[MikeTheGreat]

I'm going to do the obligatory thing & cite the Dunning-Kruger Effect here :)

Also, from personal experience as someone who's taught computer programming (US college 1st & 2nd year courses - listed as "computer science" but really mostly computer programming): I've seen a _lot_ of people tell me some variation on "My program won't compile, I'm totally stuck, but those are just (implied minor) details - I really do understand what's going on!". Bonus points for when their code indicates that they've missed huge concepts at both the language level ("What do you mean I can't do arrayName = arrayName + 1 in Java?") and/or algorithmic level ("The variable defined by the outer loop of the bubble sort was never used so clearly that loop was useless so I removed it").

Ok, I'll stop ranting :)

My point being that you may be able to measure your own progress but not everyone is.

Plus, certification / credentializing is one of the services that education provides to the the rest of society.

[etataetaet]

Yeah I see what you're saying! However, for me specifically, I know the mistakes were not fundamental ( Just gotta trust me on this one xD ).

The other comment pointed out that if you fully understand the material its a lot easier to judge your own understanding. Now that someone said that it seems really obvious, but It wasn't something I ever thought about!

Thanks for the insight