Planning my 1st Certification. How many months prepation usually needed ?

Question

I'm making my Internship on DB Analysis and Optimization with both Oracle and XQX Server.
I'm considering aquiring a relevant certification also.
I'm considering one of the bellow
SQL Certified Expert
Oracle PL/SQL Developer Certified Associate
Oracle Certified Expert, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 SQL Tuning
How many months would someone usually need to study the concepts to be ready for one of those ? 3 months of intensive are ok or maybe too few ?
Of course I have basic backgroung of SQL and I practice it every day at work.
If I study just from relevant Books guided from the fields of the sample questions its ok, or I have to attend the lessons also?
My special concept is I dont want to aquire it with a "Lesson Logic", it has to reflect the professional ability.
So I want reaching a level that when I'll go to the exam it will be just typical and a 80%-100% will be granted.
Thank You

Answer 1

matthew_morris wrote:
SQL Expert exam gets down into levels of familiarity with SQL that most people who work with SQL seldom experience. You can work with SQL every day for years and never use ROLLUP or CUBE or regular expressions.
On the exam they deliberately mangle SQL statements, making them difficult to read, using strange syntax variants and so on. SQL Experts should be able to parse through any SQL statement, no matter how badly written, and be able to determine what the results will be. This is not always easy because it is possible to write some really bad SQL that still executes.
Do I believe it is possible to learn enough to pass the exam in 3-6 months? Certainly. Can I state that for any specific individual that 3-6 months will be sufficient? No, I cannot. I don't know how much time they will allocate, where there starting skill is, or how fast they learn. Adding in the qualifier about being a true expert rather than a paper expert simply makes the question harder to answer. The best way to become truly expert at SQL is to write lots of complex SQL on a daily basis.Thats indeed a concern of my too. The arguement that you will full the misty areas of SQL just by reading them and a sandbox practice 5-10 times, without actually experiencing them to work, its very relative.
The only you coul allow yourself freely to say its "it will be better from nothing - leaving them misty areas"
matthew_morris wrote:
A couple of jobs back, I had the task of writing a PL/SQL package that developed SQL based on a given set of parameters. The application was for the medical indiustry and the queries used medical history of patients to look for problems. The SQL generated was sometimes huge, combining demographic data about the patients with doctors visits, medications, surgeries and so forth to find problems. The queries would have things like: If the patient is between 40 and 65 and has had this surgery and has taken that medication within the past three months but not this medication in the last eight months, and has had two doctors visits of this class within the past year then return them. My package ended up writing code that was faster than what the DBAs had previously written by hand and formatted so that it was easy to read. Doing work like this is the absolutely best way to become expert at SQL (and in that case PL/SQL as well). Studying SQL by reading books and practicing examples, not matter how earnestly, isn't really the same thing.
What studying for certifications in technologies you do not have significant experience does best (in my opinion) is to reduce the time required to become expert if you do start using that technology. Many years ago, I became one of the first Oracle Certified Forms developers. I had not done any real development with Forms when I passed the exams. However, just a few months after becoming certified, my position changed and I needed to develop a Forms application. Because of what I'd learned while studying for the certification, I was able to rapidly jump in and develop the application requested. Likewise, whatever information you learn studying for the SQL Expert exam will give you a bank of knowledge that you can draw on in writing better SQL going forward.Thats what I want to hope too. That my Internship on Oracle SQL Analysis/Optimization PLUS some Oracle Certification, will be much better, for my skills/experience and my next day worth as CV and Potential Employee :
+"He did his Internship on Oracle SQL Analysis/Optimization and he also cared and proved it with a Certification"+
Please allow me 2 last questions
*1.* I also had borrowed the 782 guide "OCA Oracle DB SQL Certified Expert Exam Guide". It says still its just for the exams need and not enough for the concepts, so I guess I will have to use it as a 1st level source for your Summary, but not reside to it completely, instead seeking support for the concepts on internet or other resources. But even Oracle SQL references/Bibles are around 800 pages the same. How much can it miss?
*2.* Can learning "deeply" Oracle DBMS through her certs will make it easier to learn SQL Server too since it will feel much easier then. This is logic "Master the difficult level, then the easy will be nothing to master if not mastered already" Of course its 2 different things, but both DBMS and SQL Server is know to be much simplier.We support SQL Server too at Work
P.S.
About my backg I studied CS at Athens Tec. Inst. - Greece and curently make my 6 months Internship in Vienna Austria to complete my Bachelor.