Special_ProgC_Blk

I’m currently a final year master student and it’s been a couple of years that I’m developing small desktop and web applications for amusing. Almost a month ago I decided to test my programming skills and hence planned to take “70-438 Programing in C#”. It was my first step towards MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer) certification and I successfully cleared it.

This exam measures various skills and almost touches every fundamental of C#. It’s basically divided into four different following sections:

  • Manage program flow
  • Create and use types
  • Debug application and implement security
  • Implement data access

You can find out detailed information on the Microsoft Learning website.

Road to 70-483

I neither say it was easy nor would advise someone to take who has less than a year of experience in C#. However, there are various books available for the preparation including “Exam Ref 70-483: Programming in C#” by Microsoft Press. It almost covers all the four areas very comprehensively but “MCSD Certification Toolkit (Exam 70-483): Programming in C#” by Wrox Press is my favorite. Before taking the exam, I would recommend you to go through all the “Cheat Sheet” and “Review of Key Terms” sections that are given at the end of every chapter of this book.

For a self-paced preparation, I would suggest you to take care of the areas to which you are less exposed. In my case, I had to pay extra attention to Reflection, Performance Counter and Unmanaged Code. Remember, there will be no IntelliSense to guide you at each step.

If you are not a big fan of reading books, then you can even check out video training courses. Both Pluralsight and Microsoft Virtual Academy have the nice set of video tutorials that thoroughly explains almost each subset. Although, I personally don’t prefer videos as it takes a lot of time and I start feeling lazzzzzzzzy.

What’s next?

In the beginning of this year, Microsoft announced that they are going to retire few exams that include

  • 70-488 Developing SharePoint Server 2013 Core Solutions
  • 70-489: Developing SharePoint Server 2013 Advanced Solutions
  • MCSD: Windows Store Apps Using HTML5 (481, 482, 490)
  • MCSD: Windows Store Apps Using C# (484, 485, 491)

Therefore, I’m not very much interested in following the recommended path to get the certification. However, two Universal App Development exams are expected to arrive which will be preceded by 70-483 and I’m eagerly waiting for them.

I hope, this article will help you to get a brief idea about 70-483: Programming in C# exam. If you have any doubt, feel free to comment below.