Anyone tried Sun's "official Java courses"?

[JavaTime Lover]

Are they any good? I was perusing their site and ran upon this:

http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/WJB-000.xml

Seems like a metric ton of course material for the $1,500 (what I'd pay for a couple classes at the local college). Or would my money be better spent on just buying quality books and working through the examples?

I'm looking at this for both the SCJP certification, and of course resume potential... some official Sun courses would polish up that dusty thing nicely.

Here's the full listing of course you get with it:

WJB-110A: Fundamentals of the Java Programming Language
WJB-275A: Java Programming Language
WJB-310A: Developing Applications for the J2EE Platform
WJB-314A: Web Component Development with Java Technology
WJB-351A Advanced Business Component Development with Enterprise JavaBeans Technology
WJB-450: Introduction to Mobile Java Technologies
WJB-455: Mobile Desktop Development with Java Technologies
WJB-460: J2ME and Mobile Phone Development Topics

[ January 03, 2006: Message edited by: JavaTime Lover ]

[Bert Bates]

Dude!

We aim to keep things friendly at JavaRanch, and we've found that if people use their real first and last names things do in fact stay friendlier, so I'd like you to change your display name. Thanks!

Now, you didn't hear it from me, but I think those Sun classes might be something a company with a little extra cash might send an employee to, but I'd think twice about spending that much of my own money!

[Ram Han]

I took the Java 1.1 version training from SUN some 6/7 years before..

100% it is NOT worth for the money.

[Marcus Green]

If you read the details of the sun courses you will see they cover topics that are not on the exam syllabus. The courses do not explicitly teach you about taking and passing the exam. Apart from that they are good Java courses.