of 61 questions, you considered pass the exam if you can answered minimum 32 (52%) questions. In my case I only got 44 questions right, 72% passing grade. Compare to my friend, Mulya Agung, he can gain 85% of passing grade! Wow you are really a programmer Dude :P . Even if I didn’t reach my target (I targeted for 80% passing grade actually) but still I grateful because I have succeed passing the exam.

So what the certification will give me? First of all it will give me full right to use SCJP title in back of my last name… Yups now officially you can call me Freddy Ekoyanto Perkoso SCJP, and the best part is you can keep the title for entire of your life without needs to take exam again, like any other certification exam :P … Not very bad isn’t :P . Second I with this degree I can join JCC (Java Competency Center) in ITB. This is important to me, because my current future plan is not to working in huge corporation, but to starting my own (our maybe the precise word) business. And to do so I must able to live by doing project, and I hoping that JCC can open my way to working in project and get java community to develop my skill. The last reason is the average salary! Yup I didn’t notice when I am joining the JCC course, but then when I browsing in the internet, I found out that the “certification” thing is really a big thing in IT world. The average salary for this certification holder is about $US 60,400. Lets multiple it with current foreign exchange rate $ to Rp about 9100 and you get Rp 549.640.000 in a year. Divided with 12 month and you get… walah… Rp 45.803.333.333. What 45 million rupiah in a month for this certification?… Okay maybe I little over exaggerate because to get that kind of salary you must work in abroad, and higher living cost but still I can live in abroad with that kind of salary :D . Here is all average salary by certification list.

To be honest, this is little ironic really. For me, a person who hated programming, to be able to get SCJP title. And if you have doubts to take the exam, may be I can share my background a little. I hate programming language, for two of my first programming subject I got E mark, and must repeated the subject. In this subject I learn Lisp, Pascal, and C programming language. In my third programming language subject (namely Object Oriented Programming), I only got C mark, in this subject I learn about Java, and I like the concept of Java and Object Oriented Programming, but still I only got C mark :P . So if a failure to be programmer like me, I think you could do much better, could you? And if all my department friend take the test, and of course learning, I think they all can pass the test. So if you are really learning the stuff, you will get there Dude :D .

But for me… My concern is to chase my sidang… Damn I really have a little time left… But got to give my best and finding my mood :D