Hey everyone! 👋 Passing the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) exam was a huge milestone for me, and I want to share my experience with you. Whether you're just starting or already deep into studying, I hope my journey helps you out. So, let's dive in!
📝 My Study Plan
1️⃣ Understanding the Exam Blueprint
Before anything else, I took a good look at the AWS official exam guide to understand what I was getting into. The exam focuses on:
- Designing Resilient Architectures
- Designing High-Performing Architectures
- Designing Secure Applications and Architectures
- Cost-Optimized Architectures
This helped me identify where to spend the most time.
2️⃣ Picking the Right Study Materials
There are tons of resources out there, but here’s what worked for me:
- [Adrian Cantrill’s Course] – Super detailed and hands-on! If you love depth, this is a great pick.
- [Stephane Maarek’s Udemy Course] – More structured and straight to the point, which was great for revision.
- AWS Skill Builder – AWS’s own training platform with free courses and sandbox labs.
- AWS Whitepapers & FAQs – Yeah, they’re a bit dry, but trust me, they help! The Well-Architected Framework was a lifesaver.
- Practice Exams – I took multiple practice exams from Udemy and Whizlabs to check my readiness.
3️⃣ Getting Hands-On Experience
No matter how much I read or watched, nothing beat hands-on practice. I set up an AWS Free Tier account and played around with:
- Deploying EC2 instances, S3 buckets, and RDS databases.
- Setting up VPCs, Subnets, and Security Groups.
- Configuring IAM roles and policies.
- Using AWS Lambda, API Gateway, and DynamoDB for serverless applications.
- Implementing CloudFormation for Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
The more I practiced, the more things started making sense!
✅ Exam Strategies & Tips
Here are some things that really helped me on exam day:
- Don’t just memorize—understand. AWS loves testing real-world scenarios, so knowing why a service is used is more important than just knowing what it does.
- Manage your time wisely. You get 65 questions in 130 minutes, so I made sure to pace myself (~2 minutes per question).
- Use the process of elimination. Some answers are obviously wrong—cross them out and focus on the best choice.
- Mark tricky questions for review. I flagged questions I wasn’t sure about and revisited them at the end.
- Think like a Solutions Architect. If you were designing a system in real life, how would you balance reliability, security, and cost?
🎯 Final Thoughts
The AWS Solution Architect Associate exam isn’t just about passing—it’s about developing solid cloud skills that you can use in real-world projects. Stick to a structured study plan, get hands-on, and take plenty of practice tests, and you’ll be in great shape.
If you're preparing for this certification, you got this! 💪 Feel free to drop any questions in the comments. I’d love to help. 🚀
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