How I got AWS Certified SysOps Administrator in 2 weeks ☁
Tags: aws, career
Published: 2020-09-15 04:16:39

It's been a few months when I got my first AWS Associate Certificate. And I wanted to get my last Associate certificate for AWS before I got distracted by some other technology. Since the start of the pandemic, I took the opportunity to utilize my extra time to get some certifications. 

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For the past certifications, my strategy was pretty comparable to others, go through the study material (courses, labs and documentation) do some practice tests and then book the exam once I felt prepped. But sometime, I would slack off or get distracted by some side project or technology and hence this would drift me away from studying.
Following Andrew Brown's advice, I booked my SysOps exam before I started preparing and gave my self 15 Days for the prep.

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So I started my preparation with the AWS Certified SysOps course from Andrew available on freeCodeCamp's YT:

%[https://youtu.be/KX_AfyrhlgQ]
I decided to study for at least 90-120 mins a day. Brokedown each topic that I needed to revise since there was a lot of overlap from Solutions Architect and Developer Associate.

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1599677340755/nkMK_O4TS.png)

So until this Sunday (6th September), I was able to finish going through the course material and also finished some labs and hands-on.
I had my exam this Tuesday (8th September 2020) which means I only had 1 day to do the practice exam.
I was quite confident so far but as soon as I did my first practice exam (Jon Bonso's Practice exam) I lost my confidence.
I went through the explanations for incorrect answers and just tried to understand the concepts better.

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1599677743913/NjCvh_ObP.png)
Not panicking, I decided to do another one and failed it too, so I was really nervous now and thought maybe I should postpone my exam. I went through all the explanations for my wrong answers and decided not to do any more practise exams now.

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1599677768579/4v4GTUfMS.png)

I decided to just go through my notes and sleep through it. Was really nervous when I woke up for the Test Day.
Didn't sweat much as the worst thing I could do was fail the exam, which I didn't 😉.


The exam was not so hard, as the practice exams. Also, given all three associate exams I think the following is the ranking according to me, starting from hardest:
- Solutions Architect
- SysOps Administrator
- Developer Associate

I think overall the experience was overwhelming for me but would say that having a deadline really helped achieve this certificate in about 2 weeks.
I would again like to thank Andrew for his course and his advice on the exam. Also the community of #100DaysOfCloud, it's great to be part of a team that motivates you and supports you with your cloud journey!
Feel free to hop on to the [discord server](https://discord.gg/dvUh79v) and see what all the fuss is about?

As part of my preparation, I did some labs and hands-on that I published on YouTube, feel free to check them out!

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You can reach out to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/rishabk7) if you have any questions in regards to the exam, throw me a follow to see what adventures I am planning in the cloud for the future.