How to Become Oracle Certified Java Programmer(OCJP)?

Java developers are one of the most elite developing sectors in the IT industry and their demand has never been dull in these years. For the past three decades, it has dominated the entire industry across the world. Call it getting decent pay, a better opportunity, and elevation in career, Java has always been an electrifying technology for everyone.

However, becoming a certified Java developer has never been easy and OCAJP (Oracle Certified Associate Java Developer) requires an aggregate of 65% to get passed. Although it has also been noticed that students easily get 80% and above only with the right approach. In this article, we’re going to discuss those 4 steps that are involved in becoming a successful Oracle Certified Java Programmer.

1. Choose Your Preference First

This is the overall pathway for Java certification and it starts with the Java SE 8 certification (exam number 1Z0-808) and is possibly the best way to kick start the coding journey. This certification has been specially crafted for college students so that they can gain insight into the Java programming language. This beginner-level certification helps in building the core foundation of Java programming and currently, the price for this certification is INR 19,005 and the candidate is required to secure between 65% – 70% (depending upon the level of certification) to pass this exam. Below is the list of certifications (level-wise) for Oracle Java Certification Programs:

• Oracle Certified Java SE 8 Programmer Associate Certification (Exam Code:1Z0-808)
• Oracle Certified Java SE 8 Programmer Professional Certification (Exam Code:1Z0-809)
• Oracle Certified Java SE 11 Upgade Certification (Exam Code:1Z0-817)
• Oracle Certified Java Professional SE 11 Developer Certification (Exam Code:1Z0-819)
• Oracle Certified Java Professional SE 17 Developer Certification (Exam Code: 1Z0-829)
• Oracle Certified Java Professional EE 7 Application Developer Certification (Exam Code: 1Z0-900)

2. Study Guide & Exam Registration

Once you enroll yourself for Beginner’s certification, you’ll be required to register and create an account and select a date for the exam along with the test center. 

Once you purchase the certification program, it will be valid for 6 months only. So ensure to utilize that duration before it gets expire.

The test center for Oracle can be purchased and booked from its official website only and you can view the overall certification chain aligning by its level of expertise from the Oracle Java Certification Program.

Study Material: For Beginners

• Basics of Java
• Java Data Types
• Operators and Decision Constructs
• Creating and Using of Arrays
• Use of Loop Constructs
• Methods and Encapsulations 
• Inheritance
• Exception Handling
• Selected Classes from the Java API
• Missing Package and Import Statements

3. Active Participation

Being active in curriculum activities is required to keep yourself up and updated. This will enable you to work on enhancing the problem-solving skills that will help you in gaining good scores. You can refer to this course for getting your hands-on experience with Java collection frameworks: Fundamentals of Java Collection Framework – Self-Paced. Try being an active participant with consistency then only you’ll be able to ace your skills in Java programming. 

4. Practice

Make sure you’re practicing enough to get yourself a certified Java programmer because each exam costs somewhere around INR 7000 to INR 20,000 (varies on the level of certification) and that requires rigorous practice along with the right approach. Also, if you’re looking to make yourself a potential candidate in Java programming, you might consider going for Java Programming Foundation – Self-Paced which is created especially for entry-level individuals. 

Besides this, having good Practice can help you in clearing doubts, here you get the POTD (Problem of the Day) pattern having coding questions wherein you can solve questions on a daily basis, and also can solve questions based on category (easy to hard, questions asked in companies, etc) and can ask frequent questions from other candidates who are preparing for the exams. Doing cross-questioning is probably one of the best ways to prepare for the Java certification program.