First cert in a long time
It’s been a long time since I’ve studied for a cert. I think the last time was back in 2021 when I studied and passed the CySA+ which was a requirement for my position at the time. I used to be a cert guy, and had quite a few of them years ago. But at some point I lost the motivation to learn and grow and just kind of coasted along. A lot of it I found out fairly recently was due to mental health (or unhealthiness I suppose) which I have been working on considerably for the last year or so. As a result, I’ve been feeling a lot better mentally so I took it upon myself to see if I still “got it.” I started looking around for something to go after and I settled on the AWS Cloud practitioner cert as a starter. I had a very high level idea of cloud so I figured an introductory cloud cert would get me a bit smarter on the subject. I ended up choosing Amazon over Microsoft on a coin toss, but since my office is an Azure heavy shop, I will eventually travel down that path. But for now, AWS it is!
Materials:
AWS Skill Builder – Amazon provides free training content, as well as paid supplementary content that builds upon the free stuff. I didn’t end up paying for the additional content as I had access to some other free training through my company but I have read that you could pass this course with AWS Skill Builder content alone. Maybe for the next course.
Dion Training AWS CCP via Udemy – As I mentioned, I have free training through my company and Udemy courses are what we are given. The first course I reviewed was Dion’s as it was the same course provider I used for CySA+ years ago. The videos were basically a run down of all the apps that could possibly show up on the test, along with definitions for each app. There were a few walkthroughs provided to explain some of the apps that would be covered more in depth. Overall, if you’re someone who can memorize terms/names then this should be sufficient along with the free training provided by Amazon.
Digital Cloud Training CCP via Udemy – The second video course I reviewed was DCT’s. This was definitely overkill for this cert as he actually walked through setting up (and breaking down) many off the applications that were covered on the test. Do I recommend this? If you’re like me and not very good at rote memorization, but better at understanding and reasoning out things and then hopefully remembering what they’re called (often on interviews I can describe something in detail or talk about an incident to describe something but can’t remember what it’s called; makes for interesting interviews lol) then this is what will carry you through. For example, AWS lambda is a serverless compute service. That’s all you need to know about it for the test. Literally. But I can’t remember that. In this training course however, he walked through setting it up in a few examples and it was those examples that I recalled during the exam which lead me to answer correctly.
Tutorialsdojo.com – All three above courses had a built in practice exam and I was doing well on all of them (80%+ or so) but it’s been a few years so I wanted to make sure I was ready. So I hit reddit to find out the best practice test(s) available out there and was pointed in this direction. I ended up picking up the practice test + ebook combo. I have a part time job where I don’t have access to electric devices so I ended up having the ebook print and bound at Office Depot so I had something to read during down time. The ebook material is amazing for the price fyi. The practice course is also great. I used the practice function for most of the time I accessed it as it provided answers once you hit submit. So instant feedback very similar to having a flashcard. I took the actual practice mode test once and hit 90% so I scheduled the exam right after that.
The exam:
Not sure if the option was available in 2021, but I ended up trying the home exam option. I literally completed the practice test mentioned above on Saturday afternoon then logged on to Pearson to schedule. I couldn’t find any open test times after work so I peaked at the home testing option. I saw that Sunday was open (as early as 5:15am!) so I said screw it and decided to schedule for Sunday at 8:30. First though, I went through their process to ensure that my PC and internet met their requirements. Pretty straightforward. You download their software, then run through it testing your microphone, webcam, then the simulation to see if there’ll be any software issues. Once I got all green checks I went back to schedule but found that 8:30 was gone. So I schedule the next available time, 9am.
The next morning, I cleared my desk and the surrounding 4 foot area of pretty much anything that could be moved. I logged in a half an hour earlier as recommended and at 8:45 the proctor logged on and proceeded to ask me to show the area. Once she was satisfied, we went through the rest of her checklist and a little after 9am I was testing. It only took 25 minutes and I worried that I had probably messed up something. I did review every question, mainly to ensure I had answered each as an unanswered question is marked incorrect so may as well take a free shot. But as I have always asserted in my career, unless something is obviously wrong I never change an answer. When I hit submit the final time, I wasn’t expecting a pass or fail as I had read in a few reddit replies that they don’t provide immediate feedback. So it surprise me when I was greeted with a pass. You cannot screenshot the screen however, so when I completed everything and logged out and into my AWS account I panicked a little when I did not see any results posted. So I guess that’s what folks meant by no immediate feedback. A notification email arrived a few hours later and everything was reflected when I logged in to check.
Final thoughts:
While a few of my coworkers thought it was a waste of time I think for me it served a purpose. It did give me a great introduction to AWS cloud and a better idea of whether or not I wanted to pursue AWS further (spoil alert: I do) And all for the affordable price of $100. Which was cheaper than my celebratory dinner that night lol. More importantly, I was able to test Pearson’s testing at home function which I will definitely do again. And finally, for me personally, it was a great confidence builder after having not attempted a certification exam in almost 4 years. 6 weeks may have been overkill, but it gave me a good way to slide back into the studying mindset. It really isn’t like riding a bike as some coworkers tried to tell me. The other challenge was whether or not I’d be able to dedicate the time to study as a ton of thing have changed in the last 2 years so what worked for me “last time” was not available at all. But this was a nice way to start building a new way of studying and prepping. So hopefully this isn’t the last cert post here. As for what’s next? I’m still trying to see what kinds of study materials I can gather and ultimately whichever ones I have a good amount of will be the next in line. But it’s either between AWS AI Practitioner to keep the Amazon momentum going, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals as I mentioned earlier since my shop is an MS one, or RHCSA if I can get study material/Linux+ if I can’t get study material. Whichever path I ultimately choose next, I’m glad that I learned that I’ve still “got it.”