Sheet Metal Certification

In the past I’ve been a vocal critic of the new CSWP and CSWA certification tests. I have to be careful, because I wrote part of theSolidProfessor classes for them. The tests were hard to read, and easy to compound screw ups. The tests were also far too easy in terms of SW content.

Anyway, the tests were said to be revamped, and I wanted to try them out. I didn’t retake the CSWA or CSWP, but I did take the Sheet Metal certification. Mike Puckett recently joined SolidWorks in the Certification area, and while he hasn’t been there long enough to effect test content, he has been there long enough to get out the word about freebies. He posted on his blog that you can still get some free vouchers for certification tests. I took advantage of this and took the Sheet Metal certification.

The upshot is that the images used on the test are much improved. You’ve got a choice of 4 images, and can zoom in and out. They are “clear enough”. I don’t think they go out of their way to make things obvious, but you can find what you’re looking for if you know to look for it.

The sheet metal questions were reasonable, and tested a couple specific areas that not everyone will be familiar with. It is easy to use sheet metal functionality without knowing how everything works. If you’re going to take the test, you need to go through everything in sheet metal. You won’t be tested on everything in sheet metal, but you never know what those couple of niche areas might be.

I know the certification process took a lot of heat particularly in the forums. The new images are at least easy to read. I did find a couple of things that didn’t seem right, or contradictory. Anyway, I passed so I’m not going to make too big a deal out of the shortcomings, because there has been a big improvement.