Student Profile: Jared Dixon, PMP

My name is Jared Dixon, and I have been a project manager for a little over 3 years now in a federal contracting company. I started pursuing my PMP certification last year with the University of California, Irvine's Introduction to Project Management Essentials course series. Through this course series, I earned my required 35 PDUs required to sit for the exam.

I think it is very important to read the official PMP handbook from PMI. However, you should only focus on the areas you have issues with. What helped me was enrolling in a PMP exam preparation course that covered the entire PMBOK. PM Exam Coach Dan Ryan's Bootcamp series is excellent and very affordable. He provides you with workbooks for each section of the PMBOK. These workbooks have helpful tips for answering questions PMP exam questions.

My recommendation for students do in the last week before they are scheduled to take the exam is Practice! Practice! Practice! Take as many practice exams as possible. Go over questions you got wrong from past practice exams and understand why the correct answer is correct. Personally, I had taken over 9 practice exams by the last week before my exam. I took 2 practice exams the week of my exam, and reviewed areas I was weak in by re-reading sections of the PMBOK.

Jared Dixon, PMP