Hi! I am a 4th-year CSIT student from Nepal.I set a goal to pass the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) exam. I had zero professional cloud experience and a limited budget.
30 days later, I passed on my first attempt.
Here is the roadmap of how I went from “What is EC2?” to Certified Solutions Architect.
The Commitment: 6 Hours a Day
I treated this like a full-time job.
30 days may sound short, but:
30 × 6 hours = 180 hours of study
Consistency was my secret weapon.
Step 1: The Foundation (FreeCodeCamp)
I started with the massive FreeCodeCamp AWS course on YouTube.
My tip:
Don’t watch passively. Pause the video, open your AWS Free Tier console, and click the buttons yourself.
Visualizing the console makes concepts stick.
Step 2: Filling the Gaps (Tutorials Dojo)
Video courses are great, but they miss important details.
I used Tutorials Dojo Cheatsheets to understand comparison scenarios like:
S3 Standard vs Intelligent-Tiering
Cost-effective vs high-availability solutions
This helped me think the AWS way.
Step 3: The Marathon (1,019 Questions)
This was the game-changer.
I used ExamPrepper and forced myself to solve 1,019 practice questions.
I didn’t just memorize answers.
If I got a question wrong, I read the explanation to understand why.
This trained my brain to instantly spot keywords like:
“Cost-effective”
“Low latency”
Exam Day Thoughts
The exam is mentally draining.
By question 45, my brain was tired. But because I had practiced full 60-question mock sets at home, I had the stamina to finish strong.
What’s Next?
Now that I’m certified, I’m building projects to apply my knowledge.
Currently working on:
Hosting static websites using S3
Distributing content with CloudFront
Securing access using OAC
Final Note
If you’re a student thinking about this certification —
you can do it.
Just put in the hours. 💪
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