Articles

A return to writing

Originally, I began my portfolio / blog site back in 2021 towards the beginning of my career. However, I only ever attempted to write a few times, as I was never really been one to put content out in the open. As I continue to grow in my career, I have began to realize how important it is to write things down. Not just ones thoughts, but also learn how to explain things clearly.

Obtaining my first certification

My first professional certification I had never really thought about getting a professional certification, until it was highly encouraged by upper management at my current company. At first I thought it would be a relatively easy thing to achieve, but after learning more about it, I became uncertain. The certification I was going for was the AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate, and to achieve this, it required passing an exam consisting of 65 questions and scoring 720 or higher out of 1000.

Contributing to Open Source

Contributing to Open Source I want to start this off by saying that it is hard to contribute to open source projects, at least for me. Contributing has always seemed kind of illusive, but also something that I have wanted to do for a while. The most difficult part for me (I think) is how I might seem to others, whenever I be create an issue, submit a pull request, or even just comment on a project.

Obtaining my first certification

Planted June 22, 2022

My first professional certification

I had never really thought about getting a professional certification, until it was highly encouraged by upper management at my current company. At first I thought it would be a relatively easy thing to achieve, but after learning more about it, I became uncertain. The certification I was going for was the AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate, and to achieve this, it required passing an exam consisting of 65 questions and scoring 720 or higher out of 1000.

The road to success

In order to accomplish this task, I reviewed the material of a Udemy course, watching all 27+ hours of content while taking notes. I knew I would have to retain as much information as possible while going over the material. Fortunately, the course prepared me quite while for the exam. It covered all the major topic and even some of the minor ones. At the end of the course there was also a practice test. For me to fully prepare, I decided to take as many practice exams as possible leading up to the exam. I took 6 practice exams the week my actual exam was scheduled for with each taking around an hour to complete. However, after finishing each exam, I would review all the questions that I answered incorrectly, to determine my weaknesses. That was an exhausting week of staying up multiple nights until midnight, taking exams and reviewing answers. It alsmost felt like I was back in college. Even though I was learning a lot with each exam, I was still only hitting around 60-65% accuracy on the practice exams, which made me anxious leading up to the day of the exam.

The exam

On the day of the exam, I was very nervous even with all of my preparations I had made. I was ready for the online proctering to occur, and to sit down and answer 65 questions about AWS as I had the previous 5+ days. I expected the exam to take me a similar amount of time as the practice exams had, however, this was not the case. While I was average about 60 minutes per practice exam, the actual exam took me nearlier the entire alotted time to complete. The questions felt harder, and there was much more on the line this time, so I made sure to take my time with each question before proceeding to answer. After it was all said and done, I wrapped up the exam and close out waiting for my results. However, they did not come immediately, leaving me even more shaken than I already was.

Results are in

Finally, after two days of waiting for an email with the results, they were finally in. I was very releaved to find out I had passed! My score being 833 out of 1000, which was definitely higher than expected, left me feeling like all my efforts paid off. I was finally releved of all the stress from the past couple of weeks and was able to enjoy a well earned vacation!