Certified Fresh

A couple of years back I made a critical mistake. I was put onto a RHEL Certified Linux Administration course by work, who also paid for my exam on the final day. If I passed I would be able to put "RHEL 7 Certified" on my CV… Which wouldn't have had any measurable impact on my life, I expect, but it would have been cool.

Alas, I failed the exam. It was hard, closed book and all practical with a high pass mark. I did study, and paid attention during the course. I missed out by 2%. Nevertheless I was shook. I'd never failed an exam before. Never failed at any form of formal education, in fact, and typically without much effort or obeisance. I learned a statistic in University that 75% of people consider themselves above average intelligence. I knew for sure I was in that 75%.

My worldview shattered, I did not undertake any significant further training or exams. Partly from fear, and partly due to my organisation's shrinking training budget. Last year, when negotiating terms of my new position, I included work adding TOGAF training and certification into my personal development plan. Certification in The Open Group Architecture Framework for Enterprise Architecture would be a useful step towards my desired career direction of IT Architect. Architecture roles can have a similar level of working on solution requirements and technical design, without the distractors of resourcing, chasing timesheets, and approving the neverending requests for new monitor dongles. Architecture is a much more sustainable IT career for an introvert. Yes you need to talk to stakeholders, perhaps even more than as a lead, but they're structured conversations and in fact TOGAF offers a whole reference library for having them.

I did not fail my exam this morning, and I am officially TOGAF 9.2 Certified. My brain is now releasing endorphins after 10 days of heavy studying concludes. It was also warm today, and on my way home from the exam I stopped off to buy lettuce and found Deschutes Freshly Squeezed IPA directly imported from Oregon. What a good day. To top it off, I already have an architecture job. I've decided to promote myself to Bradism.com Lead Enterprise Architect.

A. Implementations of architectures. B. Business Requirements C. A View D. All of the Above