Disclaimer: This blog post is aimed to brighten the way of getting cloud-related certificates with a very subjective approach. The methods may not be suitable for everyone because the learning style differs from person to another.
Almost every professional in tech business knows such certifications programs. Some think that the exams are not quite necessary for the relevant job. That might be true, but it does not mean that these certificates are not required to personal development.
As a builder, I have got my first cloud certificates, responsively Cloud Practitioner and Solutions Architect Associate, in August. But before that, I have seen numerous posts covering "how to study" or "what to study" questions. I guess there are lots of answers for those. For now, I am planning to dive deep into the daily routines and habits in order to accomplish any kind of certification program without any pain.
Let's talk about several daily routines.
1. Make a habit on cloud side.
If you are reading this sentence and smiling a bit, you probably know "Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones" by James Clear. I highly recommend this book to build really good habits for your daily lives, not just cloud purposes. Think your life as a continuous chain and your days as chain rings. When you plan and start an activity from day one, you would not break the chain afterwards. This tendency brings you a habit.
I have been playing with AWS services for more than a year. So taking the certificate exams was always on my mind, but I recently realized that there are easier ways to study these exams. And the first one is creating a daily life routine. How so?
At first, always dive deep in the cloud products and services according to your specific interests. For instance if you wonder how to use serverless functions, try to figure out each aspect of AWS Lambda. When you read something or heard about Lambda, try to clarify your missing knowledge about the service. Finally make it a habit. Then think about how to learn and develop it. This method sounds superficial, however you will see its results after a while.
2. Follow the official blogs.
I use an RSS feeder to follow the well-known CSP blogs. There are definitely something related to my interests every day. Catching up something you are interested in helps you to embrace and improve it.
When there is a new announcement about a cloud service, you will be aware of it within hours. This helps you to follow any change about all products and services. Plus almost each blog post has deep knowledge and experience gathered from the experts. Therefore following these articles provide a strong understanding of how the cloud business goes.
3. Experiment cloud services.
I remember that most of my research time covered with AWS playgrounds. I was curious about each service related to my field, which is Networking & Content Delivery, but also other ones like Compute and Storage. Thus time flies by reading and experimenting with these services mostly.
The internet has tons of brilliant resources about the cloud. But the important point is how to get the right information among lots of similar content. The answer can be found easily on the official documentations and tutorials. There is also Well-architected Framework for the consistent cloud architectures which can be very beneficial for a beginner.
Besides the documents and other stuff, of course, you should be able to use each service with at least a minimum of knowledge. Hands-on experience really matters for the learning purposes. Theoretical knowledge does not come with a practical experience. So that it is definitely required I must say. Cloud Academy has many hands-on exercises and lab playgrounds. I highly recommend you to check them out.
Final words
To sum up, the above suggestions are only daily routines which can take little amount of time in total. If you take aim at getting certified by AWS or any other cloud service providers, you are expected to study the course materials. I suggest to take little notes for each feature and critical point. That is how you can consolidate your effort at last.
The studying for all these stuff can take 24 hours in average. So it is better to start studying as soon as possible. I hope this post is helpful for the ones who thinks about preparing a cert soon. Happy preparing!
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