At the beginning of 2020, I set a goal to obtain a Spring certification. It hasn't been easy to achieve, but after almost a year of effort, I've succeeded.
Motivation
There were several reasons why I embarked on obtaining this certification:
- It's a framework I've been working with for years, and it seemed interesting to have some way to accredit my knowledge in the matter.
- Broadly speaking, similar solutions are usually used within the framework. I had a great interest in knowing the core of the framework in more depth to have other alternatives in future projects.
Study Resources
So once the goal was defined, I started working on it. One of the first resources I would like to share is this post that narrates someone else's experience during the certification process:
Although it refers to a course that is not cheap, what really caught my attention was that it opened the possibility of requesting the exam by paying the fees and without having to take the course. In the following link you can find the subjects into which the exam is divided, with which you can study on your own to obtain the certificate:
https://www.vmware.com/es/education-services/certification/vcp-spring-exam.html
Once the rules of the game were clear, I started obtaining materials that I've been using for training in this regard:
- Certification exam book: Pivotal Certified Professional Spring Developer Exam, 2nd edition by Iuliana Cosmina.
- Spring course on the Udemy platform Spring Framework 5: Beginner to Guru: https://www.udemy.com/course/spring-framework-5-beginner-to-guru/
- Spring Security Full Course, which is public on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=her_7pa0vrg
- Repository with different exam questions (some are related to Spring 4): https://mossgreen.github.io/ For each of the sections there are the following headings:
- Module 1: Container, Dependency and IoC: https://mossgreen.github.io/Spring-Certification-Spring-Core/
- Module 2: Aspect Oriented Programming: https://mossgreen.github.io/Spring-Certification-Spring-AOP/
- Module 3: Data management: JDBC, Transactions, Spring Data JPA: https://mossgreen.github.io/Spring-Certification-Spring-Data-Management/
- Module 4: Spring Boot: https://mossgreen.github.io/Spring-Certification-Spring-Boot/
- Module 5: Spring MVC and The Web Layer: https://mossgreen.github.io/Spring-Certification-Spring-MVC/
- Module 6: Security: https://mossgreen.github.io/Spring-Certification-Spring-Security/
- Module 7: REST: https://mossgreen.github.io/Spring-Certification-Spring-REST/
Preparation
In addition to these resources for study, I found it very useful to register on the following platform Certification Questions, where they have batteries of exams. It's super interesting because you can take these exams either on the computer or on any other mobile device. So it gives you the possibility of doing a practice exam in any gap (waiting for the bus, waiting to be called for a medical appointment, etc.).
Conclusion
In the end, the exam didn't seem complicated to me and I was able to pass it on the first attempt. Even so, one of the things I've taken away is the deep knowledge I've been obtaining of Spring while studying each of the topics.
To finish the post, I would really recommend preparing for this type of certification, especially because you end up acquiring a different view of the framework.