Microsoft's 10-year-old Certified Professional 791
idigjazz writes "Meet Arfa, a promising young software programmer from Faisalabad, Pakistan, who is believed to be the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in the world. She received the certification when she was 9. During a recent meeting with Bill Gates, she presented him with a poem she wrote that celebrated his life story."
9 year old completes single exam on workstation OS (Score:1, Informative)
Re:How difficult is that certification? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Just confirms (Score:5, Informative)
Example: In some Windows server exams, you are asked about rolling out installations to large organizations with gazillion additional programs and custom bits. In the Real World this is commonly done by imaging the disk and just dropping disk images to the desktops. The Microsoft Way(tm) is obiviously to use an installation server, unattended installation scripts and other arcane junk, and then pray that the installation works like it should
Same goes for lots of firewall/networking related things where everyone in the real world uses non-MS solutions. But in the MS world of the MS exams, you are supposed to use ICS and other 'great' solutions - and actually know how they work
Now having said that, the MCP that this article refers to is a big joke. You can get MCP certified on just about anything, and the easiest ones are to the tune of "here's how you start up a windows PC and use mouse". Over here we call 'MCP' a 'Minesweeper certified professional'. Lots of MCPs are certified in something like Word and Excel, and the exams for using those are completely braindead easy.
Re:How difficult is that certification? (Score:5, Informative)
As a whole, they're pretty easy - someone half-way bright could cram for them.
The summary does her down, BTW; it says she's MCP, which means passed any one exam, including some piss-takingly simple ones on the administration tracks, whereas she's actually got MCAD which means she's passed a number of developer exams. Yes, some of those are just cram windows features but one of those, the architecture one, actually needs some experience and thought. Or at least it did back in my day when the exam was new - maybe there's "here's all the answers" books for that too now.
-- a VC++ 6 MCSD.
Re:Get them young huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Its all about the big push from the top to get us some damn chicks in these tech schools of ours.
Wait, 9 year old is younger than 8 year now? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just confirms (Score:5, Informative)
"Now having said that, the MCP that this article refers to is a big joke."
Microsoft Certified Application Developer is what she got according to TFA.
While its no MCSD (which she does plan on doing) or MCSE , there was plenty of C# dev in it.
_presented_ him with a poem, didn't write it. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How difficult is that certification? (Score:4, Informative)
D'oh, showing my ignorance of these new-fangled exam tracks.
Actually, the that exam [microsoft.com] isn't needed for MCAD [microsoft.com], just MCSD [microsoft.com].
So yeah, the ones she has are pretty much cram-for exams.
Re:From the article (Score:2, Informative)
Re:wrong (Score:5, Informative)
From the article The certification she received was as a Microsoft Certified Application Developer.
That's 3 development exams [microsoft.com]
An experienced developer would need to study for these.
He's an MSCE, not an MCP (Score:1, Informative)
An 8 yr old MCSE - either he is one bright kid, or MCSE isn't soo tough, or everything you read on the internet isn't true. Pick one.
are you sure you read the article? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Equal Opportunities (Score:5, Informative)
Predominately suicide bombers have been rather unsuccessful, under-achiving young men.
I think we are safe from young Arfa, who doesn't appear to fit that description.
Re:So what does this say? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:He's an MSCE, not an MCP (Score:1, Informative)
Uh, no. If he's an MCSE he's also an MCP.
MCP = any one exam - well, virtually any.
MCSE = many exams on Windows administration.
Now this girl actually has MCAD:
MCAD = many exams on Windows development, but not the architecture exam.
An 8 yr old MCSE - either he is one bright kid, or MCSE isn't soo tough, or everything you read on the internet isn't true. Pick one.
If he's been setting up windows since he was four or five, fair enough.
Re:Just confirms (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Just confirms (Score:1, Informative)
What did getting my MCSD do? Nothing really, though it scored me an interview with ATI, which I bombed majorly because of the coding questions. 2 years later in uni, I could go back to that interview and answer those questions with no problem.
I was 14, and naive. These computer certifications mean absolutely nothing. I was a paper cert, I had no real marketable skills. Now, 2 years of EE, and I'm a much better programmer, engineer, and designer than I ever was. Which means, that the validity of the MCSD is... well, it just plain isn't.
Re:don't be so negative (Score:2, Informative)