My Journey to AWS SAA Certification Begins
Tags: aws, cloud, learning, certification
Published: 2022-05-27 06:02:13

---
title: My Journey to AWS SAA Certification Begins
published: true
date: 2022-05-24 04:55:00 UTC
tags: aws, cloud, learning, certification
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I don't know when I started to become intrigued with AWS services, but here I am, a participant of the SheBuilds-CloudUp Program, preparing for my first software certification. I feel like I'm back in school--getting my pencils sharpened, getting my notebooks ready, and laying out my clothes for the first day--just kidding about that last part. It's all remote. Still, it's pretty exciting. I know; I really should get out more.

Anyway, If you're not aware of this program, it's a flexible, community-based, learning program for **women**. Check out this [SheBuilds-CloudUp SAA Program](https://awsshebuildscloudupsaa.splashthat.com) page for more details. Oh, they also have a cloud practitioner program which could be found at this [SheBuilds-CloudUp Cloud Practitioner Program](https://awsshebuildscloudupcpe.splashthat.com).

The AWS certification starts off with the Cloud Practitioner certification which "recommends" that you have six months of foundational knowledge or experience in AWS Cloud services--more info here on the [AWS Certification page](https://aws.amazon.com/certification). However, you can prepare and learn through AWS's vast catalog of online classes, review their white papers, and other resources to help prepare you for the Cloud Practitioner certification. Really, there are so many resources out there to help you, it can really be overwhelming trying to sift through all the information! I was definitely overwhelmed at first because I wasn't sure where to start. In any case, I'll mention those resources later in another post.

With the AWS Solution Architect Associate certificate, you don't need to have the Cloud Practitioner Certificate first in order to take the AWS SAA exam. It's not a prerequisite to take the test, but it's recommended to at least go through the Cloud Practitioner lessons, or have experience with AWS services.

Okay, so how did I get here? Well, I had used AWS S3 buckets in a previous project, and of course that required reading the AWS S3 documentation. Now, I'm sure that the people at AWS work hard on their documentation, but it was a bit difficult to navigate through, and finding information about S3 bucket configurations and all the other things that go with it, wasn't that straightforward.

In any case, I wanted to find out other ways we could leverage AWS services, so when Teneika Askew tweeted about the SheBuilds-CloudUp program on Twitter, I signed up. You can find her on Twitter [@teneikaask\_you](https://twitter.com/teneikaask_you). Thank you, Teneika!

So, the cost for the Cloud Practitioner Exam is currently $100 and the AWS SAA Exam is $150. You can find the current pricing at [AWS Certificate Pricing page](https://aws.amazon.com/certification/exams).

Here's the bonus--the SheBuilds-CloudUP program gives you a sponsored exam voucher which will allow you to take the exam for free! How awesome is that?

By the way, if you're a woman who wants to transition into tech, this program would be a great opportunity to get free training for a high demand skill. Just take a look at the salary data here for Amazon Web Services jobs at [Glassdoor.com](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Amazon-Salaries-E6036.htm?filter.jobTitleFTS=AWS).

Interested? Well, here's the link again to start you off: [SheBuilds-CloudUp Cloud Practitioner Program](https://awsshebuildscloudupcpe.splashthat.com). Their program starts every eight weeks, so make sure you add yourself to the waitlist if the program is in between sessions.

With this great program, I encourage you to join us! You CAN do this!