Passed SCWCD with 86%

[alzamabar]

Hi guys, I just wanted to say that today I cleared SCWCD with 86%, after 23 1/2 hours straight of working to put a service in live. Yesterday I started at 8am and this morning I finished at 7.30am, went home, sleeped for a couple of hours and at 2pm I took the certification. I'm pretty pleased with myself.

I wanted to thank you all for your help and the friendly environment.

[janne s]

Congratulations! Marco Good Score
[ March 09, 2005: Message edited by: jaya m ]

[Colin Fletcher]

Congratulations Marco. What is next?

[alzamabar]

Originally posted by Colin Fletcher:
Congratulations Marco. What is next?

SCMACD

[Colin Fletcher]

Nice :-) I have played around in that area... Are you going for the SCEA ? (eventually)

[alzamabar]

Originally posted by Colin Fletcher:
Nice :-) I have played around in that area... Are you going for the SCEA ? (eventually)

The J2ME cert is more a business requirement than else, although now that I'm going for it I feel kind of excited at the idea. Working for a mobile content company (my role is senior J2EE developer) I want to study for this certification in order to improve the quality of my services.

I can't hide to you that SCEA is inviting and it is in my long term plans. However becoming a SCEA is a project in itself, there are 3 or 4 exams to take (I can't remember exactly how many but our senior architect is going for it) and it may take few years to complete. I am amongst those who believe in Java certification as a way to improve the way we deliver software services everyday. To me certs give structure, and I build around that structure with the day-to-day activity and experience. I don't take certifications because 'of the piece of paper'. I can tell you that since I studied for this certification I already changed how I write J2EE apps in a much more efficient way, and it pays; it has been the same with the EJB one. It pays in terms of style, satisfaction, time and enjoyment.

There are few other certifications out there that I'd like to achieve:

1) IBM XML developer
2) JBoss architect
3) UML analyst

The only limits to what we can achieve are...our limits.

[Sanjay pts]

hi
My heartly congrates for your success.
Hey marco can you tell me what u read in that last 231/2 hrs.???

thanx
sanjay

[Colin Fletcher]

Narco, my view on certification is similar. My view is "Just because someone is certified doesn't mean they are a quality resource." I have had that debate with many people.

Being an independent consultant certificates add to the sell. :-)

The SCEA is a 3 part test. I presume it will take a while to get the SCEA designation.

Good luck.

[alzamabar]

Originally posted by Sanjay pts:
hi
My heartly congrates for your success.
Hey marco can you tell me what u read in that last 231/2 hrs.???

thanx
sanjay

The preparation for the certification has been a constant job (which I had to arrange with my 'real' job) which took me, amongst all, 6 months. I studied on HF JSP (as probably 90% of candidates did) and I decided not even to look even at a mock exam (except the ones at the end of each chapter) until I completed and knew by heart the HF topics. By the time I arrived at custom tags, I forgot most of what I learned about servlets and JSP, so feeling very badly about it, I decided to go back and start again. There was no point in finishing the book if I couldn't rememebr what I studied before. The second time, though, it took my a lot less to memorize Servlets and JSP, and this time I arrived at custom tags remembering what I studied before. So I arrived at the end of the book.

Once finished, which was circa 7 days ago, I started the softSCWCD mock exams (which I would reccommend, although there are some bugs; these are really tough, and if you score high there you shouldn't have problems with your cert). Then I took all the JDiscuss mock exams, the Javaranch one scoring good markings. Then two days ago, I was supposed to come back early in the afternoon, and take the HF one (which is VERY tough), but as you probably know, I had to help a colleague because we had to port one of our services live by yesterday. And to is happens that I worked 23.5 hours straight, got a couple of hours sleep, and took the exam.

[rakeshBhatia]

Excellent score mate,

Also considering your tight work schedule, its amazing ...

Congrats ...

Raj