Time to complete exam? Trying to finish before requirements change.

[Michael Clare]

Hello.

I am currently working a full-time job, and I am trying to complete the SCJD/OCMJD requirements before
the fee increase on August 1. I have not yet started the exam.

I went to the Oracle website and it said:

"However, a fast programmer might create a solution in about twenty hours. A more typical expectation of a time requirement might be in the order of a working week. If you spend a lot more than two weeks on the project, you might well be creating something that is more detailed than is really required, and you might want to review the scoring criteria and problem statement provided in the assignment."

However the JavaRanch SCJD FAQ says:

"look at a minimum of 6 - 8 weeks of work at 40 hours per week"

This is a pretty big discrepancy and I am wondering which to believe and whether I will have time
to finish before laying out thousands of dollars for a course I don't want to take.

I am wondering if it is realistic to think that I will pass before August 1? Any comments are appreciated.
I have passed SCJP 6 already.

[Jesus Angeles]

You mentioned 'courses'. What are the courses and certifications you are looking at, to get SCJD certification.

[Michael Clare]

Jesus Angeles wrote:You mentioned 'courses'. What are the courses and certifications you are looking at, to get SCJD certification.

I am looking to NOT take courses for the SCJD requirement. I do not want to pay $2,250 to earn SCJD certification, which is the case
if I submit after August 1 this year.

[Roberto Perillo]

Howdy, Mike!

Champ, this is a very subjective question... while someone might indeed be able to finish the project in 20 working hours, it is more likely to finish it in at least 40 working hours. There are certainly other people that would finish it in 60 working hours... others, would finish in 100 working hours. It really depends on the knowledge and the experience that the person has. But I'd say that something arond 60 - 100 working hours is a very reasonable time.

[Roel De Nijs]

I worked 5 months on the assignment, combined with a full-time job. That means of course I could just work 2-3 hours max on a week day and in the weekends I could spend some extra hours. But of course you have a social life, so you work not every (weekend) day/evening. Sometimes you are working on the laptop while an exciting football game is on, so that's also not really productive.
I also spend a whole lot of time in creating test cases to make sure the most important classes work like expected, which is something you don't need but if you don't have them you might risk introducing some bugs while refactoring.
And of course the time spent will be dependent on the knowledge/experience you already have and the level of finishing you are aiming for. I aimed for absolute perfection and that's more time-consuming than someone who just wants to pass this certification. Just to be clear: with "absolute perfection" I don't mean that my client application has all functionalities provided in the given interface (so my application only has a search and a book button), but that the code I deliver meets the main requirements of software development: no bugs, simple, clear, easy to maintain and extend,...

[Jesus Angeles]

Michael Clare wrote:

I am looking to NOT take courses for the SCJD requirement. I do not want to pay $2,250 to earn SCJD certification, which is the case
if I submit after August 1 this year.

You can combine both estimates in: best case=20 hours, worst case=8weeksx40=320 hours.

The reason is, you dont know yet how your 'current' skills/knowledge/comfort, fits the SCJD requirements.

Anything on the requirement can slow you down.

For example, even if you have been coding java for 10 years, and you never use the java coding standards (formatting the lines, etc.), you will slow down a little bit.

It is the same way with threads, and even worse. If you are not very familiar with threads (even if you get 100% in SCJP), it will definitely slow you down.

240 to 320 hours would be a nice target, as that is what those who have taken it already, have estimated.

[Michael Clare]

Thank you for the comments, I am not sure yet if I will attempt SCJD but this will help.

[Sean Keane]

Start the assignment now, submit & do part 2 before the 1st August. If you fail, you can resubmit without doing one of the courses. There's info on this in a sticky thread I think.

As regards hours to do the assignment. There's a thread I created before about this. I think Sun used to say 240-320 hours. But Oracle now seems to say less.

You need to take into account too that the people who spent 320 hours probably did it at a time when you got a percentage score and were not aiming to just to pass the certification but were also aiming for a good score. There is no longer a percentage result given - you either pass or you fail. Taking this into consideration it is worth while asking yourself what is your objective with regards doing this certification. If you just want to get the certification then obviously you do not need to put the same effort in as the guys who got high percentage scores i.e. the effort they put in would not be reflective of the effort required to pass this certification. So when people tell you how long it took them to pass the exam, you should take this into consideration.

So the time it will take you will depend on things like your skill set coming into the assignment and how much effort you want to put into it beyond the bare minimum required to pass.

One strategy you could adopt is to quickly throw together a prototype that "works". Give yourself maybe 2-4 weeks. Then spend the rest of the time refining it and making it correct. That way you might avoid falling into the "trap" of trying to make your solution perfect, but taking forever and a day to get it to a point where you are happy to submit it.

Hope this helps. Now get started :-)

[Roel De Nijs]

Sean Keane wrote:Start the assignment now, submit & do part 2 before the 1st August. If you fail, you can resubmit without doing one of the courses. There's info on this in a sticky thread I think.

According to the latest reply of Oracle this is not true anymore. If you have to resubmit after 1st August, you have to fulfill the course requirement.

[Roberto Perillo]

Roel De Nijs wrote:If you have to resubmit after 1st August, you have to fulfill the course requirement.

[Dennis Grimbergen]

And then they still say it's not about the money....
It would be more fair if the new requirements would only apply for people starting an exam after august 1st 2011.

[Sean Keane]

Obviously people in Oracle don't talk to each other or they change their minds in a matter of weeks . I've emailed Oracle to ask for clarification on this considering what they told me only short while ago. I'll update with any response.

[Roel De Nijs]

This mind change is also confirmed in this topic

[Jesus Angeles]

A lil bit off topic: it seems that Oracle is becoming a 'too big to fail' institution, in terms of technology. Paying 3000$ to get certification is a sad thing; it is not in anyway, 'for' the good of the developer community.

[Sean Keane]

Morning folks. I contacted Oracle asking them to clear up the differing messages we seem to be receiving regards whether you have to do a course if you resubmit after the 1st August. Below is the response I got. Very helpful indeed

This is extremely unprofessional to say the least. It is twelve weeks until the 1st August and they still don't know what they are doing? Ridiculous.

We are in the process of finalizing the details for Hands-on course requirement. We will announce the detail soon on our website. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,
OCP Team

> Hi,
>
> Back in March I was told that if I complete my assignment and essay before the 01 Aug 2011 and if I then should fail, and get my result after 01 Aug 2011, then I can resubmit after the 01 Aug 2011 without being required to complete the hands-on course i.e. I only need to pay the fee for resubmitting my assignment.
>
> On a Java forum I have read that someone else was recently told by Oracle that if they resubmit after 01 Aug 2011 that they would be required to complete the hands-on course.
>
> These two messages are obviously contradictory. Can you please tell me which one of these is true?