Well part of it is that the cert chart that I saw showed the SCJA to be required so that is what I started with.
But I'm kinda glad I did cause it wets my whistle (so to speak) on how the test environment is and it kinda builds a bit of confidence getting a good score to start my Java cert career even though a child could probably get the score I got on the SCJA.
I'm in resume building mode right now and have a 3-4 years of Java Dev under my belt, it be nice to build up certs (no matter how mundane the test) behind it to show that I'm not full of it.