Pointers on How to Pass PhilNITS (FE)

For those who would like to challenge the PhilNITS Fundamental Engineer (FE) certification exam, but do not know how to start or how to proceed, I am compiling here some pointers I have gathered through my own experiences, discussions with others who have tried out the exam, and also from my own analysis and researches. I hope some of the information here will be of help in your preparing for the exam...



1. Have the Right Motivation

Everything changes depending on your motivation. If for example it has been your childhood dream to work in Japan as an IT engineer, then having the PhilNITS certification may be your passport in achieving that dream, and you will do everything to be able to improve your chances of passing the exam. Here are but a few more possible motivations for challenging the exam :

• Skill Development and Improvement
• Appreciation and Recognition
• Standardized and Objective Skill Assessment
• Rewarding and Challenging Job or Employment
• Career Advancement
• Advanced Technical Trainings

2. Get to Know PhilNITS Better

I believe in the saying that you need to know more your enemies before you can defeat them. Although PhilNITS is not an enemy, having a better understanding of the background, history, vision and composition of the PhilNITS exam will improve your chance greatly of formulating an effective strategy and eventually passing the exam.

One of the most important matters you need to know about PhilNITS is the basis and the scope of the questions in the exams. PhilNITS utilizes two Bodies of Knowledge (BOK), one is the IT Common BOK (for the morning part of the exam), the second one is the Practical or Core BOK (for the afternoon part of the exam)

You may visit also the following sites for more information :
http://www.philnits.org/
http://abrightfit.blogspot.com/



3. Improve Your Confidence

Even if you have the capabality to pass the exam, but you do not have the confidence, it would be very difficult for you to pass. On the other hand, if you currently do not have the knowledge or capability of to pass the exam, but have confidence about your potentials, then there should be no problem for you in passing the exam, given enough time and support during your preparation.

The tricky part about confidence improvement is on how to measure it. One simple way I can advise is to download a past exam set. Let us take for example the morning exam part, which is composed of 80 questions. Create a checklist for all 80 items, and start placing a check mark for all questions/items for which you are already knowledgable and confident in solving and getting the right answer. Your goal is to have as many questions with check marks. You can measure your confidence level in percentage, or the ratio of the total items with check marks over 80.

In improving your confidence, you should aim for a level higher than the actual exam requirements, as normally the underlying condition during the actual exams makes it more challenging for concentration and focus. So I recommend to set at least a target of 85%, as the actual passing mark for PhilNITS is 75%.

4. Don't Work Hard. Work Smart

The scope of the PhilNITS exam is very wide, and it covers topics usually taken during a regular 4-year BS in Computer Science course. Do not just review or study blindly, as it is almost impossible to cover all the topics in the Body of Knowledge if given only a couple of months to do it. Instead, if you can organize the information about the exam, and about the questions that are coming out, you may be able to formulate an effective strategy that will help guide you where to put focus on. Also, if you are able to objectively measure your understanding of each items, you will be able to determine which items you are weak at, and then start working to improve on them.



5. Attend Organized Reviews

Some people can review or study better alone and by themselves. But if you are already busy with other activities (like school, work, family, etc.), sometimes you need to force yourself to be able to focus on reviewing or preparing for an exam like PhilNITS. In this regard, attending an organized group review might be beneficial for you. An organized group may either be a professionally conducted review, or even just your regular group of friends who decided that you are all in this together in preparing for the exam.
Here are some of the foreseen benefits of attending organized reviews :

• Will Usually Force You to Allocate Time
• Sense of Commitment Other Than to Yourself Only
• Sharing and Discussions
• Expert Tips and Advices
• Coaching and Guidance
• Professional Assessment

And finally, here is a list of References and Materials that might be helpful for your preparation :

1. Past PhilNITS Exams (www.philnits.org/downloads.html)
2. Solutions to Past Exams (available at PhilNITS office, ask for the “Preparation Books”)
3. Textbooks on “Fundamental IT” (available at PhilNITS office)
4. Online Review System (available at PhilNITS office)
5. IT Common Body of Knowledge (www.philnits.org/downloads.html)
6. Practical Body of Knowledge (www.philnits.org/downloads.html)
7. Handbook on PhilNITS (www.philnits.org/downloads.html)
8. Additional Backgrounder on PhilNITS (http://abrightfit.blogspot.com/)

PhilNITS Review Course in Davao

In cooperation with PhilNITS, I can finally offer formal review courses for Davaoeños in preparation for the October 2008 PhilNITS exam.

The plan is actually quite simple, gather enough participants interested in taking the exam, improve their confidence to pass the exam, and then have them take the exam. But of course it is easier said than done.

For starters, it will be challenging to gather enough participants from Davao who are willing to invest both time and money and undergo a rigorous review course for an exam whose benefits they are not yet very familiar with. Second, who will want to invest in a review course that has no track record yet to boast of its effectiveness. Third, how will you improve the participants' confidence enough to pass an exam whose national passing ratio so far is only about 15%.

Fortunately, somehow, once the decision has been made to push through with the review course, solutions started appearing for the challenges mentioned. And any new problems or challenges that comes along the way will just have to be dealt with as they appear.

For the review course participants, PhilNITS will untilize its exisiting network to invite prospective reviewees. They will try to tap also some sponsors that would be willing to take care of some, if not all, of participants would-be expenditure for the review, including the enrollment fees and materials.

As for the review course program itself, I would just have to rely on my actual industry experience, and also on my experience of conducting similar exam preparatory courses before.

Here is a quick glance of the features of the review course...

The importance and benefits of the exam for IT engineers would be well emphasized, by showing the participants a picture of what is waiting for them in the world of IT, particularly in the software development industry.

And once we get the proper motivation for challenging the PhilNITS exam, a systematic and smart approach to studying/reviewing will be implemented. Considering the very wide scope of topics of the PhilNITS exam, the only way to effectively prepare for it is if we can somehow provide an organization and structure to the concepts and skills it requires the examinees to have. The next step would be to assess where the weak area is, and to improve on those weak areas.

And finally, we will work on the confidence of the participants, and bring it to a level that will hopefully be enough for them to pass the exam. Confidence is equally as important as actual knowledge and skill, because the absence of which may cause a relatively knowledgable and talented examinee to fail. Incidentally, to build/improve confidence, it is definitely necessary to improve ones skill and knowledge as well.

With all these systems in place and running as planned, and with the dedication of the participants, I am hoping that Davao can produce several passers this coming October exam.

Present IT Situation in Davao

The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), an independent administrative agency tasked to promote trade and investment between Japan and other countries, commissioned a research about the IT situation in Davao, and published a report in the January 2008 issue of their monthly Philippine IT Industry Report.

In this entry, I will discuss about and quote some portion of the report. The research was conducted at the later part of 2007, so it is possible more up-to-date data and information may be available today. To access the whole report, kindly visit the JETRO website at http://www.jetro.go.jp/

For me, the focus on Davao is a welcome development as it is my aspiration that Davao has the same level of exposure, attention and investment opportunities in IT as Manila and Cebu. I have always believed that Davao has a rich pool of technically capable and well-rounded (in terms of attitude and personality) potential IT engineers. But unless we have more investors, both local and multinational, Davao would be relegated to sending their best IT graduates to Manila, Cebu or to other countries like Japan. This seems to be confirmed by the report as it says “IT Services/IT Enabled Services (ITS/ITES) industry-related activities among Japanese firms in Davao are currently very limited beyond the hiring of graduates from Davao universities by Cebu- and Manila-based Japanese companies.”
ITS/ITES Companies in Davao
The biggest contributors in terms of IT-related job creation are coming from call center companies. There are 15 companies engaged in Software Development, but most are operating in very small scale, with the largest one not even having 100 employees. “Some of the well-known software development houses based in Davao are Lane Systems (http://www.lanesystems.com/) and Hubport Interactive (http://www.hubportinteractive.com/) – both are home-grown companies. At the end of 2007, there are as yet no foreign-funded software firms in Davao.”, the report says.

Industry Data
As the ITS/ITES industry in Davao is still very young, there is not much statistical data available. Such data would be very useful for potential investors, planners, and other IT stakeholders. The Department of Trade and Industry Region 11 (DTI-XI) data shows the number of Davao-based companies for the following : Call Centers = 6; Animation, Web Development = 5; Software Development = 15; Medical Transcription=5; Engineering Design=1. In terms of salary, the minimum wage in Davao is 250/day, while Call Center agents may get between P11,000 to P13,000 per month. Software developers on the other hand may receive from P7,500 to P12,000 monthly salary.

Infrastructure
“In terms of Davao’s communications infrastructure, it is safe to assume that it will further improve over time as major telecommunication operators are already present in Davao. And, increased supply of office spaces are to be expected as real estate developments in addition to the Damosa IT Park are being planned by SM and Ayala, among others. With regards to power supply, an executive of Nakayama Technology Corp. told JETRO there is a 5 to 10-minute outage per week, or none at all. Power supply does not seem to pose a serious problem here.”

Major Challenges
Based on the report, there are two major challenges in the promotion of the IT industry in Davao. The first is the concern about Davao’s seeming poor public safety, mainly because it is part of Mindanao. “Davao’s crime rate is low, the widespread image about the poor public safety in Mindanao in general is unfortunately also applied to Davao,…”, the report says.
The second challenge is how to meet the increasing demand for more IT professionals. According to the report, “Region 11, which includes Davao City, sees an average of 16,600 college graduates each year, but the number of graduates from IT-related courses does not reach 1,000 per year.”

Conclusion
The report concludes that “The reporter’s honest impression of the state of Davao’s ICT industry is that, the maturity level of the private sector industry, and the public sector that supports it, is still low.”

Fundamental IT Engineer Exam (PhilNITS-FE)

Overview
PhilNITS-FE is the Entry Level examination amongst the IT Engineer certification exams being implemented by PhilNITS. It is based on one of the 14 exams given by the Japan IT Engineers Examination Center (JITEC) of the Information Technology Promotions Agency (IPA) of the Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry (METI) of Japan. (you may refer to this earlier post, Overview of the PhilNITS Certification, for additional information)

IT Engineers’ Certification Exams

The PhilNITS-FE Exam is used to evaluate the knowledge and skills of an IT engineer on the fundamentals of IT. It requires the person to have the ability to develop a good program by making full use of techniques related to basic-level algorithm and data structure. The FE Exams also requires the person to be able to successfully carry out jobs such as program development, unit tests, and system integration tests.

Target Examinees, and their Career Path

Exam Description
The entire exam is paper-based, and composed of multiple-choice type of questions. Being a “whole-day” exam, it is divided into the morning and afternoon parts. In general, the morning part deals more with concepts, while the afternoon part deals with programming.

Exam Fee
P 1,800

Schedule
Twice Annually (April and October)
(please refer to PhilNITS website for exact dates of exam)

Answer Sheet

Both answer sheets for the morning and afternoon part of the exam will be provided to all examinees. See below for a view of a sample answer sheet :

Exam Venue
PhilNITS is currently being conducted in several key cities and provinces nationwide.

(For the complete list of examination centers, please refer to another blog entry entitled “PhilNITS Examination Centers”)

* please visit the PhilNITS official website (http://www.philnits.org/) for up-to-date information about the certification exam