Looking back at the road I took toward certified Solidworks expert, I thought I should summarize what I went through, what each stage involves, and what they are for, for those who considering taking the steps.
First of all, I used Solidworks for a bit over 10 years. I would conservatively equate, however, it to 5 years of 'full time equivalent' professional experience. Also note that I mostly designed metallic solid models to be machined + bolted + welded in academic R&D environment. And it has been half to a year that I took exams below. I might have forgotten some detail, or have incorrect memory.
[1] Certified Solidworks Associate
The first step doesn't demand a lot. If you are familiar with basics of Solidworks, so that you can figure out what to do and execute it within decent amount of time even including a bit of web / tutorial search, then you could pass this exam with no big deal, without additional practice. For occupational solid model designer, 6-12 months of experience will do I believe.
[2] Certified Solidworks Professional
Considering that there is nothing much between professional and associate exams, step 2 is much harder than step 1; the exam deserves the name professional. You must be highly proficient with all major functionality of Solidworks. You will definitely need to actively study wide range of topics including those you may not need to use for your job. But not just that. You have to be able to apply features almost instantaneously with little time for mistake. At least in part I of the exam you are given a tight time margin, such that even if you execute all necessary steps in a correct and optimal way you will end up having spent 60-70% of the given time. Not a lot of time to think; you should be able to start modeling in a few minutes with a very complicated model, which can easily take 4~5 minutes just to have a firm understanding of the shape itself. Solidworks model mania can give you rough idea of the shape complexity in the professional exam part I. The rest of the exam, part II and III, are relatively easy.
[3] Certified Solidworks Professional Advanced
To spell out this section was the main reason I decide to write this article. There are 5 advanced subjects - sheet metal / mold making / weldments / drawing tools / surfacing. One needs to pass 4 of these 5 to qualify for certified expert exam.
The first four subjects cover special topics. They are certainly worth knowing, in the sense that building the same model otherwise will be badly inefficient, despite possible. But I would not call them fundamental since mastering those subjects don't really feed back to improve your parts design skills, with surfacing definitely an exception. Unless you specifically aim to take the expert exam, my recommendation is just a skim through the first four so that you can tell the time you need to practice them seriously.
The first four subjects cover special topics. They are certainly worth knowing, in the sense that building the same model otherwise will be badly inefficient, despite possible. But I would not call them fundamental since mastering those subjects don't really feed back to improve your parts design skills, with surfacing definitely an exception. Unless you specifically aim to take the expert exam, my recommendation is just a skim through the first four so that you can tell the time you need to practice them seriously.
One paramount example is the weldments. In short it is a sweep body where the path is a 3D sketch instead of 2D. You only need to provide a 3D skeleton sketch plus a cross-section profile with a bit of corner joining detail for a shelf frame for example. Modeling and modification is extremely handy in this scheme. Compare it with the case where one has to design each leg section and mate them one by one all manually. Sheet metal and mold are analogous. The same output, at a greatly reduced effort. Drawing tools is a bit different though. There are a number of useful features that show up only at this level of exam. If you need to handle a lot of drawing, I recommend you to learn the material up to the level required for this exam.
Surfacing is distinct from the other four. There are many amazing modeling techniques that are hardly accessible with solid-based approach. There are numerous features used only in the surfacing, as surfacing is built upon different design philosophy from solid modeling. In fact you just reached the other hemisphere of Solidworks. Only with surfacing you can have truly comprehensive understanding of how Solidworks operates behind the scene. In particular how the edges and faces at the solid surface are linked to the solid body, that forms the basis of being able to switch back and forth between surface and solid. Now you truly understand many cases which you didn't really care about until (or even after) you hit some error message. Now you get to know why Solidworks sometimes shows 'surface bodies' in the feature manager tree and how to properly tame them. When to copy feature or body for multiple instances. Etc, etc. Probably there are other CAD software better suited for surface-based design. Probably Solidworks itself is not the best software for such application. But I strongly recommend studying surfacing to those who seek authoritative command on Solidworks. Unlike the other four advanced topics, surfacing will greatly improve your design skill. You are now a true professional.
[4] Certified Solidworks Expert
In retrospect, expert level exam feels like a medal of achievement. Nice job done, but that's it. No more than that. Sure, there are still other dazzling things Solidworks can do. With expert certification you can describe and execute 99.9% of Solidworks features with confidence. But the techniques you add on top of professional + advanced topics I believe won't be as frequently used. You have mastered 99% of practical Solidworks with professional + surfacing. I would not strongly recommend the expert exam for the remaining 1%.
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