I’m certifiable

One of the constant messages that we are all receiving at the moment is to use the time working from home constructively.

Educational opportunities have been a major element in this with all sorts of distance learning courses being promoted. After being barraged by these opportunities every day for the last few weeks, I decided I should actually take one up.

There are all sorts of options out there that are particularly relevant to my profession. However, I decided that I wanted to get something at the end of it, I wanted a certificate to mark my achievements. This instantly whittled the list of potential training options down. The next decision I made was that rather than covering the specifics of what I do for a living, I wanted to do something that would give me more of an insight into the work that my clients do.

Back in my journalism days I became Q-Sys certified to write an article about the online training method. With that certification in the bag, I decided to remain in the audio networking world and to take a look at Audinate’s Dante certification, Level 1.

As a free video training programme available to all, Audinate have ticked all the boxes for introducing the audio networking protocol to the widest possible range of students. The course was well paced and easily understandable for someone like me who very much isn’t a network engineer. I found that it did well in covering the basics of audio and then building on this to explain first how audio networks work and then how Dante can be a useful tool for network professionals. Following the video tutorials there is a 41-question multiple choice exam where you need a mark of more than 80% to pass. Fortunately I managed this (although I imagine it was quite close).

So now I’m Level 1 certified for Dante. Will it provide me with any additional work or benefit my career at all? I would doubt it, but it does help me to better understand what I’m writing about and ups my level of background knowledge.

While studying is not always the highest point on your priority list, when we have opportunities like this, I would highly recommend learning a little more from the wider markets you are involved with.