The road to being a Xamarin Certified Developer

For the last time, I have been enrolled in xamarin certified mobile developer with as main goal to verify if the knowledge I had gained by learning myself was the right way. And of course, while I’m at it get certified in the process. In this post, I would like to tell you about my experience with University and how you can get started today as well! Not a very technical post this time, so skip this one if you’re looking for that!

So, What Is It?

Let’s get something out of the way immediately; Xamarin University is awesome, a bit expensive at about 1800 dollars per year if you are a one-man developer, but awesome.

If you’re used to a Pluralsight, Channel 9 or even YouTube then you’re in for a treat! Xamarin University is not just static videos which you can watch and skip you as you like – although they are available! – they are 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.

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 To 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 Europe, 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.

Choosing Preferred Time Slots

Then when you look around you have several pages to point you in the right direction depending on what your 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]’. This explains all basics kind of like I’m doing now!

Class Codes

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 won’t get high, but you’ll learn everything about Test Cloud and testing in more general
These are all separate tracks. Or some of them can be combined with a track to achieve some goal like certification. The number behind it tells you something about the expert level. I’m not sure on the details, but as a general rule: the higher the number, the more guru you need to be to understand it.

Per track, you can see what classes are available, which you have already completed and which is recommended next. The latter can also be found at more places along with the information on which times the class is available next and the ability to sign up for that specific class right away!

Self-guided Learning

Underneath you can see an example of that. Here are the xamarin certified developer again, they are very great! They can serve as a replacement session for an actual instructor session. So if you cannot find a suitable time or feel confident enough about a certain subject you can check out the Self-Guided class and go through it in your own time at your own pace. And the awesome thing is that it also counts as a completed class! So with this, you can even achieve your goal faster!

Basically, all pages in here are a different view of the same thing; what classes are upcoming? What classes have you planned/done already? How far along are you on a certain track? Etc. That last bit is a nice one, they’ve added some gamification to it. And damn it, I am a sucker for it, wanting to fill up all those progress bars.