Well, the Pixsoul airwaves have been rather quiet the past couple of weeks because I have been super busy at work and the rest of the time studying for the Microsoft Exchange 2003 certification. I sat the exam last Monday and knew perfectly well that I lacked knowledge on some key areas that I don’t utilise in real world practice (Security and Routing Groups). But Microsoft have their Second Shot offer still running, so I figured I had nothing to lose by sitting it; at worst I would get a gauge of where I am at.

So I went in, knowing that my current preparation was half-baked but I still had a chance of passing. After the test, as I was running through my answers and figured out from the questions I had no idea about in comparison to the ones I was confident that I was going to be cutting it close to passing or failing, it could go either way.

So I pressed submit and waited for the words to flash up on the screen…”EPIC FAIL!”. Ok, so it didn’t say that, but it was still disappointing! As expected I came close, getting 648/1000, 52 shy of passing. But I know where I need to work on and I am already back on the books and mucking around on my exchange server, ready to dish out some punishment to the exam PC in a week when I re-sit.

It kind of woke me up a bit though, I need to get focussed on the study and not sit an exam until I know I am ready; rather than when I want to achieve each certification. I’ve been too focussed on time and not on quality and it would be good to hold on to my current GPA of 91% rather than throw it away in order to get some certifications more quickly.