hey everyone this is Ankit and today I am writing about AWS Tech U Program Experience (Solutions Architect) this is a highly requested article topic of this week.
In this article, reflect her experience in the AWS Tech U Program as an Associate Solutions Architect, and share advice for students interested in the program. and If I could start over, this is how she would learn AWS. In this article, I outline a 3-step roadmap to kick-start your journey with learning about the cloud & AWS.
Step 1: Cloud Fundamentals
Step 2: Get AWS Certified
Step 3: Hands-on Experience
Step 4: Bonus Tips & Tricks
The AWS Tech U Program is an accelerated career development program for those early in their career, to fill technical positions in AWS teams. More information :
so Lucy said in her video given details about this topic. " before i started working at aws i honestly didn't really know what the cloud was i remember during the days leading up to my aws interviews i was frantically trying to watch youtube videos and read articles just to make sure i could understand the basic definition of cloud computing and how aws fits into the picture thankfully the role i applied for was an internship in a non-technical team so the emphasis wasn't on how much i knew about the cloud and all the technical concepts that came along with it i had a lot of fun during that internship i met tons of cool people and
i worked on some interesting projects and since then i've converted my internship into a full-time graduate role as an associate solutions architect.
and i've been in this role for just over a year now in this time i've gotten five aws certifications. what it's like working at aws as an associate solutions architect i spend a lot of time these days engaging with customers and helping them on their cloud journey by providing technical guidance so knowing what i know now how would i learn aws if i were to start over i joined aws not really knowing much about cloud computing and i really had to put
in a lot of time and effort into my learning i've definitely made a few mistakes throughout my learning process and so in this article i wanted to share a three-step roadmap that you can use to
gain a solid understanding of aws and make sure you read until the end of this article.
because i'll be sharing some tips and tricks to make sure you don't burn out or give up throughout this whole journey all the resources i mentioned will be linked in the end of this article below and if you find this article helpful in any way please make
sure to give it a like.
all right so before you dive straight into studying for aws certifications i would recommend first getting a basic understanding of what cloud computing is and also fill in any initial gaps you may have in your knowledge you can start off by watching this three minute video on the aws official youtube channel that defines what cloud computing is if there's anything that sounds unfamiliar to you
for example you're not too sure what a physical data center is or what networking is you can fill in these gaps by doing your research online if you're already familiar with what cloud computing is feel free to head straight to step two step number two is where the hard work actually begins because instead of reading blogs and also watching videos just to get a basic understanding of the cloud this step is all about working towards getting an awful certification the first one i recommend taking is the aws cloud practitioner certification.
getting this certification shows employers you have a foundational understanding of aws it also provides a structured learning pathway for you because there are specific topics they will test you on if you're interested in getting this certification i recommend checking out this video i made about how i was able to pass the aws cloud practitioner exam
in three weeks which was actually my first ever youtube video the exam is one and a half hours long and to prepare for it i followed video courses and did practice exams i'll link all the resources i used to study for adb certifications in the end of this article below
so make sure you take a look if you're interested now if i were to go back and redo this step i would also use this free 6 hour cloud practitioner essentials course offered by aws i've heard really great things about this course so if you don't want to use any paid resources this could be a really good one to start with once you get your aws cloud practitioners set instead of moving straight to step 3 what i recommend is also getting your aws solutions arctic associate cert this one requires a deeper knowledge of aws and focuses more on architectural patterns
as well as how to identify the best aws services for a given technical requirement now step three is the part where a lot of people tend to stumble on and tend to try and avoid and i was guilty of that as well for a while so at the end of the day the aws solutions architect associate exam and other certification exams they're all multiple choice exams and to really build your skills in aws you have to be hands-on
this means doing a lot of aws self-paced labs having a look at the online workshops available and trying to build something that you're able to showcase there's actually heaps of resources out
there to help with this so the first resource i recommend is workshops.aws this is an aws site where you can find self-paced workshops ranging from all levels of difficulty so you can see there's level 300 level 200 level 100 as well and there's a lot of workshops.
you can choose from so for example this aws networking workshop you can see that it covers the full spectrum of aws networking all the way from the basics of a vpc and subnets to the more advanced configurations the next resource is aws ramp up guides and i've actually recommended this to my customers before especially customers who are quite new to the cloud so you can see that you can choose ramp up guides by role by solution or by industry and for example just clicking on one of the ramp up guides you can see that they've actually centralized a lot of the useful materials.
for example white papers and self-paced labs the third resource i'd like to recommend is actually udemy courses there's actually a few udemy courses that actually offer a lot of hands-on experience for example this one is all about building a serverless web app with aws lambda and you can see there's seven and a half hours of on-demand video so if you prefer learning through video demos and
having someone walk through the steps one by one it might be more engaging for you and easier to follow along okay now
let's talk about some tips and tricks to make sure you don't give up halfway through your learning i've written some notes here and there's a few key things i wanted to mention the first one is
that you don't have to follow a super linear approach when you know approaching your cloud journey when it comes to aws certifications there's nothing forcing you to sit through a whole 50-hour video course.
before you start doing practice questions and before you start trying out some of the abyss workshops in fact it's actually better if you don't do that don't go through the whole video course end to end and then do the practice exams it's much better if you focus on the different topics that the aws certification covers and then validate that knowledge through practice questions and then following that up with hands-on exercises where you're able to see what it actually looks like.
in the aims console and how these services work and linked together my second tip is to always remember your why so why didn't you decide to embark on this challenging journey in the first place i think for a lot of you it might be to land a job in tech more specifically in cloud computing and so getting an aws certification learning the foundations of aws can really help you stand out in the application process.
if you set that as your end goal you can work backwards from that and set small achievable milestones that you have to complete at the end of each month so for example in by the end of the first month you can be like i want to get my aws certified cloud practitioner exam done and by setting milestones and
celebrating after every milestone it would really help you stay motivated and consistent throughout the whole journey.
my third tip is to just be kind to yourself because everyone learns things differently and at a different pace as well and everyone comes from different technical backgrounds some people might not know anything about it whereas some people might be working in tech for a couple years but don't really understand cloud concepts yet so i would recommend never comparing your progress with other people and just focus on what you want to achieve all right so this brings us to the very end of this article hope you
enjoyed it if you did please give it a like and if you have any questions comments suggestions leave it down in the comments below and in the meantime before i write my next article feel free to check out any of these article to learn more about what it's like working at aws.
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