Not a Failure

I can't go into a whole lot of detail about the exam, but my results for the SANS GSSP-Java came in and I passed. The exam is still quite young, but some great minds are working on it - Ryan Berg and Andrew van der Stock, as well as having the backing of SANS.

My hope for the GSSP exams in the future is that they are actually affordable enough that a person without employment can actually get it. I know that accumulating, writing, and editing questions costs a lot of money, as well as securing an exam location, transmitting exams, scoring exams, communicating back to the people taking the exam, and managing the website. But for a corporation to pay for their people to take the exam in the first place does little for the corporation unless they're investing in the training of the employees as well. But it could serve as an excellent baseline for entry into a lot of shops, but for it to be effective as such, it needs to not cost a year's salary to study for and take the exam. I'm not certain at this point what SANS hopes to be the perfect place for the exam.

Take a look at SANS and see if you can schedule an exam date. The exam still needs some work, but testers can only help at this point because you have a chance to give input.