How to Study for AWS Certifications in 2024

In Today’s Cloudbites:

🧑🏻‍💻 How to Study for AWS Certifications

📚 5 Courses I Recommend to Study for AWS Certifications

☁️ Online Cloud Events to Look Forward to

🤫 PLUS: I Attended AWS Sydney Summit!

Read time: 5 minutes

Hi friends, welcome back to Cloudbites

Today, I’ll be breaking down how I was able to go from zero knowledge of AWS, to getting 5 AWS certifications within 18 months. I’ll also share the resources that I used, as well as some upcoming Cloud opportunities to keep an eye on.

CLOUD COMPUTING ☁️

🧑🏻‍💻 How to Study for AWS Certifications

Here’s the 4-step approach that I took when I studied for my AWS certifications:

#1 Scoping

What I mean by ‘scoping’ is essentially to understand the scope of the exam.

The purpose of scoping is to know specifically what you need to study to pass the exam, and creating a high-level study plan accordingly. 

Before studying for your certification, I’d encourage you to put aside 1-2 hours to understand:

1. The exam requirements

   Every AWS exam guide outlines the individual weightings of the main topic areas that you’ll be assessed on. You can access the exam guide for each AWS certification here.

2. The resources you will use

   There are some video courses, practice exams, and hands-on workshops that you can access in the next section to aid your study.

3. The time to dedicate per week 

   I’d recommend you to dedicate 1-4 hours per day to study, in order to reach your goal of passing the exam.

#2 Active Note-Taking

After preparing your study materials, you are now ready to take action.

Instead of just passively listening to the video courses, I’d encourage you to take notes in an active manner.

As you start watching videos from the courses, take notes of the key points in your own words to test your understanding. This way, you’ll be able to absorb new knowledge faster.  

At the end of each study session, review your notes to consolidate your knowledge. 

#3 Getting Hands-On

The next step is to get hands-on by experimenting with the AWS services. 

You can do this by accessing the resources listed below as they have interactive tutorials to guide you through the AWS console and services. 

However, I recommend taking this a step further so you can gain even more experiences through AWS workshops.

You can access the workshops here. (This will lead you to 100+ free AWS tutorials.)

Going through a couple of these workshops will help you be more confident when sitting your exam. 

#4 Reinforcing

The final step to studying for your AWS certification is to reinforce everything you’ve learned by doing practice questions. 

Keep in mind that there are so many different types of questions that the exam will require you to answer. It took me around 400 practice questions to feel ready to sit the exam.

My biggest tip is: Every time you don’t answer a question correctly, go back to the video courses to review the content. 

That way, you’ll have had a chance to make sure you fill in the gaps in your knowledge to be better prepared for your exam. 

If you’d like to know more about my top advice and tips to study for AWS certifications, check out my YouTube video: How I study for AWS Certifications (5x AWS Certified).

📚 5 Courses I Recommend to Study for AWS Certifications

1. Stephane Maarek: Concise materials, engaging interaction, and easy to understand for beginners.

2. Adrian Cantrill: Clear explanations and provides important concepts for real-world AWS projects.

3. Neal Davis: Great video courses with concise and easy to understand presentation.

4. Tutorials Dojo: Best AWS practice exams I’ve come across with super detailed explanations.

5. AWS Skill Builder: Free online resource that could help you get AWS-certified.

Note: These are the courses that have worked for me personally. There are many other amazing instructors that you can follow on your learning journey.

☁️ Online Cloud Events to Look Forward to

#1 AWS – Securing Your AWS Cloud (April 19)

Provides information on resources you can use to further your knowledge around security on AWS.

Click here to register.

#2 AWS – Demystifying Generative AI Class (April 17 & 19)

Explores the power of generative AI, its real-world applications in many industries, and what it could mean for you.

Click here to register.

#3 Microsoft Azure – Data Fundamentals (April 22 & 23)

Discusses Azure relational database services and Azure Storage for non-relational data, options for large-scale data lakehouses and data warehouses, real-time analytics, and data visualization.

Click here to register.

#4 Microsoft Azure – Fundamentals (April 22 & 23)

Talks about foundational Cloud concepts, models, and service types, as well as Azure services on computing, networking, and storage.

Click here to register.

#5 Google Cloud – Google Cloud Credentials (April 17)

Discusses how to effectively manage and showcase your hard-earned Google Cloud digital credentials using Credly

Click here to register.

🤫 PLUS: I Attended AWS Sydney Summit!

Earlier this week, I attended AWS Sydney Summit, held in the Sydney ICC. It was a fun 2 days packed with workshops, speaker presentations, demos.

This year, there was a big focus on generative AI, with many sessions highlighting tools like Amazon Q, Amazon Bedrock and PartyRock. Many AWS partner companies also showcased their own AI tools in summit booths.

Whether you’re a cloud learner or someone already working in tech, I would highly recommend checking out a local AWS summit near you!

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THAT’S A WRAP

Thanks for reading! 😊

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