Ashu Upadhyaya

Yesterday I came to know one of my team member is going to finish MTech from distance edu in 2-years! (Full time MTech also takes 2-years) from one Nagarjuna university. you can try your luck in such universities for that elusive "piece of paper" as I said earlier MSc etc. Just check South Indian universities websites esp from Tamilnadu and Andhra.

Disclaimer: This is just for your info only. Do your due diligence before taking up such courses like these degree may not be recognized by AICTE etc.

What I meant is education system, mode of teaching & rote learning (vomiting the same in exams) that happen almost always during these courses is totally AIMLESS and do not prepare the students to face challenges of real world in any way. ONLY saving grace is the campus environment, opportunity to come in touch of fellow bright minds if one is outgoing, at some places and to some extent reputation built by the alumni in industry does help. I have seen people from premier colleges like IISc/IIM who admitted before larger gatherings that they will hate to go back to their respective institutes given a chance to do so again.

Just have a look at what great souls like Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi said about the prevalent education system. I quote Swami Vivekananda -
"Well, you consider a man as educated if only he can pass some examination and deliver good lectures. The education which does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle for life, which doe not bring out strength of character, a spirit of philanthropy, and the courage of a lion - is it worth the name? Real education is that which enables one to stand on his legs. The education that you are receiving now in schools and colleges is only making you a race of dyspeptics. You are working like machines merely, and living a jelly-fish like existence."

I admit distance learning degree" is an issue. That's why I insist on having some MSc degree (Full time) while keeping her job. Such degree are available easily now a days esp from South India based universities with some good name in market. As said earlier I know such persons doing this and working in top companies though most of them have good lobby support too.

I suspect you belong to the tribe mentioned above by me or do not have much exposure to the IT industry or design/development! Look around you. Indian IT industry is full of such people.

And what makes you think this is speculative when IT industry is flooded with jokers/incompetent people from top to bottom and in between whose only qualification is some degree from some xyz college (mostly private) and lobby based on language/state?

Also do you really think in IT industry HSC/SSC is not good enough? I have seen people in managerial positions from TOP institutes running around such persons to get work done. It all just depends on how early in one's career he/she become part of a good team ("....to be at right place at right time, then dream and take action - Bill Gates - a grad dropout him self and so equivalent to HSC in India education system).

I hope you are aware that degrees like BE/BTech/MCA/MSc/MIT/BIT/MBA.....you name it..........are for name sake only and do not add any value whatsoever to your job preparedness. This is irrespective of which institution you join or Fulltime/Parttime mode. This is the case with prestigious institutes/universities too. Some pockets here & there in some places are exceptions. I myself did my graduation from an elite institute. As one of my older colleague (a BTech topper from REC now NITs and MTech from IIT) put it - "These are just ornamental". Only advantage is they provide campus recruitment in good times.

All companies are fully aware of this and feeling the pain. Earlier companies were constrained to show up these fancy degrees (16-years of edu etc) to get work or send people to onsite projects. Now outsourcing being the order of the day and all the work coming to India this is no longer a constraint. Here at Bangalore big/good MNCs (both Product & Services) who earlier took only BE/MCA only from reputed institutes are willingly recruiting people who are just graduates! One thing I will say that if one has some support system (read Lobby based on once state/language) then that makes ones life smoother and such people do not feel such dilemmas degree or no degree even BA/BBA are PMs.

You have work exp to back you which is a big plus. I will suggest you to just purchase some degree (full time) & *****for GOD SAKE DO NOT leave job that too on technology you enjoy working for any fancy degree*****.

I have seen scores of people like you who did some MSc (Full time) while doing the full time job from many universities in South India esp from Tamilnadu and working for biggest names in product development companies leave alone services companies. Also many companies looks very favorably to CDAC 6-month course and NCST(now cdac) 1-yr FPGDST. Latter has very good centres at Mumbai for its various diplomas which attract all the big guns of IT (even companies like Thoughtworks take people after this diploma from campus itself). In addition Certifications in Java will do no harm either.

Hope better sense prevails upon you and you leave this degree non-sense and focus on other important things like learning, soft skills and building network while "purchasing" some FT-degree.

I am also interested to explore opportunities in Singapore. Can you share your experience about how you got this job (through consultant, referral, job-site) and your total exp, interview process etc?

Following are some links which might help you:

http://www.iras.gov.sg/irashome/default.aspx

http://www.r2iclubforums.com/forums/showthread.php/3030-Living-Working-in-Singapore

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ezlink/
http://www.icare2share.com/2009/08/cost-of-living-in-singapore-for_18.html
http://www.icare2share.com/2009/08/cost-of-living-in-singapore-for.html

https://coderanch.com/t/33037/Jobs-Discussion/careers/work-culture-telephonic-interviews-singapore
https://coderanch.com/t/33223/Jobs-Discussion/careers/Work-culture-Singapore
https://coderanch.com/t/33221/Jobs-Discussion/careers/General-Salary-It-professional-Singapore

Javapassion is excellent resource from Sun Evangelist: http://www.javapassion.com/

For interview preparation, Java/J2EE Job Interview Companion book is an excellent resource (just search its title in JavaRanch)

Online docs/demo/Projects from Spring, Hibernate, Struts official sites are very good. Just explore them.

Javarach's Bunkhouse has good collection of ref books: http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/books.jsp

Spring - Learn the following concepts -
Dependency Injection / AOP (Aspect Oriented Progg)
Transaction Management
JDBC Templates
ORM support (Hibernate etc)

Learn Struts 1.x.

Best Struts 1.x Books:
----------------------------
Professional Jakarta Struts by James Goodwill and Richard Hightower John Wiley & Sons © 2004 is very easy to follow & covers everything

Do project/framework discussed in this book: Struts.in.Action Manning Pub 2003 is like Bible of Struts (Covers ver 1.x)

Best Spring Books:
------------------------
Spring in Action: http://www.manning.com/walls4/
Pro Spring 2.5: http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590599217
Spring Recipes: http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590599799

Best Hibernate Book: Java Persistence with Hibernate (Manning Publication)
--------------------------

Hibernate Made Easy: Simplified Data Persistence with Hibernate and JPA (Java Persistence API) (PulpJava)
Spring Persistence with Hibernate: http://www.packtpub.com/spring-persistence-with-hibernate/book (packtpub)

All the very best

Java J2ee interview companion by Arulkumaran is an excellent book. Just search for the same in 'Jobs discussion' forum here & you will get enough feedback about it & from where to get.

Sometime back I got an email for Requirements At Mumbai stating following:

SSE ( 8 LAKS ) / Exp: 4-8 yrs
J2EE Tech Lead ( 11 to 12 laks ) / 6 to 11 yrs
Architect ( 15 to 18 laks ) / 8+ YRS

Hi Martijn,

I am very keen to join the Ikasan Enterprise Integration Platform project. Please let me know if I can still join this project.
I have six years of experience in J2EE technologies with Jboss and MySQL & open source frameworks like Struts, Hibernate.

Regards,
Ashu

Here in Bangalore "Chetana" group sites are extremely popular among freshers:
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/CHETANA-JOBS-NEW/
http://www.chetanasforum.com/
http://www.chetanas.com/
http://www.chetanasinterview.com/

VYOMS - Powered By Vyom-Jobs:
http://www.vyoms.com/
http://www.vyomworld.com/default.asp
http://www.discussionsworld.com/default.asp

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nestjobs/
http://placementpapers.net/helpingroot/
http://freshersworld.com/
http://jobgypsy.com/
walkin.wordpress.com
http://jobblogr.com/
http://www.sureshkumar.net/
http://www.mywalkin.com/
http://www.dhruvaraj.com/
http://www.koolkampus.com/
jobs.geekinterview.com

http://www.employmentnews.gov.in/

I do not have any exp with these resources as in my time many years back either these were not available or I was not aware of them. But I bookmarked such sites as & when I came across or observe someone using them to help others.

Try standard job sites naukri.com, www.firstnaukri.com (freshers/campus hiring), monsterindia.com, in.jobstreet.com, india.recruit.net, indeed.co.in,
siliconindia.com (conducts jobfairs), http://www.siliconindia.com/events/event_detail.php?CFI250509.

Learn Struts 1.x. Following book is very easy to follow & covers everything:

Professional Jakarta Struts by James Goodwill and Richard Hightower John Wiley & Sons © 2004

Do project/framework discussed in this book:
Struts.in.Action Manning Pub 2003 is Bible of Struts (Covers ver 1.x)
Struts2.in.Action Manning Pub 2008

These are best books for Struts framework.

Sorry Campbell. mistook Henry Wong for you.

Following yahoo group & its allied sites are extremely popular among job seekers esp people with little or no experience:

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/CHETANA-JOBS-NEW/
http://www.chetanasforum.com/
http://www.chetanas.com/ [CHETANA -Seniors]
http://www.chetanasinterview.com/

Other popular sites are:
http://www.vyoms.com/
http://www.discussionsworld.com/default.asp

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nestjobs/

http://www.mywalkin.com/
http://jobs.geekinterview.com/

http://placementpapers.net/helpingroot/
http://freshersworld.com/

Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Ashu Krsna wrote: Must Read Arulkumarn's book: Java/J2EE Job Interview Companion: Arulkumaran Kumaraswamipillai

I think that's Arulk Pillai who is a frequent contributor here.

That's true Henry.

Hello Muksh,

From my experience I found the truth that Honesty indeed is THE BEST policy.

In the mean time I strongly recommend to learn Struts 1.x. Following book is very easy to follow & covers everything:
Professional Jakarta Struts by James Goodwill and Richard Hightower John Wiley & Sons © 2004
(Struts.in.Action Manning Pub 2003 is Bible of Struts)

Struts(implements MVC design pattern in Java) is most widely used framework & almost every project uses it. It's easy to learn.
Above book will definitely help you.

Do all the sample projects in the book.

Must Read Arulkumarn's book: Java/J2EE Job Interview Companion: Arulkumaran Kumaraswamipillai
https://coderanch.com/t/431276/Jobs-Discussion/careers/Java-J-EE-interview-companion#1915369
http://www.lulu.com/java-success
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1411668243?tag=jranch-20

Overwhelming majority of the people working in SW industry are no better than freshers with 6-months of experience repeated many times.
Even I found so called star performers with 6+ years of exp are like that only.

CDAC/NCST recruit people in various positions through its nation wide exam CST every year. This year they recruited 300 people. Even if one get
contractual position with them exp earned their will do sea of good & Industry recognizes the same very well. Above all I found from my exp that
working in these institutions changes one's attitude from fear to fight & awakens CAN DO spirit even in very ordinary people with degrees like BA/BCom.

CDAC Mumbai/Bangalore(earlier NCST) takes people even with BA/BCom degree with good score in CST exam as Project Engineers/TA/STA etc.

Keep an eye on career section of CDAC(http://cdac.in) & NCST(http://cst.cdacmumbai.in) & try to get high score in CST.

http://cst.cdacmumbai.in/?q=/node/38
http://cst.cdacmumbai.in/?q=/node/105

Read this thread & my reply here: https://coderanch.com/t/422008/Jobs-Discussion/careers/info-about-SAP-GURU#1861174

God Bless
- Ashu