Namaste🙏
It’s been long since I wrote another article for my blog, but trying to keep it alive😊
I've been watching Suits (Suits is an American legal drama television series) and have been quite a fan of it. The TV show is largely based off a characters Harvey Specter and Mike Ross. In thinking about how to best share my AWS Certification preparation journey, I thought Suits made the perfect backdrop to explain my process.
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1. Case Evaluation - Inspiration
For case evaluation (i.e. Inspiration) we need to travel back to 2022 when I joined the UT Dallas - Office of Information Technology as a Student Cloud Assistant. My job requirements were to work on Cloud Technologies like AWS and Microsoft Azure. I had studied AWS Cloud during my undergrad and I had some understanding of the cloud domain. However, I never got deep into the production side. After working in the cloud through my masters, I felt confident that this technology was here to stay and would impact every industry. Also, the fields I’m particularly interested in, Data Science and Machine Learning, use cloud technology to scale their solutions. Hence, it made complete sense for me to pursue a Cloud Certification to validate my skills in cloud domain and decided to go and get an AWS Cloud Certification as I have some hands-on practice now as well
2. Legal Research – Studying the Case
As a paralegal would do, I started to do research on the various requirements for the case (i.e. certification process). The following are my findings for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam preparation.
- Court Docket (A court docket is a chronological record of all documents and events in a court case): 3 weeks - Given each day, you study about 2-3 hours/day and about 5 hours on the Weekends.
As a Lawyer, you need to pick up
the case and file the complaint. In my case, this step was to determine which AWS
Certification I wanted to earn. AWS currently offers 2 Foundational
Certificates, 5 Associate Certificate, 2 Professional Certificate and 3 Specialty
Certificate.
As a beginner, I decided it made
most sense to start with the foundational certification: AWS Foundational - Cloud
Practitioner Certification.
4. Discovery Phase
As a lawyer in this Suits
backdrop, I am discovering various proofs, findings, and documents that have
been provided to me. I’m looking for which argument to make in order to form a case
and am even preparing for cross-examination (i.e., taking a practice exam).
To build an argument, one needs to
know the foundation of the case; here, I needed to learn the basics of cloud
computing, like what is a Cloud Infrastructure, why is it required, and its
pros and cons. Once I understood that clearly, I was perpetually motivated to
learn more about this technology in detail.
In preparing my argument, I found
the following free resources incredibly helpful:
AWS
Educate: AWS Educate is a
free, online learning program by Amazon Web Services (AWS) designed to help
students, educators, and job seekers learn about cloud computing and gain
skills relevant to cloud careers. With AWS Educate, you can earn badges. If you
purse any of the following badges: (List of current ETC qualifying badges) then you get invited
to this online exclusive club called, The
AWS Emerging Talent Community
(ETC). There, you can earn points which you can redeem later for things
like discounts on AWS Certification exam like 50% off certification exams which
even I used for my Cloud Practitioner exam.
AWS Skill Builder: AWS
Skill Builder is a digital training platform offering a wide range of learning
resources to help individuals and teams build cloud skills and prepare for AWS certifications.
Once I logged into AWS Skill Builder, I navigated to Prepare for Exam ->
Cloud Practitioner and followed that route respectively (Only free
materials). I completed the Cloud
Practitioner Essentials course, which was free and super helpful. I
also completed some additional exam prep courses (Free of Cost) which helped me
with some last-minute studying which could be found at AWS Skill Builder.
AWS Cloud Quest - Cloud Practitioner: This role-based learning experience is designed to equip us with practical AWS Cloud skills while working on 12 FREE hands-on assignments. I enrolled on it, and completed all the 12 hands-on labs as well . I thoroughly enjoyed playing it & frankly sometimes I would forget that I am actually playing it for more than an hour as well. This is really interesting and I would say once you learn a particular domain in AWS, come here and complete that domain’s quest assignment in Cloud Quest. This would make sure you implement your theoretical knowledge you learned with hands-on practice. Below is the screenshot of my Cloud Quest Page.
Figure: Me Playing AWS Cloud Quest
AWS Simulearn - Cloud Practitioner Learning Plan: It is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to AWS cloud concepts and services through immersive simulations and 12 hands-on lab exercises. I completed the cloud quest already hence didn't plan to do as it is similar to Cloud Quest. However, if you are looking for more practice then should definitely try it once. The following is a Screenshot of image of AWS Simulearn environment for Cloud Practitioner. Note: Only specific modules in AWS Simulearn are free-of-cost; Others might need a subscription.
Figure: AWS Simulearn Screen
5. Pre-Trial Motions
I was done with discovery and
almost ready for court. Here I completed some pre-trial work in the form of
mock exams and practice questions.
I completed the Exam Prep Official Question Set: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02 - English) exam on AWS Skill Builder and it has 20 MCQ questions to solve on. They are exactly the style of AWS Official Exam. These are good but just 20 aren’t enough to gauge the opponent’s strength. I needed more practice before I sat for the exam. For me, I went to Udemy for: 6 Practice Exams | AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02. It has 6 practice exams and its questions they are highly relevant to the AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam. If one is scoring anywhere between 60-80% on theses practice test, one should be ready for the final examination. It also points out which questions and domain I was weak and I used it to improve myself on those domains as well. These tests are definitely an eye opener and I highly recommend it for people pursuing an AWS Certification.
6. Trial Begins
Before the exam, I revised my
weak concepts, reviewed my notes and questions which I got wrong on the
practice test and that’s it. I gave my test online using proctored exam through
Pearson VUE and answered all of the opposing counsel questions (i.e. Exam questions).
While taking the exam, my strategy was to answer all the questions which I am
pretty sure off first and marking the ones which I need to review again later.
Once I was done answering all my confident questions, I returned to the ones
marked for later and took more time on these. I also used the method “Striking
incorrect options” to increase my probability to land on a correct answer in
tricky questions
7. Verdict & Judgment
Once I completed the exam, I got
my results and was so thrilled to learn I PASSED! I felt a sense of
accomplishment and higher confidence in my AWS cloud capabilities to deliver
more in this industry.
8. Enforcement
For someone who is starting into the
cloud Journey, now is the correct time. No one is born expert and there is no
expert who wasn’t a novice once.
All these big technology like
Cloud, AI, Gen AI are going to there in the future and now is the correct time
to start learning about it. Post this I am thinking of exploring more in the AI
field and am currently preparing to pursue for the AWS AI Practitioner Exam
which I am targeting to finish by the first half of the year 2025. Wish me
luck!
Before I close it, I would like
to close it with a Harvey Spector quote which says, “I don’t have dreams, I
have goals.”
Check out the AWS Resources I leveraged:
- AWS Educate Link: Click Here
- AWS Skill Builder: Click Here
- AWS Cloud Quest: Click Here
- Udemy Course: Click Here
Dhanyawaad for reading this article 🙏
Please feel free to use the
comments to give your suggestions about the article.
Until Next Time, Ujwal signing off! Hope you had Fun learning with Ujwal!
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