Originally posted by DarthDBA
I have only basically touched on Oracle at univerisity with basic design and SQL coding and was wondering if certification was the best way to go.
The best way to go where :-) I firmly believe that certification is the way to confirm and enlarge your knowledge, you should not look at it as the key to big salary and employment prosperity.

What is the difference with Oracle 8i, 9i?
Big difference. 9i has many new features, it is an improved and enlarged version of 8i.

How long on average would it take to complete the exams for OCP DBA given self learning...and how hard is it with no guide?
I did complete the exams within 6 months. Before I bought the certification books, I though I new everything about Oracle. Oh boy, how wrong I was! The more I learn nowadays about Oracle, the more I see how little I know about it...

How much money are some people with certification on in here....if that is not too personal?
Enough to be able to pay the bills and not to care how much a glass of Jack Daniels will cost on a Friday evening. But I bet we are not rolling in cash if that's what you are asking about :-)

How important is knowledge of Linux, Unix?
What's Linux :-)

any answers you can provide me will be greatly appreciated and any other guidance you can give will be warmly welcomed.
I am sure some other guys will tell you their point of view

i was reading in another post where some1 said that the OCP market has been flooded and the iT market has slowed..esp in UK. Is database not the 2nd biggest growing field in IT?
What's the first?

Is this not a good field to be getting into...and as i read somewhere..u never see jobs posted as "junior DBA", where do you get hte experience when you are first starting out?
You start as a developer, system operator, beats me :-)