Hey there! So recently, I decided to go down the path of getting some M365 Certifications. M365 has become very prevalent in the technology space, so I figured that it wouldn't hurt to get certified in some of the new and emerging technologies. This is the first time I'm going down this path in any form, so I wasn't sure what to expect.
Microsoft offers these Learning Paths that tell you the prerequisites and which exams you need to take to achieve a certain certificate. It was recommended to me that a good certification for me to aim for was the Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert. Getting this certification requires multiple exams and other certifications for me to receive before I receive this one. The first exam that I needed to take was the MD-100: Windows Client exam.
To prepare for this exam, Microsoft also offers modules and objectives that will help prepare you to take their exams. Going through this process gave me many ideas about how this process could improve. I went through all the modules and the readings for that section, but I personally don't think it fully prepared me for the exam. It does go through and talk about a lot of the topics, but I didn't necessarily feel like they getting me ready for the many different things that came up during the exam. I can't say exactly what came up because of the NDA they have you sign, however, what I would say is that I wouldn’t necessarily say that I can go and implement immediately everything that I read about.
They do offer you to purchase a practice exam for the test, however, for the test I was taking that add-on was $100 on top of the $165 to take the exam. Getting these certifications can get pricey when you are preparing to take multiple tests. Especially when you only get one try per exam purchase. It would be nice if they gave you some basic examples after each module of how they can show up in the exam.
I took this exam at home from the comfort of my computer. When scheduling the exam, they do mention that you are going to need to have a microphone on, a webcam, and a form of speakers available. They also mention that you will need to have your cellular device, no one near you and no one disturbs you while taking your exam. All of this is fine, except that there were more things that I ran into during the test. My proctor had to let me know that I wasn't allowed to have multiple monitors connected to my computer, you are not allowed to use headphones and I could not have a watch on (although that last one I should have figured out since you can't have a mobile device during the exam).
As for scoring, you do get your result right away. Right after I finished the test, it immediately let me know how I scored (I passed by the way). The one thing that I didn't like was the feedback you receive from the exam. You get a summary of areas that you need to improve on, however, they do not tell you specifically what you got wrong. I was very curious about what questions I got wrong and why. It would be nice if you could see maybe immediately afterward each question result and why certain things were wrong so you can understand them better.
At the end of the day, the experience wasn't bad and I did learn some new things. I will be continuing on going down this journey and think that other people should definitely do it.
Here is a link to available Microsoft Certifications if you are interested in taking this journey as well. - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/browse/
