Is it ever too late to go for an OCP?

I am 52 years old and I am considering the feasibility of an Oracle certification. I have 20+ years as an application developer using COBOL, RPG, and some C and PowerBuilder. I have worked with Sybase and AS/400 databases and I am very familiar with SQL. I have developed under MVS, HP UNIX and AS/400. Sort of a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. I do like working with databases, SQL and reporting tools.

My question: Considering my age and background would it be wise to try to get an Oracle certification? And if so, where do I begin?

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You're just a youngster! Age isn't the issue here anyway.

The reason to certify, in my opinion, should be based on what you think you need or will use the certification for. Are you planning on a job change where Oracle certification is a requirement? Is your current employer moving to Oracle and you need to update your skills?

Certification is one thing... experience is another. You have plenty of experience in many areas. Getting an Oracle certification in and of itself is not truly valuable without Oracle experience behind it. If you can't get Oracle experience without having the certification (i.e. it's a requirement to getting hired into an Oracle position), then I'd say go for it. But, if certification is not a requirement for some reason, I'd suggest that you pursue experience first and certification later.

This was first published in January 2004

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