Getting started with AWS Study

One of the most common questions I'm asked as an instructor is "this is my background, how can I get started studying for AWS". Students who ask are either at the start of their career, have experience in another IT discipline or they are looking to switch careers entirely. My advice is always the same and so I thought a quick article might help answer this common question.

It's not complicated and consists of 9 steps

Create yourself one or more AWS Accounts - they're free !!

You'll be using AWS accounts to create resources and interact with AWS. The single best way to get experience with AWS is to get started and create things. AWS offer the "free tier" where certain things are always free, and certain products offer a free monthly amount for the first 12 months of every AWS account. All you need for an AWS account is a unique email and a credit card. Go here https://aws.amazon.com/free/ and create one today.

Think about AWS accounts as disposable, at minimum create 1 new one every year to keep the free tier benefits. When you are creating a new AWS project, use a new account. When you want to test something risky, make a new account. If you have DEV, TEST, PROD environments create DEV, TEST and PROD Accounts.

If you are worried about the requirement for unique email addresses and you use gmail there is a handy trick you can use. If you gmail is [email protected] then you can use the "+" symbol to create an unlimited number of aliases. Without any configuration catguy+account1@gmail.com, catguy+account2@gmail.com and anything else you put after the "+" all go into your main gmail account. To AWS they look like unique emails, and you can create an unlimited number with no setup.

Get a good AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Course

Get some structured training.

Full disclosure, I create training courses at https://learn.cantrill.io, but even if I didn't I would be recommending some structured training.

It's suboptimal to just start implementing things in AWS, to learn effectively you need to approach the process in multiple phases.

• Phase 1 is to learn the theory
• Phase 2 is to implement it
• Phase 3 is to fault-find
• and Phase 4 is to test yourself on that thing.

If you repeat that high level process for every topic you need to learn, you will find you develop I much better and more rounded understanding of those topics.

I've created an AWS Solutions Architect Associate course which is based on learning real skills, not simply focussed on passing the exam. it's suitable for any skill level and includes fundamental lessons (see below)

Focus on the skills - Don't rush

It's easy to think that passing an exam should be your end goal but without real skills an exam pass is useless. Don't rush with your training or fall into the trap of setting yourself a deadline. We all learn at different rates and your focus should be to absorb everything you cover. Every lesson you watch, every command you type, every button you click - understand them all before moving on. Take it as slow as you need, and make detailed notes

An example set from one of my students it here...https://github.com/alozano-77/AWS-SAA-C02-Course

But .. make your own, don't use anyone else's. Most of the benefits provided by having notes is the process of creating them, not using them.

Respect the fundamentals

This one is especially important if you are coming from a NON IT background, or have limited IT experience. There is a group of fundamental skills which you would otherwise pick up over decades in the industry which you should focus on immediatly.

Things like Networking, Encryption, Virtualisation, Storage, YAML, JSON, NAT, Routing, DDOS and much more. Luckily all my course include a full tech fundamentals section covering all of these areas - but if you do use other content you will need to cover these too.

Don't skip them, don't assume you know them - you are building an important foundation which will benefit you for years to come.

Practice your exam skills

Exam performance is a different set of skills to actually knowing the AWS products and services. Exams are about matching patterns or keywords, answer evaluation or elimination and much more. To do well, you need to be both good with AWS products and services and be effective at exams.

My course includes an exam technique section to help develop these skills, they are an essential part of the process so either use my course above or practice them if you are using other content.

Implement Demos and Mini Projects

AWS Theory is essential to understand, but practicing that theory in the form of demos and mini projects will really help you remember how things work. Whats more important, is that by doing these demos and projects you will have things to talk about in job interviews - it's a form of experience you can use to gain access to jobs which might otherwise be out of reach.

All my courses include demos and projects, but I also maintain a GitHub repository with a collection of free demos and advanced demos which can help everyone in the community. Do them over and over, focussing on understanding every step and every command.

Join a community

Strive to Be the Dumbest Person in the Room

To develop, you need to be the dumbest person in any room. Focus on this throughout your entire career and you will be constantly learning. One of the best ways to do this at the start of your learning is to join an online community focussed on learning and development.

I recommend https://techstudyslack.com - a 20k learning community which focusses on real learning, no just passing exams. It has study groups, community projects, architecture chats, exam question assistance, CV/Resume help and jobs assistance channels. It's free, so you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Work on your CV/Resume & Begin Job Hunting

Once you have learned a good amount about AWS and passed the exam now is the time to work on your CV/Resume and begin job hunting. If you have followed my advice above, you will have a wealth of knowledge, an exam pass, and a good amount of experience gained doing demos and mini projects. If you are a member of TechStudySlack you will get help from the community in your job search.

This means hints and tips with interviews and how to market yourself, but also the slack community has many members who are hiring managers or team leaders within business. You are more likely to get help if you are an active member of the community, but we help our own .. so what you give to the community you will receive back from the community.