Ultimately a Xamarin Certified Mobile Developer

It starts with a call from a project manager as we have something to discuss with you. So by attending a small meeting got to know that ‘Are you interested to be a Xamarin Certified Mobile Developer’.

I am little bit proud that from all of the people from mobile development they selected me and some few fellows. I think over it and concern with my family members and reply with my ‘YES’ in two days.

So, what it means?

Lets get something out of the way immediately. Xamarin University is awesome, but a bit expensive about 1000 dollar per year if you are a one man developer.They have actual live classes with actual instructors and the opportunity to ask questions etc. So that is really great.

This also allows for some cool interactions, some instructors start off by greeting everyone and checking where everyone is from and also be prepared for flash quizzes. Almost all classes have some individual of class exercises so you get the hang of the subject right away instead of just listening passively.

Besides that you can watch back the videos, do some self-guided classes (with the same flash quizzes and exercises) and.. GET CERTIFIED.

Another caveat of this method is that attendance is required for the classes that are required for certification. You cannot start the exam until you have attended all of the mandatory classes. Which are awesome, so no worries there.

Getting into it!

Once you have signed up, the first thing you need to do is specify the times you are available for classes. If you’re in India, like me, then some time slots aren’t ideal. But hey, they try their best! And if you really can’t find any suitable time slot you can request a separate session which does suit you.

Keeping this in mind it might take you a while to follow all the courses you want, unless you are willing to follow classes which happen in the middle of the night local time.

Then when you look around you have several pages to point you in the right direction depending on what you main goal is. Also there are some classes which are recommended to follow first. One that is more or less mandatory is the ‘Orientation and Welcome [XAM101]’.

You may notice the XAM101 tag at the end. This is a coding system which gives you a hint about the subject and the level of expertise that is required before following this class. These are the prefixes available today:
XAM: Xamarin general, mostly in the form of Xamarin Forms and cross-platform stuff
IOS: targeting Xamarin.iOS
AND: targeting Xamarin.Android
CSC: in-depth C# concepts
ENT: enterprise, targeting enterprise solutions
FSC: for you scarce F# developers out there
XTC: you wont get high, but you will learn everything about Test Cloud and testing in more general.

These are all separate tracks. Or some of them can be combined to a track to achieve some goal like certification. The number behind it tells you something about the expert level.

About certification

So there are 20 classes for certification exam from which 16 classes are live classes and renaming 4 are self guided. It takes about 2 -3 months to cover these all the classes. If you already have some experience, no worries, there are a couple of things you can do to get to the exam faster.  First there is an introductory exam. This is a test to prove that yo already have knowledge about Xamarin. If you crack these exam with 80% or more, then you can skip 5 classes out of 20 classes. The test consist of 50 question for which you have 60 minutes.

It is certainly doable. There are some tricky question in that. Just pay attention and give your best shot, as you have less time. If you do not crack it, no worries, you have to attend that 5 classes and appear for certification exam.

Now the classes are awesome. The instructor are even better. They take all the time to explain you everything. and have lots of patience to listen to your question and answer them correctly. They give a chance to introduce each and every attendee in chat window. Classes tend to be about 20-30 persons which also has a bit of a downside.

When all mics are unmuted and you are responsible for own muting, people sometimes forget or people simply just don't know it because they come in later. So you hear a lot of noise and ‘oops, let me mute the mic of someone coming in’. It isn't a total disaster, but could be a bit disruptive. Here the total upside is that you can use the mic and ask everything you like.

They provide training material for each class. So by attending all the classes and having a revision with training material you are all set for certification exam. The exam consist of 150 question for which you are provided 3 hours. To crack these exam you should at least be correct for 120 question, so that you achieve 80%. Some of the question are tricky and have to pay lots of time for that. So use the time in smart way to en corporate all the question. All The Best...