After passing my AWS Cloud Practitioner exam, I decided to move to the Associate level and appear for the certification exam.
I started my journey of learning the AWS SAA by purchasing courses on Udemy online platform. It took almost 3-4 months of preparation time for me to be confident enough to appear for the exam. Since I am a working professional, I use to study in the night making sure to spend atleast one hour after my dinner. Of course not every day was same, but tried to be consistent as much as possible. During the weekends I used to stretch a little longer, just to achieve my targets.
Note: Every individual is different and has their own capabilities, it might be different period of preparation time for you.
The two authors I referred to were Stéphane Maarek and Neal Davis.
At first, I started my course study with Neal Davis: AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Training. I find the training material very useful and easy to understand with the diagrams and hands-on lab. The hands-on lab in each section were performed by me, which helped in remembering while doing practice. The exam cram and architecture patterns in each section helps in revising what you learn in that particular section.
PS: The course is quite long and you often tend to forget what you learn before. Thus exam crams are must to refer on a regular basis, to keep remembering the previous sections.
After I finished the course, I went on to refer another course which was by Stephane Maarek: Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate 2022. I felt Stephane's course had covered more services compared to previous mentioned course. This also acted as a revision for other topics, which I did went through previously.
Lastly I also referred the practice exams by Neal Davis: AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Practice Exams. I practiced the exams until I was scoring consistently above 80%. After every course I finished, I used to take the practice exams, just to test my knowledge and which section requires more attention. I failed those tests every time, but it gave me a hint on how I am progressing. At the end of each test, it gives you summary of each section scored and based on it, I used to revise the sections in which I scored less.
Now the time was to go for the exam. I scheduled my online exam with PSI, once I was sure enough and didn't wanted to fail at any cost. On the day of my exam, I did faced technical challenge in terms of validating my ID. My webcam was not able to focus the ID, thus I had to repeatedly take photo of my ID card and submit it. This process took almost 30 mins or more for me (it made me panic a bit), but at the end I was able to submit it successfully.
Tip: Always use laptop camera instead of external camera, if it doesn't work.
Once all the hassle was over, the exam started. It took me all the minutes to finish the exam. To be frank, it was a tough one and in my mind I kept on thinking if I am going to fail. The test results are generally released in 24hrs and the moment I saw the pass in the email, I was relieved. All my efforts from previous months didn't went in vain and was happy with the score.
Whosoever is preparing for the certification, my suggestion would be to consistent in learning. It does not matter if you have experience working with AWS services or not. Over the period you will gain knowledge, which will help you to grow further in your career.
Good luck and keep going!
My certification can be viewed from this post.
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