Important Voucher News!!

[Kathy Sierra]

As of today, June 2, vouchers are *still* being distributed. There are a few more left to go, so if you do not yet have yours, there is still a chance that you will get it. Have hope!
cheers,
Kathy

[eric mcentee]

Can someone help clarify the confusion for me?
My email containing the objectives and such are at home, but I was under the impression that if I was selected and got that email that voucher would be sent.
Am I under the mistaken impression that this means the voucher will be valid? The email said something like that it will expire on July 7th.
Based on what I am gathering from reading the posts in this forum, I see one of two scenarios:

1) If I received the email about being a beta mentioning the voucher, that I am fine and I can take the test as long as it before July 7th.
2) Even if I receive a voucher, but don't schedule the test early enough, I can miss out. For example, if the voucher comes this week, but I don't feel prepared enough to take the test until 6/30, I may be out of luck if 400 other people have taken it.
I hope this question makes sense. I know that the way work is going, there is no way I can take the beta before 6/30, so if that means I'll miss out then I'll stop studying for SCBCD and go back to SCWCD (I've been working on that for a few weeks now as a work goal).
Thanks,
Eric

[Kathy Sierra]

Howdy Eric,
If you wait until after the 30th of June, you probably won't get in. Unless a huge number of other candidates also decide they aren't ready and simply don't show up for appointments... but the way it works is that once 400 exams have been taken, then your voucher will be cancelled. So -- if you want to be in the beta, you probably need to schedule your appointment no later than the 14th (and I am not sure that even this date will be safe -- it could still close earlier). There is a good chance that waiting until the 20th will be safe, but no guarantee.
So, if you know you won't be ready before the 30th, then you probably shouldn't try to take it. Unless... you DO have time to do at least *some* studying and cramming, and you just go for it in the middle of June sometime, which means that at the very least you will get a chance to see what the exam is like, in preparation for taking it *for real* when it comes out in August.
My recommendation would be:
* If you already know EJB
AND
* you have at least a *little* time to devote to studying
THEN schedule an appointment for mid-June and take it.
Otherwise,
Wait for the real one, or as you said, keep prepping for the SCWCD exam. You can always take the EJB exam later. Be warned that the SCWCD exam will be updated, we think sometime in the fall, to be based on the new spec. There is probably no reason to wait for the new one, but I just want to make sure you're aware of that.
cheers,
Kathy
'So many exams... so few neurons'
-cowgirl
(which explains why I stopped *taking* exams and went on the development team instead

[eric mcentee]

Thanks Kathy, I'll probably try to give it a shot for 13th or so (I may try to push it for the 16th). I've been doing J2EE for two years now, but we dropped our usage of Entity beans because they are just too slow for us (J2EE to a Teradata Data Warehouse). Most of our work is based on session beans and Message Driven Beans. I guess I'll spend some time reviewing the EJB2.0 spec to go over what I've missed. Unfortunately once the system gets to be mature, you don't write a lot of deployment descriptors and other fun stuff like that anymore, so I may not be as ready as I'd like to take the exam. I did take EJB for Architects from The Middleware Company, so maybe that will help.
Worst case its an opportunity to take the test and provide feedback while being part of something that thousands will take later. And, hey, I'll have notes for the August test if I miss the cutoff!
It can't hurt to read the spec either! Maybe a little less gunslinging at work with that knowledge!
[ June 03, 2003: Message edited by: eric mcentee ]