Passed MCSE SharePoint 2013 exams

This morning I passed the Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 exam. That (finally!) completes the requirements for the MCSE SharePoint 2013 certification. The "E" is supposed to stand for "Expert". The reality is that SharePoint is looking more and more like an iceberg to me: I feel like I'm exploring more deeply into the tip and there's a vast swath of SharePoint-ness that I've not yet seen or have only partially glimpsed. 

My weakest area is in "BI" (Business Intelligence) in the SharePoint arena. I missed over half of those questions. Fortunately I was stronger in other areas. So my first next step is to read up more and experiment more with BI. Microsoft has added a LOT of BI capabilities, accessible within and outside of SharePoint. Much of this is in the Excel space and/or SQL Server (Power View, Power Pivot, Power Query). I need to learn a lot more about all of them! 

I'm also very much looking forward to diving into the learning toward achieving the MCSD SharePoint 2013 certification. That one focuses on the development side; development has always been more enjoyable to me. I've been a hardware guy, and a systems guy, but dev is what I love the most. So that will be fun. I have spent the last 9 months working toward the MCSE, knowing that I'd forget many pieces of that material but it would serve as a solid foundation for the dev pieces. 

And, after 20 years of taking tech certification exams, I have finally today stumbled on the way to be able to take an exam that can last for more than 2 hours and not find myself needing to visit the restroom. Instead of my normal morning coffee, I went light on the fluids. There's a Starbucks very close to the exam center, so I stopped in there and grabbed a double espresso just before the test time. That woke up my brain, gave my bloodstream its dose of happy caffeine, and did not leave me wishing during the last half of the exam for a larger bladder! Too much information?