[itg]

What courses/certifications are you thinking of?

When I was trying to improve my C skills, I worked on some projects with other people so we can learn from each other while staying motivated. I would also recommend the Effective C++ books by Scott Meyers if you haven't read them already.

[EternalLight]

I'm not sure, I was mostly thinking of something that will involve a lot of coding assignments. The idea being that if I code to learn there will be less pressure to deliver something and move on, instead allowing me to investigate it at a different level. While still having a framework to get me working.

I guess what I'm thinking about is something like c++ for grandmasters (http://www.cppgm.org/), but less epic in scope.