What certifications and validations wont give you?

I wrote this to tell you, dont expect to be rewarded for the work you are doing. Do it for yourself.

After I finished my certifications and posted in the public domain, there has been a significant inflow of comments, lots of love, lots of inquiry about how I went about it, and what led me to take a technical certification.

As I shared my experiences with a blog post, the comments and appreciation inflow continued.

However, there was something that was bothering me.

Passing the AWS Certified Solutions Architect-Associate

I took the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Test on 8th June and "passed" it. While the journey has been long and grueling learning and understanding the AWS ecosystem and its 150+ services, its also been highly satisfying.  I scored 860/1000.  Before taking this exam, I had finished my AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner back in February of 2020. 

As I hit this big milestone, I am filled with emotions of gratitude towards my family and friends. This post is being put together with the hope that this will help inspire someone else too, hopefully. I am sharing my test prep method, time mgmt, etc which have been some valuable lessons learned along the way.

If this can help even one person either get inspired to take action or make any other mode of investment in their career and life, my purpose will be met. Read on.

A night before the big test

 

I am finally taking the AWS Test Tomorrow. Its the SAAC-01, Certification for Solutions Architect- Associate. 

It's a big test for me.

I have been preparing for the test now for 4 weeks. I can confidently say that the level of dedication that has gone into preparing for this Certification has even surprised me. It reminds me of the time of studies during the time of graduation.

Late-night studies, Logging hours and hours of studies, Researching, Digging deep into concepts, using multiple analogies to drive home the concept, and using examples of code, debugging to understand things inside out.

The Journey for SAAC-01 has been also highly rewarding, even though a bit exhausting.

Tonight, as I plan to go to bed early so I get a good night's sleep here are few thoughts which run through my mind, and I want to capture them as-is so they can be even more relevant tomorrow when there is also an outcome.

Tips and guidance to prepare for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification

I finished my AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification a month back. 

While super stoked, as I shared this news, quite a few folks asked about the resources I went over while preparing for the exam.

Now, that led me to write this post and sharing my experience as I did go through a lot of content for this base level certification.

The good-  In the AWS ecosystem is that they are focusing on democratizing knowledge. 

There is significant documentation, explanations, diagrams, and resources available all over AWS's site and blog. 

Also, since AWS is a hot cake in the market, there are hordes of videos and other 3rd party training available on every subject and all levels.

The bad- some times it can get overwhelming.

So, in this article, I will share with you the materials you can use to prepare yourself for the exam, some of the highly recommended whitepapers, how much time to allocate to prepare, and some other exam tips. Read on!

Photo story : Life in a lockdown

I started to think about using the powerful medium of photos to illustrate lockdown and how life has been at home. 

Life changed upside down during this period, and a lot of the things which we were so focused on took a backseat, and many new things took a significant portion of our attention, time, and space in our lives. 

I wanted to capture and showcase especially things which have taken precedence, things which are become more important and things which have lost their relevance in these times. So, in this photo essay, I will share some photos which capture that spirit from my point of view on work-life, things which have kept me same, what my daughter does during the day and how we spend our time as a family and then some of the things which have lost their relevancy during this period.