Intersted in taking the ITPEC

Hello everyone,

I’m a 32 yo junior web developer mainly using PHP and Symfony for now. I don’t have any degree (besides my music degree, but that’s another story…) and only 6 months experience. I know I have 0 chances to get a visa for Japan for now, but I read Paul’s article about the ITPEC and got really interested. Would I really have chances to get a visa in Japan with this diploma ? Has anyone ever passed it and found a job in Japan after that ?
I’m also curious about the level of difficulty of this diploma. I’ve studied dev and I love IT but I didn’t study IT in a college. I know I’m able to study a lot on my own when I’m interested in something though, so I think it might be possible anyway but I’m interested in having some insights if anyone has ever passed it.

Thanks for reading me and please excuse my english skills.

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Yes, as long as you can find a company to sponsor your visa application.

This page lists past questions. Looking through them can help you gauge if any of your current knowledge is relevant to the exam. There’s a study guide, but it looks like it is only available as a physical book, so the current COVID-19 situation may mean it takes quite some time to be delivered.

You could also look into taking an intro to computer science course. Unfortunately most of these seem to be targeted at people who don’t know CS or how to program, and so half of the course seems to be about programming, whereas in your case, you’d want to focus more on the theoretical side of things. I asked for recommendations on Twitter, so you could check if someone responds there.

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Thanks a lot for your help ! I’ve started following your thread on Twitter and there are already some interesting options. I’ll definitely get the ITPEC study books though.
And you’re right, I’m mostly looking for IT theory. The ITPEC seems to cover a very wide range of knowledge about computers, while not digging too deep into it. So there are some questions that I can answer very easily, and some where I don’t even know what they are talking about. :joy:

Here is an interesting thread I’ve found on Quora with more details about the ITPEC from people who have passed it. Again, one of them says “PhilNITS exams are about breadth, not depth”.

Anyway, thanks again for your help Paul, I’ll follow the twitter thread closely.

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If that is a university degree? If so, it may open some options for you.

I “only” have a conservatory degree unfortunately. I know that it only can be used in France !