Celebrity Marriage and Recertification
Posted by TestOut Staff on
Eleven years ago, a little action blockbuster called Mr. and Mrs. Smith brought about a collision of Hollywood atoms that produced one of the most spectacular detonations in the annals of celebrity. Sexy superstar Brad Pitt, then married to Friends first femme Jennifer Aniston, abruptly left his wife to form the most blindingly glamorous showbiz supercouple since Bogey and Bacall by pairing up with his sultry Smith leading lady, Angelina Jolie.
At the time, many suspected that Jolie-Pitt was a shooting star and not a constellation — blazing across the heavens in a brief-yet-dazzling display, but a far cry from being, as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar thunders at his betrayers, "constant as the northern star!" Then Brad and Angie stuck it out, eventually welcoming six children and actually tying the knot in 2014 after nearly nine years of cheerful cohabitation. And that gets us all the way to this week, when — say it ain't so — the fairy tale took a U-turn into divorce court.
Some of you are probably wondering what all of this has to do with IT certification. And that's a fair question, given that this is the IT Insights Blog and not Page Six. The big breakup has us thinking, however, that a certification is sort of like a marriage. Getting a cert takes effort, of course, but keeping it fresh is often even more complicated. Most IT credentials require the certificant to reaffirm his (or her) commitment to the union every few years by either earning a set quantity of continuing education credits, or studying for and taking the exam all over again.
Whichever way you choose to stay abreast of new developments, the point is that you can't ever get complacent, or take your certification for granted. The river of IT knowledge has a strong current, and if you just sit in one spot, you'll be swept into the backwaters of irrelevance. Instead of losing everything that you set out to gain, keep your knowledge current and your IT skills sharp by regularly recertifying. And if you decide to marry your wealthy and glamorous coworker, well, remember that lasting relationships require regular renewal.