Is it late to take SCEA part II and III now 3.5 months before 1st August to avoid extra cost?

[Yukun Song]

Hi,

I have passed part I last year (not a high score). Just yesterday, I heard that Oracle added the requirement of course attendance (I know I'm too late on this), so I'm wondering if it is reasonably possible to get part II and III done including getting the assignment questions, writing the design, submitting the work, preparing for part III and sitting part III essay exam all in three months, plus half a month potentially for resubmission.

Given that I have 9 years commercial experience as developer, technical lead and some architect responsibilities in Telco, Finance and Internet industries, and am currently doing a full time job for one of the top investment banks in a reasonably stressful (or responsible) environment, but I have no experience with airlines system (I guess that's currently the part II is about, correct me if I'm wrong). I can possibly spend around 6 hours after work time per week on the exam, otherwise my wife and son may complain .

I'd like to consult someone who has experience with part II and III whether three and half months time is reasonable for completing part II and III with my situation. I have other things to do, so I want to prioritise taking the exam compared with other business when the extra cost is taking place for the certificate after 1st August.

Thanks in advance!

Yukun

[Sharma Ashutosh]

Yukun,
Experience wise you are having the right experience and you should try it out.
I appeared in Part 1 in March 2009 then some policies changed in my company due to which i cannot appear in part 2 and part 3(mine is all company sponsored). I took almost 2.5 months for part 2 assignment(went quite in depth) plus part 3, you can refer to my blog:
http://scea5-passingpart2and3.blogspot.com/

I have two kids and due to which i can only spare some 30-45 minutes per day and some 3-4 hours on the weekend. So at an average I spent close to 6-7 hours per week and some 10-11 hours during long weekend. I have a long commute to NYC and work in Financial company at a very high pressure job. I used to carry my sketch book carry with me and draw some of the diagrams in the train and use to convert it to deliverable via UML tool later at home. I started working on assignment during X'mas holidays and was able to finish by 3rd week of Feb 2011. Sent it for peer review and it took some 1.5-2 weeks and then finally submitted it on 6th March and also appeared in part 3 on the same. Thank fully i have a prometric center where i can appear on the test on weekends also. As i mentioned, i went too much detailed in some of the sections so it took almost 150 - 160 hours for myself for part 2 and part 3. I am having around 11+ years of IT experience.

So it's manageable and i think you should go ahead for that.

[Yukun Song]

Sharma Ashutosh wrote:Yukun,
Experience wise you are having the right experience and you should try it out.
... ...
... ...
So it's manageable and i think you should go ahead for that.

Thanks very much for sharing the experience!

Yukun

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Yes it is doable. Also keep in mind that our current understanding is that as long as you submit parts 2 and 3 by August, you can resubmit later without taking the course.

[Sharma Ashutosh]

Yes it is doable. Also keep in mind that our current understanding is that as long as you submit parts 2 and 3 by August, you can resubmit later without taking the course.

One more point i want to make-you don't have to appear for part 3 again in case you fail(worst case scenario, please be +ve ). So just calculate how much fees is there for assignment resubmission and i think that is much less than the training/course from Oracle.
So go ahead with it-it's worth taking the risk.

[Yukun Song]

Sorry guys, I should've come back earlier to post my news. I did manage to complete part 2 and part 3 within three months time and passed the exam and received the certificate a couple of months later.

It's been three years since that. I haven't experienced a direct benefit from holding a JavaEE architect certificate, since I haven't changed job. But the experience of going through the knowledges, doing the assignment and sitting the exams are quite adorable and glory. Three years later, I still suggest experienced Java developers to challenge yourself for it because the result is you either gain the knowledge by preparing the exam or achieve a great level of confidence in architecting, or both if you pass.

Thank Sharma and Jeanne so much for your posts three years ago. Your posts definitely encouraged me to go ahead and to achieve the great experience and result.