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Microsoft's 10-year-old Certified Professional
idigjazz writes "Meet Arfa, a promising young software programmer from Faisalabad, Pakistan, who is believed to be the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in the world. She received the certification when she was 9. During a recent meeting with Bill Gates, she presented him with a poem she wrote that celebrated his life story."
Either the kid is really bright, or if a nine year old can pass them, what value is there?
WTF? Over?
she will feel like she wasted her life.
In the article, the girl says (regarding the lack of women in MS)
"It should be balanced -- an equal amount of men and an equal amount of women," she explained afterward.
I think in any job the only people who should be there are those that have proven their worth.
This OTT political correctness/quota balancing act in lots of workplaces is just dumb.
liqbase
So a kid took the exam and passed. Did every kid in the world get a chance to take the exam? No. For every one of these stories there must be a hundred kids who think "I could have done that, why didn't I get the chance?". Maybe I could have taken my exams a couple of years early. Maybe you could have handled that big project better than the guy they gave it to. The fact is, these situations owe more to circumstance - if we were all given these opportunities, stories like this would be a two a penny.
What a coincidence. I spent the day interviewing people for a sysadmin job at my work. We had this one guy (with terrible body odour) who had loads of "certificates" ... but he could barely answer any of our questions except by re-phrasing them and saying them back to us. He didn't get hired - but he had so many certificates from "training colleges"
No-one hires someone just because they can obtain a certificate. I bet you could train a monkey to get a Micr0$oft Cert1ficat3 - but you still wouldn't hire them or give them a position of authority and responsibility.
The fact that a 10yr old child can obtain a Microsoft Certificate means that it's no indication of total worth as a software developer or employee.
What a worthless comment.
The article was an insightful look at life through the eyes of a very brave young woman growing up in a society that does not offer many opportunities for women.
Having written a calculator and a sorting program in C# along with earning her MCAD, I consider Arfa a computer programmer by any definition.
Arfa has demonstrated considerable creativity, imagination, hard work and considerable drive. I'll gladly give up your job for her to find good work =p
From the point of view of adult programmers an MCAD may not count for a lot, and Microsoft may be a nasty company, but this is still an impressive little girl with an interesting story. There aren't a lot of nine year olds who can write C#. That's a good bit harder than some baby Basic, if for no other reason than the detail that you have to take care of and the object-orientation. And not very many nine year olds have the interest and dedication to pursue something like this.
Its also important to realize that this is a little girl in a country that gives very few opportunities to women, especially women who are not from the upper class. According to the article, her dad is a soldier. It doesn't sound like she comes from a wealthy, powerful family. So, while getting this certificate may well not make her a genius, it does make her a smart and persistent little girl who has done something quite unusual not only for her age but, in her country, for her gender. I say good for her, good for her family for encouraging her rather than telling her not to act unladylike, and good for Microsoft for giving her the trip. (But if I were in charge at Microsoft, I would have thrown in a stop at Disneyland.)
Also, could this kid kiss Bill's ass just a little more? Wrote a poem celebrating his life's history? Are you fucking yanking my dick here? And they seem to gloss by her being a "computer programmer". What, because she made a little clicky-thingy in LOGO?
Might not be a big deal to you, however, for a girl that young in a third world country, such as Pakistan, it certainly is. She was bought over to the US (first time her father and her left Pakistan) and everything was probably paid for. So she was showing her appreciation. It isn't everyday a young child from Pakistan gets to come to the U.S., and especially on a trip paid for by the world's richest man.
However, if she is eager to start hacking away, and Microsoft won't hire her now, she should be encouraged to contribute to the Open Source community - even on a Windows project. That way, she will learn not only how to code more, but also learn how to interact with developers across the globe. That, at that very young age, will surely look extremely impressive and will teach her infinite things.
She passes a microsoft exam grown adults have failed and she manages to kiss up to a billionaire at age 9.
o toID=69691
t arfa14.html
Heres a photo of her.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/photos/photo.asp?Ph
and heres an article
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/232514_msf
Before you call her a kissass realize she actually
asked intelligent questions such as why there werent more women at microsoft(before the snarky comments remember she is a 9 year old girl speaking up for equality in a nation like Pakistan) and told a Microsoft VP her vision for self-navigating car.
You have to realize for a little geek girl in a country like Pakistan going to Microsoft is like
going to a paradise where everything works and people are smart just like her.
If you check out her photo, in another 10-15
years she is going to be a major geek hottie...
so be nice and not be pricks!
This is just a reminder to all us geeks who love to bash people from that part of the world...
Pakistan and india are the only two countries that I know of where many of the geeks are women who are good looking and its considered a good thing to be living with your parents as an adult until you are married...think about it!
While it is certainly a large amount of stuff to know, you can basically just play the memorization game. I've met so many people that used to be mechanics, car salesmen etc, that have MCSE's and are completely useless working with computers. Most signed up during the .com "Make $90k a year as a certified professional!" and had hardly used computers for more then email before. In my opinion these certifications are pretty useless. Just because I passed Calc 3 and Physics back in college by memorizing some rules doesn't mean I remember a damn thing about them now.
You're comparing writing a symphony to getting your MCSE?
I was writing my own games on Sinclair Spectrum basic when I was 6. Does this make me a wunderkind programmer? No, just a bored sysadmin who is stuck at the mentality of basic and can't really progress beyond his shell scripts. That's why I'm affraid she's only going to be somewhat above-average secretary when she grows up.
"As a result, this produces people who, for instance, are certified for MS Exchange, but don't know much about SMTP -- they just know Exchange."
That is probably exactly what Microsoft wants.
Mozart was recognized as a genius through general consensus over time and through direct exposure to his works, not by a rigid test drafted by a corporation.
If you recall, there have already been cases of very young kids acing the college board tests, due to very careful tutoring and memorization. Having taken the MS tests, i can hardly imagine that approach wouldnt work if done well enough.
Not to discredit the kid, this is an accomplishment certainly, which indicates atbest a very strong computer aptitude and at worst a very very good memory, both of which are extremely useful skills. But i hardly compare this with mozart.
I have never been so ashamed of being part of the slashdot community as I am now.
Taking away any credit of her accomplishment because she took a Microsoft certification is just plain vile and stupid.
Cheers,
Adolfo
The article says she earned a "Microsoft Certified Application Developer" certification, and that she programmed a calculator in C#.
I don't know C#.
This isn't your average nine year old.
Or maybe she is, and we just don't give nine year olds enough credit.
In any case, she did something very cool, and we shouldn't be trying to tear down a little girl to make ourselves feel a bit less like the discontented band of underachievers that we really are. Instead, we should be congratulating her, and encouraging her to get some Linux certifications under her belt.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
It's more interesting because it was submitted this time by CowboyNeal.
Don't you know how things work here at Slashdot? Despotism at it's best.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Gates didn't start donating money until he developed a reputation as an asshole. That isn't kindness, it's public relations without hiring a PR firm.