OPC with experience though is much better than a OPC with no experience.
All that doing the OPC exam proves (without experience) is that you can pass an exam.
How many different subjects do you do at school and uni which you pass the exam but the knowledge is not applied and therefore is lost or remains dormant.
My policy is i will do the OCP exam if a prospective employee gives the job to an OCP DBA in preference to me.
I believe my long and varied experience is more important then a piece of paper, it proves i can do the job.
When i first started out to get into IT, i had to actually had to do unpaid work, get a reference and use that as proof of experience. Even as a graduate, employers wanted at least 6 months of commerical experience.
Have Fun
Performance... Push the envelope!