Hi Dev, and welcome to VATSIM and VATUSA. I'm a little bit ahead of you, so I will try to help. You have to take and pass the initial exam here on VATUSA, and at that point are asked which ARTCC you wish to join. Don't worry about NY just yet.

So your next step is to keep an eye on the VATUSA Home Page:

http://www.vatusa.net/home.php

and making sure you're logged in (your name will show at top-right), look at the third column on the right, under "My Alerts". It should show in red something like "You have an exam to take".

This is the initial exam, and everything is covered under Reference Materials > Basic ATC (maybe a little from S1, I can't remember). The exam is "open book", but you still have to know where and what you're looking for. It's only about 20 questions, but TAKE YOUR TIME. Some of the questions may seem like trick questions, but there's good reason for that.

Check back with this thread if "You have an exam to take" doesn't show up on the Home Page in the next day or so. Later, check back to help someone else get started.

Mark Keyes

My own belief is that the change should be fully adopted by VATSIM, and implemented in all training. However, only a controller logged on as GND would be required to perform it to the letter. This satisfies the desire to keep VATSIM as close as possible to the real world, and a GND position would know what to expect ahead of time.
All higher positions would be permitted to issue commands as they do now, with only the addition to (rough draft) "report crossing 'inactive/closed runway'". This is still a signifigant nod to the change, while hopefully the only extra work for that controller would be a quick check and a "roger".
There has to be a compromise, as I see it, because I'm sure the FAA has already put a price-tag on this change, and is adjusting resources accordingly. VATSIM, on the other hand, can't write a check to ease the burden, nor shuffle controllers around. It's fine to take things up to the breaking point, that's all part of the simulation, but we don't want to go way beyond it.

The link title is "VATUSA Basic Skills Introduction and Study Guide" (PDF) on the vZTL Training page. The description, "This is the study guide provided by VATUSA. Questions on the S2 Exam will come from this document."

I've done several searches over the past 24 hours hoping it might just be temporarily unavailable, with no luck. All the other material is in place so I have plenty for now, but as this sounds to be an outline of Phase 1, I'd appreciate any help in locating a copy.

Thanks in advance (and if I just failed to look hard enough, my advance apologies)

Mark