Ever have so much caffeine you can practically feel your eyeballs vibrating? I have - probably too many times - most recently when I was spending every extra minute of free time I had on studying for the AWS (Amazon Web Services) SysOps exam. Spending weeks cramming videos, practice exams, labs and hundreds of cups of coffee had become something of a habit by now but hey, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it right? This study system has worked for both the Cloud Practitioner and Security+ exams - speaking of - let's talk about what happened after that fateful day of taking the Security+ exam (if you have no idea what I'm talking about then check out my other blog posts here).
After peeling myself off the floor that day (and having a mini dance party for passing) it was time to set my next goal. I had two certifications done, multiple projects that I could use to demonstrate my knowledge, and knew I needed a break from studying. It was time to start networking and interacting with the tech community!
So next on the list was doing a presentation for a community about something involving tech, no idea WHAT about but hey, we'll figure all that out along the way! My mentor Simon connected me with Kathie (another amazing human) who runs the CLE AWS Meetup Group and she immediately got me hyped! This wasn’t only a huge deal for me because it would be my first ever community talk but also because I was going to be the first female presenter they've ever had (other than her of course), so I knew I had to smash it.
We discussed what her group normally talks about and the time I would have, the only rules I had were:
It had to be AWS-related (you could probably guess that from the group name)
I had a time slot of 45 minutes
When I heard I would need to speak about something for FORTY FIVE MINUTES I thought there was no way I could ever fill up that much time, 45 minutes is practically 7 years in Mina time. But just like everything else I thought I could never ever, EVER do in this journey I knew I had to just give it my best shot. I took a moment to breathe and tell myself I didn’t need to be overwhelmed, I would work on it one piece at a time and really - what’s the worst that could happen? So my first step was figuring out WHAT I was going to talk about, let me tell you AWS has about a million and two services so it was super overwhelming at first. After scrolling for a while and learning about some of the most niche services (did you know there's a service that helps you control your satellites in ORBIT? I sure didn't.) I landed on IoT, AKA the Internet of Things. I won't go into too much detail here since I've done a whole presentation on it, but IoT is basically the creation, deployment, management and usage of smart devices. I'm a self-proclaimed "Zillenial" (meaning I was born at the very end of the Millennials and the beginning of Gen Z, if you were wondering) and so I love having smart devices all around me - they help me drive, watch movies, cook, and of course game.
For the next few weeks I researched and built my presentation - flashy slides included of course. It seemed like half my time was spent looking for visual aids, making sure they fit properly and fighting with file types. I spent at least an hour trying to change GIFs of cats eating out of food bowls from one file type to another, they were being so dang stubborn! I felt like I was back in high school since that's the last time I had to put together a slide presentation (aaah the early days of PowerPoint), but that 45-minute timer was still looming over me. Writing something and reading something are two very different things, pages and pages of writing can be easily read in just a few minutes. It's even worse when you're doing a speaking presentation as you tend to talk a bit faster than normal when you're nervous. Thankfully I was a theater kid growing up (you're looking at Alice from the Vancouver high school original Alice in Wonderland right here) and did some live streaming so my public speaking has never been too horrible. Also quick Mina tip of the day™: I just imagine I'm talking to someone I reaaaaally don't like, that always calms the nerves - but I still ran through my presentation about 5 times just to make sure my timing was right.
The day of we had some tech issues (nothing can ever go completely smoothly right?) which didn't help to settle my nerves, but I just chanted my mantra "It is what it is" and of course enjoyed some coffee (a delicious iced latte if I remember correctly) to help bring down the anxiety. It ended up being amazing, all my work and time fighting with those dang file types, fiddling with the font size and researching AWS products turned out to be well worth the effort. Your girl totally crushed it, I got a ton of compliments and everyone in attendance loved it. If you'd like to watch it please reach out to me and I'll get you the recording! I am super appreciative to Kathie for giving me a platform to get my name out in the community, being able to practice public speaking and giving me the opportunity to be the second woman to do a presentation in the community! Also big thanks to Simon for helping to set the whole thing up, one of my favorite parts of this DevOps adventure has been connecting with so many amazing people.
So goal number two was checked off the list, next up was the thing that started this whole journey - the AWS SysOps Associate exam.
When I started this dive into tech and DevOps I leapt off the 100ft board straight into a course about passing the AWS SysOps exam. This test goes far deeper into cloud engineering than the Cloud Practitioner does since it's an associate level exam, and tests your knowledge of how to use AWS resources to solve problems - rather than just remembering the names of the services.
We had reached the final boss of level 1 - I had defeated the mini boss (Cloud Practitioner), destroyed the secret boss (Security+) and had gained enough experience to finally take on the Bowser for this part of my journey. I had spent about 9 months studying, building my own projects such as a 3 tier web app, my own website and game server (if you'd like to check out some of my projects they can be found here on my GitHub), and I felt probably the most confident I ever had going into an exam. Even though I was passing the practice exams and memorized all my flashcards, there's always that little voice in the back of your mind telling you that you aren't ready yet. In comes my mentor Simon once again to save the day (seriously if you need a hype man he's got your back). He offered to have a study session with me and after going through the practice questions all he could say was "You've got this in the BAG, no way you aren't passing this." I couldn't very well let him down now could I.
I booked the exam for the next day and got down to it, thankfully this time I wasn't on the edge of passing out, however I was worried I wasn't going to pass. Why is it that the practice exam questions are always wayyyyy different than the actual exam? Like always I simply did the best I could - as long as you give 110% you should always be proud of what you've done. I used up almost the entire time and started sweating just a teensy bit when the clock was at sub 20 minutes and I still had a few questions to go back to. With just a few minutes to spare though I finished up and hit that dreaded submit button.
Now the associate and higher level exams are EVIL - they make you wait up to 48 hours to get your results, and so after completing the exam I had no idea whether or not I had passed (put in your bets now, do you think I passed?). The waiting game started and I was able to keep myself busy with a well-deserved dinner out. After eating some delicious food and getting some sweet treats - if you know, you know - I checked my email and there it was, a nice little badge confirming I had passed the SysOps exam! This was a really big milestone for me, this cert is what I started my whole career change with, and to start from scratch - not only earning the certification but also having developed so much knowledge and growth with AWS, tech and DevOps in general was a huge accomplishment. I have been doubted in the past by some and questioned as to why I didn’t take the SysOps exam back in December instead of the Cloud Practitioner, but would you try doing surgery after only a month of medical school? I don’t think so, I needed hands-on practice and more time to learn before fully diving into the deep end. Not only was this a big step for me but in a way it also helped to squash those doubts that some people had tried to put into my head, and it showed me that no matter what - I can do this, and I can be successful in the industry!
So here I was, another certification conquered, more knowledge in the industry than I thought I was ever capable of having, and more projects on the horizon. I think it's time to really start job hunting, don't you?
As always if you've made it this far thank you so much for reading. We’ve made it through 3 certs, a community talk, multiple projects, crushed the doubters and have come so far. I really can’t wait to see what comes next! Also please feel free to reach out to me and connect on LinkedIn! Maybe next we can discuss the suffering that is trying to find a job in this market, and I can give you a sneak peek into my upcoming projects so stay tuned!
Top comments (0)