How I passed 27 cloud certs in 9 months

This is a follow up to my last post. I received a lot of questions about how I prepared for the exams. In this article, I will share what I learnt from taking the certifications.

In the beginning, it would take me over a month to prepare for an exam. By the end, I was sitting multiple exams per week. I will explain the techniques I found to prepare more efficiently and share my thoughts on certifications.

Fail Fast

A failure presents an opportunity to detect the cause and make adjustments to avoid failing in the same way again.

Failing fast reduces the delay between the actions and the adjustments to create a short and rapid feedback loop.

Instead of spending a month doing the same action and then failing, spend a week then fail and make adjustments for the following week.

Time Management

People seem to think I spend all my time studying. That’s far from the truth. On average, I spend four hours per day studying.

I like the idea of studying smarter, not harder. Spread out studying sessions, don’t try to cram the week before the exam.

Prepare for multiple exams each day. It is easier to stay focused by studying for a bit of each exam each day rather than spending a week on one then the next week on another.

Work in short bursts, 20–40 minutes followed by a 5–10 minute break to do something fun (go for a walk, eat something, listen to music). Taking breaks gives your brain a chance to see the bigger picture and connect the concepts.

Study early in the day when you are most alert, don’t do it last thing before bed. Get enough sleep as it plays an important role in consolidating what you learn into long term memory.

I start studying at least three weeks before an exam.

• Week 1: watch video courses and create mind maps
• Week 2: hands-on practice through labs and mini-projects
• Week 3: review mind maps through active recall

The week before the exam, I have already learnt the scope of the certification so I am mostly reviewing my knowledge (I review throughout the previous weeks too).

I restart the process for a new certification every week. I study around three certs simultaneously while sitting one exam per week

Learning Process

Seeing the same information in different formats makes it easier to learn a topic. I watch videos initially and create mind maps. Then I do labs and create mini-projects.

I take a four-step iterative approach to learning new topics. I go over the same material multiple times.

Step 1

• Watch videos at 3–4x speed
• Don’t take any notes
• Get the general outline of the topic
• Identify parts already understood and prepare questions for new parts

Step 2

• Watch videos again at 2–3x speed
• Take very shorts notes (like taking notes in the margin of a book)
• Identifying difficult topics, but don’t spend a lot of time here. Jigsaw puzzle analogy: when you do a jigsaw puzzle and come to a hard piece, if you leave it until you have completed more pieces it becomes easy to see where it fits with the context of the other pieces

Step 3

• Fill in knowledge of difficult topics: re-watch portions of videos, find info from whitepapers and google for extra resources
• Remove redundant parts from notes to make them more concise
• Create a mind map from the notes

Step 4

• Create new mind maps from memory, initially after studying, every few days until the exam, then once per month 
• For each review, compare the new mind map to one from the previous review and keep the most useful for the next review
• Teach others what you learn

Mind Map

A mind map is a way to display information. The central theme is placed in the middle of the mind map. Associated keywords/phrases are linked to the central theme.

Here are two examples of mind maps, first a bad one, then a good one

This looks neat, but it is hard to see the association between concepts.

This looks messy but it is easy to get information out of it.

Elements of a good mind map

• Colour — adds more dimensions to the map
• Shapes and symbols — represents connected ideas or concepts
• Doodles — draw something, the more absurd or humorous the easier it is to remember
• Messy — it will look messy, but it will be easy to get information out of

How to comprehend videos at faster speeds

Motorway analogy: say you are driving at 30 mph, then go onto the motorway at 70 mph, when you leave the motorway you will think 30 mph feels slower than before because you got used to the higher speed.

If you find it hard to watch at high speeds, try watching at a much higher speed, when you go back to the initial high speed, it will feel slower than before.

My thoughts on Certifications

Certifications don’t show expertise or knowledge. Anyone can learn the narrow scope of a certification exam without scratching the surface of the technology. Don’t waste your time on getting a certification just for the sake of getting a certification. Apply what you learn: work on projects to gain real knowledge. Experience is more valuable than certifications.

Was it worth it? For me personally, I think I was in the perfect situation to do these certs. I was furloughed, not allowed to work (but allowed to train). I had two goals with these certs: 1. develop wide but shallow knowledge of the cloud space, 2. demonstrate my ability to pick up new concepts quickly.

What next? I will continue to learn but I don’t want to do more certs. Having 30 certs doesn’t mean 10x more knowledge than someone with 3 certs. There are better ways to use my time. I want to dive deeper into topics that interest me (Quantum Computing, Machine Learning and Cyber Security).

Will I re-certify? Maybe a couple of the popular ones, but not all of them.

Resources

AWS

• AWS Ramp-Up Guides
• AWS Training
• A Cloud Guru
• Qwiklabs

GCP

• Coursera
• Qwiklabs

Azure

• Microsoft Learn
• A Cloud Guru

Kubernetes

• Kubernetes Documentation
• A Cloud Guru

HashiCorp

• HashiCorp Learn