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It’s been a busy few weeks. My internship is almost over, and I got a job offer from the company. No details yet, but they were very flexible to work with my schedule, and they have great benefits, so I am more than happy about the situation.

As for studying for the Java certification, I haven’t even made it through another chapter. I had to stop part way through the chapter called Object Orientation because it was incredibly boring and theoretical. But I did reinforce some of my previous knowledge.

For instance, I’m always a bit nervous using superclasses and interfaces because I felt like I didn’t have a grasp on when they should be cast. But now I feel more than comfortable jumping throughout the hierarchy of the server code I’m working on, even with the dozens of interfaces and abstract classes it uses.

I have 8 business days left at the internship, then I have several weeks before school. I expect to get much more certification studying done, and finally have some time to complete a few projects.

For various reasons, I’ve decided to take the Sun Certified Java Programmer for Java 5 certification in the fall. There is another, new certification called the Sun Certified Associate for Java and it’s geared towards “entry level Java programmers, students studying to become Java programmers, project or program managers working with Java technology in the software development industry.”

I’ve been studying the SCJP for Java 5 Study Guide written by Katherine Sierra and Bert Bates (ISBN 0072253606). It covers exam 310-055, which is the SCJP for Java 5 (as opposed to Java 1.4 or the upgrade from Java 1.4 to Java 5). First off: It’s a monster. It’s about 850 pages, and the pages aren’t small.

I figure that while I am doing Java for my day job, that’s a perfect time to study off the clock, since I’m basically practicing what I’ve learned the rest of the day. So my plan is to do a chapter a week through the summer. I won’t take the practice tests, even thought it’s very tempting, because I don’t want to memorize the answers instead of learn the way to find the answers.

For 2 – 8 July, I am on schedule, having completed chapter 1, Declarations and Access Control. For 15 July, the goal is chapter 2, Object Orientation.