welcome to Dear SQL DBA: a podcast and youtube show for SQL Server developers
and database administrators. I'm Kendra Little from SQLWorkbooks.com. This
episode is all about preparing for certification tests. I get a lot of
questions about certifications-- so many questions that I already have a podcast
episode addressing the question: should I get certified? I still think it's
worth thinking heavily about whether you want to invest the time and money into
getting certifications, and figuring out are these going to be meaningful for
your career. Certifications has been a really valuable milestone on my path to
learning about a lot of topics in SQL Server, but they don't have to be -- and
certifications aren't required for you to meet your goals, necessarily, when it
comes to your career working with data. In this podcast, I'm going to talk
about how I strategize approaching something like a certification exam, but
do you go back and check out that other episode if you're questioning: hey do I
need to get certified? Because this podcast is all about taking the
challenge of certification and making the most of it. One word of warning: I
will be talking about an example exam in this in this session but these things
change a lot! Not only do the exams change, but the certifications themselves
change, and the definition of hey what is the certification and what does it cover --
and that is something that shifts over time. So, if you're listening to this
episode in the future, don't just assume that this exam is still the same. You
want to take this strategy that I'm giving you. Take out of it what's
meaningful for you and use it as a toolset to approach the exams that you
want to take on your own path. Now, that being said, the example exam I'm talking
about that we're gonna say okay, how can we strategize taking this exam for
someone who's just getting started on their path towards being a
DBA -- that exam is exam 98 364. The database fundamentals exam. Now, this exam
covers a lot of ground, and it doesn't assume that the person taking it has all
of the job experience-- but it's gonna cover all of the fundamentals, or at
least a really wide chunk of them. When we're approaching an exam, what I
like to do is first get a big-picture view and just really start looking at:
what are the skills that this exam is measuring? I want to expand each area and
get the details out of the exam description, and then I want to summarize
it and analyze it in my own format. I like to use a spreadsheet, and I like to
do that because I want to assess myself on the different skills that they're
measuring, and also I want to do some analysis on where I may want to prepare
and where I may not want to prepare. Summarizing the exam is really helpful
because these exams can be intimidating. The level of things that they cover. the
number of things they cover and the level of detail in them may become
overwhelming, and if we don't do that analysis and strategizing about where to
invest our time, we may quickly become overwhelmed-- and we may become, you know,
kind of frightened of the exam. That doesn't put us in the best place to take
the exam. We want to set ourselves up so that we have good confidence going into
it and feel that we have a good chance to tackle the exam. Looking at the
database fundamentals exam, it has multiple areas, and it lists out for each
of these areas how much weight is put on that area in the exam. The first area
that is covered for database fundamentals is this concepts section.
Understanding core database concepts is estimated to be 20 to 25 percent of the
weight of the exam. We get a fair amount of detail about what they're going to
ask us about: it says you need to understand how data is stored in tables,
you need to understand relational database concepts as well as data
manipulation language and data definition language.
All of these things together are up to 1/4 of the weight of the exam. All right,
so I take out these headings and I put those into my spreadsheet. I may read
some of the detail on here to make sure that I understand what this means as
well. The next section of the exam is creating database objects, and this is
again 20 to 25% of the weight of the exam. This section, creating database
objects, contains questions on choosing data types, understanding tables and how
to create them, creating views and creating stored procedures and functions.
Now, there's parts of these that may sound familiar if we think back to the
first section. The first section had understanding how data is stored in
tables, which is understanding columns and rows. The second section of this says
understanding tables and how to create them. It's very very similar to the first
one. It's more about understanding T- SQL to create a table, but of course
to understand the T-SQL to create a table, we need to understand these
concepts of columns and rows. So there is some overlap of concepts in here. If I
understand tables and how to create them I am going to understand most likely how
data is stored in tables, as long as I understand not just how to-- you know
create tables, but the fact that they can have rows in them as well. These
sections of this exam aren't measuring totally separate things, and if I
understand some concepts well it may cover more than one skill measured in
the exam. The first section of the exam is about manipulating data: it's about
selecting data inserting data, updating data, and deleting data. And again, some of
these may sound similar because that first section that was big picture
already covered a lot of these concepts. To understand selecting data we need to
understand relations between tables. To understand inserting updating and
deleting data, these are all ways that we can manipulate data. The next section of
the exam is called understanding data storage, and this is an example I
think of where some of the titles may not mean what I think they mean at first.
Understanding data storage-- if I only saw those words I might think that this was
about how to create files in the file system and how SQL Server pages store
data, or how data access to storage is done. But when I look into the
subheadings of this topic it says that understanding data storage consists of
normalization, primary, foreign and composite keys, and indexes. So they're
talking more about what are the ways in which we design our data structures in
the SQL Server. It's not talking about the Windows file system and how SQL
Server talks to the Windows file system necessarily, and that's part of why I
think it's useful to go in and expand these and pull out the sub headings:
because if I simply read the big picture categories the way in which I interpret
those words may not be really what they're talking about. This data storage
portion is 15% to 20% of the exam. Now, there's one last section on this exam
called administering a database. Administering a database is only 10 to
15%, and they only list two concepts or two skills inside administering a
database. There's there's definitely more to administering a database than this,
but in the fundamentals category. the skills they're talking about are
database security concepts and backups and restores. This is a great example
of an area where if you tried to master all parts of administering a database to
pass the database fundamentals exam, you would be doing way more work than this
exam covers. And that might be really really valuable, but we're really at a
big picture level here, and at the fundamentals level they're really doing
some selection of topics and deciding exactly what is fundamental to database
administration. So all of these headings that I've listed at all of these skills,
I take these skills and put them into a spreadsheet
that gives me a nice big picture view. Each of these skills is approximately
five and a half percent to seven percent of the exam, and as we said there is
overlap in some of these skills that were listed. So data manipulation
language is 5.6 percent just as an overview topic but then inserts updates
and deletes are each seven percent as well. So if I want to work on just a lot
of T SQL and understanding how to select and manipulate data, that alone is
gonna have quite a lot of coverage on this exam. It's worth assessing that,
because just looking at individual skills you may underestimate the weight
that something has on the exam, so look for redundancy in the areas listed. I
also like to add some columns to this spreadsheet and for each skill that's
being measured, assess: what is my confidence level in this area? You do
need to know yourself a little bit. Do you tend to be overconfident?
Do you tend to be really self-critical? Try to not be so self-critical or dial
it back a little bit. If you tend to be overconfident you want to have a fair
idea of this just for your own purposes. What we're really saying is where are my
areas where I'm strongest? Where my areas where I'm weakest? This will help--
this will be part of the formula to figure out where I want to study-- but not
the whole formula because I also want to look at these areas and note separately:
how interested am I in this area? So for example, for this exam what I did is I
went way back and I thought about Kendra before she was even a Junior DBA. Kendra
when she was just starting out. I really loved writing queries-- that was
one of the first things I did with SQL Server was figure out how to
interpret data in the database and make it useful. Looking through these areas
I had medium confidence on storing data in tables, and medium
confidence about relational database concepts, because I was used to working
with tables and joining them. I was a little bit used to data manipulation
language because I would use temp tables, but I wasn't super confident. I had low
confidence when it came to data definition language, because I would do a
lot of things like select into a temp table and then manipulate the data in
there. I didn't feel that I knew a lot about data types, and honestly looking
back I I would have underestimated myself a lot, I would have said low
comfort. but actually I DID know a lot of them, I just didn't have a lot of
knowledge of what I didn't know in that area, right? Because I only knew-- oh I've
interacted with these data types. It turns out I'd interacted with a lot more
data types than I really gave myself credit for. But I would go through each
of these areas and rank: high confidence, medium confidence, low confidence-- or if I
just literally didn't know anything about it, just put question
marks. I knew absolutely nothing about indexes, I knew I didn't know what an
index was at this point in my career, so I would have just put like question mark
question mark question mark there. I also knew hardly anything about
security. All I knew about security was how to ask to get access to something. I
wasn't at the point where I was a database administrator so I had really
low or non-existent knowledge in some areas in these exams, but also there were
some areas that were interesting to me-- where I had really high interest. And
then there were other areas where I had really low interest. And noting those is
really really important as well. Saying that something is low interest,
isn't saying that it's not important or it is not valuable. It really is a
question of what is something that I just I have a desire to learn more about.
I find it really compelling, or something that I think might be really useful to
me in the short term. At that point in my career, where I was really focusing
on getting a lot better using databases, as somebody who used T-
SQL, the areas that were of the greatest interest for me had to do with
becoming more and more of an expert at creating objects in the
database, and I just really wasn't the point where I was ready to learn about
backup and restore. It was later in my career that that became much
higher interest to me. You want to avoid the anti-pattern of being the
perfectionist at this point. There can be, for many of us, a tendency to say: I'm
just not ready to take the exam yet and to get stuck in this place where we
never get started, because we're like oh I haven't learned these three things yet.
To me certifications can help move your knowledge forward, and a big part of that
is just getting to the point where you're ready and excited to try the exam.
To me, the point of being ready and excited to try the exam is when I feel
that I have enough coverage of these areas, and I'm in the right mental state.
But that right mental state isn't that I'm confident I know everything. That
right mental state is: I see the challenge in the questions and I think I
can get past the tough videogame level of this certification
exam. There's gonna be moments when I'm like squinting at the certification screen
and I'm trying to get past something, but I want to be having fun while I do it,
because honestly for me I am better at exams when I'm in that mood of: okay I
think I've got what it takes to pass this exam, and I'm gonna go for it, and
I'm really going for it. I'm not like at this oh I know everything overconfidence
stage. I'm at the: I think I can tackle it competitive stage. Not competitive with
other people, but really competitive almost against a video game boss type
thing in the exam. I'm competing against the challenge that's been set up for me.
Looking at how I've scored myself in my imaginary report writing
Kendra, approaching the fundamentals exam, if I highlight areas where
I ranked myself as either medium or high comfort level, looking at the
percentage is given to each skill on the exam comes out to about 42% coverage of
the exam. Honestly, that's not so bad! That's a
pretty confident little Report Writer Kendra, who's like oh you know I know
something about these other areas, even areas where I have kind of low
confidence, I'm gonna be able to possibly make some guesses in those. But I think
I'm gonna be able to make a really good guess if I have medium or high
confidence in that area. 42% coverage isn't bad, but I might want to bring that
up a little bit. I might want to get to the point where I have medium confidence
in some other areas on this exam, but I'm not gonna try to cover every single area
on the exam, because I just want to get to that competitive fun-loving part. I
need to pick out other skills that I want to level up, and here is where that
interest ranking comes in. Areas where I have low confidence, but I have high
interest: these are things that are actually going to be valuable to me to
learn at this point in my career, because I have either an excitement about them,
or I think they may be useful to me, but I'm not very confident about
me. Those areas are the ones where I want to go into those and say: yeah okay I'm
not super confident about creating tables with T-SQL, I want to
build that up because I have high interest. Same thing with creating views
and creating procedures and functions. I'm excited about learning those and
preparing for this exam has brought to light: hey here's something I'm excited
about that I don't have medium confidence in. That is an exciting thing
to go out and learn to me! So I want to avoid those areas where I have low
confidence, but my interest is also low. Those, hey maybe later on my interest is
going to be higher in those, but I'm not gonna pick those out to tackle right now
for this exam. If little Report Writer Kendra tackles those areas where she has
lower confidence and higher interest, and she if she gets those up to
medium or high level interest, then I'm gonna have 67% coverage of topics on
this exam. And at that point I'm gonna say: okay I'm gonna go
ahead and give this a try and see how I do, because I have
a good level of coverage, and confidence enough that I feel good enough about to
try and tackle this thing! My study style for these areas where I have low
confidence and high interest, my particular study style is very hands-on.
This is just how I learn. I have always learned something better if I go out and
research it, and write down notes. I have to do something-- I have to either write
down notes, or I have to write a demo script. Learning for me is the best when
I have a problem. Maybe it's is me creating the problem, or maybe
it's just me saying okay I want to learn how to create functions, so I'm going to
look at some examples of functions online and then I'm gonna use a demo
database and come up with my own function, and then make sure I know how
to use it. My tools for preparing for these are things like sample databases,
evaluation-- or Developer Edition, rather, of SQL Server, which is now free.
Evaluation edition is free - but it expires, so Developer Edition is awesome.
Books Online and online documentation and search engines and blogs-- but
actually not just reading for me, really getting my hands on things helps me
learn. Adapt that to your own style of learning, of course. If saying
something out loud helps you learn, then you want to say things out loud.
I really really-- when I'm preparing for these exams-- like to get myself into the
mindset of approaching a game. Maybe it's a video game, maybe it's some sort of
competition for you, but for me when I'm approaching these questions with exams I
want to learn to read the question critically. And this is something that
sometimes folks like to do practice exams for. I don't think that the practice
exams all have to be official practice exams. For example, on SQLWorkbooks, I
have a bunch of free quizzes 00 and I am NOT claiming that these free quizzes
are anything like certification quizzes. But they are free, and they do give you a
chance to read the questions critically, to practice eliminating answers where
you're like: okay I know that one's not it, and I know that one's not it, so I'm
down to two, and now I'm gonna --how I can decide between
these two? You also can help get into the habit of saying: I'm going to look at--
gonna run through all the questions on this quiz, and I'm gonna kind of set
myself, that I'm gonna keep timing in mind while I do it. So, if one question is
really tricky, I'm gonna table it and I'm gonna come back to it later.
Now, my quizzes don't have the functionality-- I don't have
hundred question quizzes, so I don't have the functionality of marking
a question for review-- but in many of these online exam situations you do have
that ability-- which being mindful of the time and not getting stuck on a question
is a really important skill. And that's something that any practice quiz can
help you with if you get used to: okay I'm gonna go past this question and I'm
not gonna let it get to me, I can come back to it at the end. Just that practice
of being comfortable with that and having it not ruffle you too much can be
very very useful. Timing is a huge part of being quite being successful, not only
in video games, but also at quizzes. Calmness and preparing for the test
ahead of time can also help you out a ton. I have learned the hard way that
anytime I've got something that is sort of an important thing that I want to do
well coming up: it might be an exam, it might be an important meeting, it might
be a long flight, it might be any critical situation: I want
to do my best at that, I may want to start thinking about preparing for it a
week in advance, or sometimes even more. Doing things like saying: I'm going
to start getting to bed at a consistent time so that the night before the exam I
have this evening ritual where I wind down where I go to sleep,
where I'm not staying up all night. Because for me, just getting and having a
routine going into the exam where I'm calm, where I've been doing healthy
things like walking my dog and working out, it puts me into just a much better
place to take the exam. A much more confident place and a more relaxed place.
I am also personally into meditation. Meditating the morning before a big
event makes a huge
difference for me. It helps me remember to breathe during the exam, it makes it
easier to not get stuck on things like tough questions, to not have them bug me
and get into my head. Because a lot of the folks who have problems with exams --
times when I've had problems with the exams have been times when I've gotten
into a place of fear, where I've gotten really nervous, and I'm like oh oh I
didn't do well on that question! Having a question haunt you during an exam, or a
series of questions haunt you can really be tough. But if you have that
mindset of saying: all right, I got knocked out of that question, maybe,
I'm not sure if I got it right, but okay I'm gonna tackle this next one! And now
my mind is fresh, my mind is clear, I'm ready to get this. I've got my
shoulders down and deep breath -- self-critical thoughts have gone past me.
That is the place where you're more likely to rock that exam. Building up
these habits of getting to a clear mental space-- and having had a full
night's sleep really can help you rock out that exam and stay in that
mindset of: hey I am going to take this exam down, and get past this confidently.
Knowing that the exam doesn't mean anything about you is really really
helpful when it comes to having a great time during the exam, to me. The
perfect exam taking-- if I got to you know level 100 of exam taking, I would be
in a place where I could take an exam that I did terrible at, and still have a
good time, and still learn something from the experience-- and say, after this,
okay, maybe that was a disaster, but what did I learn from
the questions it asked me? I'm gonna learn some things about the
subject matter itself just from analyzing the questions they asked me.
And what did I learn about what I want to do? Maybe I've discovered that despite
my research, this exam is actually not related
to what I want to do, and that, whoops I maybe I don't want to pursue
this! But maybe what I've learned is, okay, I'm gonna get my results back and it was
it was Cathrine Wilhelmsen who pointed out-- she said hey you know, you get back
the skill results, an analysis of where you were strongest and where
you were weakest. If this is something you want to pursue, you can use
that to redesign the areas you want to study in. You can take that list
and you can rank it: high interest, medium interest, low interest. It
has just ranked you on your confidence levels, or rather your your skill levels,
right? So you can take that and use it as your map to your study plan. But really,
the sign of a great exam is learning as much as you can from that exam, and using
it to move forward. At the end of the exam, you want to be in place where you
don't use the exam to judge yourself. I know it's something-- I know it's hard to
say this exam means nothing about ME. Look at the exam results as meaning
something about what to DO next. If you pass the exam, maybe you want to take
another exam next. Maybe you don't. But if you don't pass the exam-- same thing. Maybe
you want to use that to redefine your study areas, maybe you don't. It's all up
to you and it really is completely about choosing your own adventure. But
please please please don't take negative exam results to mean that you are not
good enough, because there are a lot of super smart people out there, just tons
of super smart people who haven't passed these exams the first time. Maybe they haven't
passed these exams ever. These exams are a challenge, and they can be part of your
journey to your career. They do not have to be. And they do not have to define you.
They're an achievement you can have but they aren't something that judges you,
and they aren't something that says what you are worth. You are worth a lot
regardless of whether you'll ever take a certification exam. Now getting more for
your buck: there is definitely a path-- like if you are saying okay these exams
are expensive, and I want to do them, but I want to make sure that I get the
absolute most out of the certification experience-- I
believe that the way to do that is when you are studying for the exam, when you
find those areas where you say, okay, I I have low
confidence but I have high interest: start a blog and write about those
things as you learn them. That will not only help you learn them and keep you on
track, but if you're consistent, building that blog that blog is going to
be the thing that helps you get a job moreso than the certifications ever
will. Because just the fact that you've passed a certification or a set of exams
for a certification, that tells your employer may be that you're persistent--
but sort of at a high level. A distant level, right? They don't know a ton
about that. But if you blog about those areas while you're learning about them,
and you do it consistently, that tells your employer: hey how do they approach
problem-solving, and in great detail! They can see in sampling your blog posts how
you're analyzing something, why you think something is interesting, what your
writing skills are-- and a little bit about your personality. That blog can
absolutely boost your career in a way that the certification by itself does
not. It's a little bit like getting to watch somebody practice for the Olympics
rather than just hearing how they ranked in different events. Seeing how someone
is working out and how they're attaining and sharing knowledge tells you a ton
about that person, and that can absolutely be a worthwhile thing to list
on your resume and to share with potential employers, as well as your
colleagues in the community-- it's about you and about your interests in SQL
Server. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Dear SQL DBA. I
have some upcoming live episodes that I'll be recording: on May 2nd I'll be
talking about the question, "Do DBAs need college degrees?" Then following that
we'll be talking about dealing with lack of control as a DBA, we'll talk about
being a woman in technology on the internet, and training resources for
SQL Noobs is coming up on June 13th. That one's gonna
be a ton of fun. So check out SQLWorkbooks.com/web, you can
register for free recfording sessions for the Dear SQL DBA podcast, and there's
lots of other fun stuff on the blog. I already mentioned the quizzes, so if you
want to get into a quiz taking frame of mind, check out that top menu bar at
SQLWorkbooks.com, it is under the fun section.
Thanks so much folks! See you in a podcast episode soon
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