As of this morning I’ve been in Vegas for eight days now, attending a Microsoft Windows 2012 boot camp. The class is designed to get you through two Microsoft certifications: MCSA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate) and MCSE (Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert). You can think of an MCSA as an associates degree and the MCSE as a bachelors.

In six days, this is what we covered:

Everything in these books is fair game for test material. For the Windows Server 2012 track, the required tests are “Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012” (70-410), “Administering Windows Server 2012” (70-411), and “Configuring Advanced Windows Server 2012 Services” (70-412). Each test is taken separately (unless you are upgrading from a previous certification) and consists of roughly 55-60 questions. The questions range from recognizing command lines and switches to selecting the proper order of tasks. (“You have a web server hosted on a cluster that you want to migrate to another cluster. On the left are 10 possible actions. Pick five of them and arrange them in the correct order.”) Coming in to this thing I had heard horror stories about memorizing command line switches but on the test you begin to look forward to those.

Yesterday around 3pm I clicked “done” on the last test and after whirring and churning for a bit a screen popped up: “Congratulations, you have passed the exam!” With that test, I officially became an MCSA!

For some reason, I had it in my mind that boot camps were “the easy way” to pass these tests. Having been here for just over a week, I can tell you that there’s nothing easy about it. To anyone considering attending a boot camp I would say you need to already be exposed to the material (either through work experience or reading or setting up a lab at home). You had also be prepared to put some time into studying. We have had one or two 8 hour days in class but we’ve also had a few 12 hour days. Everybody here is operating on 4-5 hours of sleep per night — some people are staying up late to cram while others are getting up at 4 or 5am to hit the books. I’ve been doing a little of both; reading the material every night until midnight and then waking up between 4 and 5am to study some more.

Less anyone think boot camps are easy, our class is hovering around a 50% pass rate.

After finishing yesterday’s tests, Lee, Ellston and myself got to (for the first time) venture out away from the hotel. We had margaritas in Margaritaville and dinner at the Bellagio Buffet. Both were great and a minor break from the firehose of information we’ve been gulping was both needed and deserved.

Today, it’s game on. Yesterday was yesterday; beginning today, we’ve got 4 days of class and 2 more tests left to reach the finish line. Here we go!