CIW Certifications

RobertKaucherRobertKaucher Member Posts: 4,299 ■■■■■■■■■■
Have any of you heard of or gotten any of these certs?

Opinions on them are welcome.

CIW Certification Pathways & Exams | CIW-certified.com

Comments

  • earweedearweed Member Posts: 5,192 ■■■■■■■■■□
    Actually WGU used to have it set up where you had CIW Professional by having the CIW V5 Foundations, CIW Database, JavaScript, and Web Design certs. Now IT Network Design and Management students only take CIW V5 Foundations and JavaScript. As far as how much the certs are worth, I've never seen them in any job posting.
    I don't even list the certs here on my details.
    No longer work in IT. Play around with stuff sometimes still and fix stuff for friends and relatives.
  • Hyper-MeHyper-Me Banned Posts: 2,059
    I took foundations yesterday, it was an absolute joke.

    I've never seen any job ad that mentioned CIW, never heard anyone at work mention them.

    The school district I used to work for taught CIW foundations as a class, which surprisingly had a pretty high failure rate. The exam is cake though.
  • jahsouljahsoul Member Posts: 453
    Hyper-Me wrote: »
    I took foundations yesterday, it was an absolute joke.

    I've never seen any job ad that mentioned CIW, never heard anyone at work mention them.

    The school district I used to work for taught CIW foundations as a class, which surprisingly had a pretty high failure rate. The exam is cake though.
    Did you read through that mountain of books that they sent or you just went in and took the test?
    Reading: What ever is on my desk that day :study:
  • apena7apena7 Member Posts: 351
    I've passed the Foundations, Site Designer, JavaScript, and Database Design exams from CIW. In short, they are entry-level as far as content and skills measured, but as a "final-exam" for the WGU courses, I find them to be pretty good. If it weren't for the WGU curriculum, I seriously wouldn't invest any time or money into CIW -- especially for someone at your level. If they beefed up their content and made the tests more difficult to pass, then I think they would hold weight in the real world.

    As a side note, I enjoyed the database design exam. It's about time there was a vendor-neutral database certification.
    Usus magister est optimus
  • down77down77 Member Posts: 1,009
    Like many of the others that have posted I went through a few of the CIW exams as part of the WGU undergrad degree. I ended up taking the e-commerce exam on my own just to get the Master CIW Designer certificate. The exams are fairly vendor neutral and do provide a decent entry level approach.

    I would actually recommend the Database Design specialist exam to those who are interested in beginning SQL.
    CCIE Sec: Starting Nov 11
  • RobertKaucherRobertKaucher Member Posts: 4,299 ■■■■■■■■■■
    apena7 wrote: »
    As a side note, I enjoyed the database design exam. It's about time there was a vendor-neutral database certification.

    As that was the exam I was interested in I take it as more than a side note. What did you enjoy about it?
    down77 wrote: »
    I would actually recommend the Database Design specialist exam to those who are interested in beginning SQL.

    How entry level are we talking? I already hold the MCITP: DBA 2005 and I'm working on the upgrade for SQL Server 2008 right now. Next I intend on taking an Oracle exam and then going on to the MCTS for both DB Developer and BI Developer.
  • Hyper-MeHyper-Me Banned Posts: 2,059
    jahsoul wrote: »
    Did you read through that mountain of books that they sent or you just went in and took the test?

    No, they got here and i threw them on my floor and never looked at them.

    They might be good for kindling, or something. icon_lol.gif
  • chmorinchmorin Member Posts: 1,446 ■■■■■□□□□□
    How entry level are we talking? I already hold the MCITP: DBA 2005 and I'm working on the upgrade for SQL Server 2008 right now. Next I intend on taking an Oracle exam and then going on to the MCTS for both DB Developer and BI Developer.

    WGU has you get your CIW v5 Foundation BEFORE A+. That entry level.
    Currently Pursuing
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  • veritas_libertasveritas_libertas Member Posts: 5,746 ■■■■■■■■■■
    chmorin wrote: »
    WGU has you get your CIW v5 Foundation BEFORE A+. That entry level.

    With CIW Foundations, yes. The Database, Javascript, etc. are not the same in level difficulty from what I have been told.
  • down77down77 Member Posts: 1,009
    IMO, the CIW Foundations exam would make for a good introduction to someone who is about to pursue either an A+ or MCDST level credential. As for the Database Design course, I would suggest this to someone who has an understanding of the basics of computers but needs an introduction into the structured query language.

    I would fit the CIW Database Design Fundamentals before doing the 70-431 (for example) as it will help to reinforce some of necessary language components. Aside from the basic DDL/DML commands, it does a decent job of reinforcing normalization(which we often take for granted) and extracting requirements for data design.
    CCIE Sec: Starting Nov 11
  • ajmatsonajmatson Member Posts: 289
    For you WGU students how accurate is the Examforce practice to the real test? It is way off on the material?
    Working on currently:
    Masters Degree Information Security and Assurance (WGU) / Estimated 06/01/2016
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  • RobertKaucherRobertKaucher Member Posts: 4,299 ■■■■■■■■■■
    down77 wrote: »
    I would fit the CIW Database Design Fundamentals before doing the 70-431 (for example) as it will help to reinforce some of necessary language components. Aside from the basic DDL/DML commands, it does a decent job of reinforcing normalization(which we often take for granted) and extracting requirements for data design.

    Exactly the info I was looking for. Thanks. I will probably do a review of it before doing the Oracle exam, but from the sounds of things the cert itself will be of no help to me.
  • Hyper-MeHyper-Me Banned Posts: 2,059
    You could have specified the DB design stuff, bob. :D
  • apena7apena7 Member Posts: 351
    As that was the exam I was interested in I take it as more than a side note. What did you enjoy about it?

    I thought it was a great intro to database design and administration. It covered the planning stages using different ER models, applying normalization (1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF), SQL commands (though not too many since it's vendor-neutral), and relational algebra (selection, projection, and Cartesian product operations). I never gave much thought to databases, but the cert made me interested in learning Microsoft SQL Server.
    Usus magister est optimus
  • Hyper-MeHyper-Me Banned Posts: 2,059
    The database stuff would actually be the only CIW cert I wouldnt mind looking into.

    It was supposed to be a part of my degree at WGU, but its dissappeared out of my AAP. *shrug*
  • earweedearweed Member Posts: 5,192 ■■■■■■■■■□
    ajmatson wrote: »
    For you WGU students how accurate is the Examforce practice to the real test? It is way off on the material?
    ExamForce is not really that great. It is actually a pretty good gage for the CompTIA tests, for the CIW JavaScript the questions were very simple and not enough of them. The CIW JavaScript test has been the easiest exam I've taken so far.
    No longer work in IT. Play around with stuff sometimes still and fix stuff for friends and relatives.
  • earweedearweed Member Posts: 5,192 ■■■■■■■■■□
    Hyper-Me wrote: »
    The database stuff would actually be the only CIW cert I wouldnt mind looking into.

    It was supposed to be a part of my degree at WGU, but its dissappeared out of my AAP. *shrug*
    That was one of the classes that disappeared on March 1 along with the CIW web design class and Java Programming.
    No longer work in IT. Play around with stuff sometimes still and fix stuff for friends and relatives.
  • Hyper-MeHyper-Me Banned Posts: 2,059
    Now if only QLC1, QLM1 and QLT1 would go the way of the Dodo...
  • veritas_libertasveritas_libertas Member Posts: 5,746 ■■■■■■■■■■
    Yup, they removed because the CIW Database because it could take 6 instead of 4 years to graduate the way it was earlier.
  • jahsouljahsoul Member Posts: 453
    Well, I still got all of em..lol.

    Security FTW.. icon_cheers.gif
    Reading: What ever is on my desk that day :study:
  • petedudepetedude Member Posts: 1,510
    earweed wrote: »
    That was one of the classes that disappeared on March 1 along with the CIW web design class and Java Programming.

    If Java's vanished, what are they using for their object-oriented programming courses now?
    Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
    --Will Rogers
  • earweedearweed Member Posts: 5,192 ■■■■■■■■■□
    petedude wrote: »
    If Java's vanished, what are they using for their object-oriented programming courses now?
    Java is gone for Network Design & Management and Database but still their for those in programming. The only thing we have that approaches object oriented programming is CIW JavaScript.
    No longer work in IT. Play around with stuff sometimes still and fix stuff for friends and relatives.
  • pheonixace7pheonixace7 Member Posts: 1 ■□□□□□□□□□
    As of right now the Security path still requires two semesters of Java (which is kicking my butt right now) as well as CIW foundations, web designer, and DB classes. In fact the only change I saw in my degree path was the change from the MS security test over server 2003 to the CCNA:S. I'm opting to stay with the old path though since I dont know that I'll have time to take the whole CCNA path before December (when I hope to graduate).
  • Hyper-MeHyper-Me Banned Posts: 2,059
    As of right now the Security path still requires two semesters of Java (which is kicking my butt right now)


    icon_lol.gif trade you QLC1 for your java.
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