I just took the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Exam this morning (passed), I am so happy!!
Background:
I am an absolute beginner. I have no prior IT experience, studied civil engineering undergrad and then did an MBA. Last year (March 2020), I started taking computer science courses on EdX just for fun and then decided to get serious about a career change into Data Science. This past March (2021), a friend who graduated two years ago from a masters in Data Science told me that I needed to get in to the Cloud and so I signed up to ACG.
I started with Mattias Andersson’s ACE 2020 Course and then I signed up for the "GCP Data and Machine Learning" Learning Path and went back to take all the courses in the Novice Level (Intro to Cloud Computing, Google Cloud Concepts, Intro to Google Cloud, Linux Operating System Fundamentals) and Apprentice Level (Cost Control on GCP and Google Cloud Essentials). From the Practitioner Level, I have only finished the Machine Learning for Absolute Beginners and the ACE 2020 course.
My experience on Google Cloud was through the sandbox and the free account on GCP. I took the practice exam until I got 100% four times in a row. I also took the official practice exam a couple times but it is too easy to just memorize all the answers. Try to leave that one until the very end (one week before actual exam).
I also watched all the free ACE videos in the YouTube AwesomeGCP channel.
Exam Result
I was not confident at all about my result. My inexperience and all the knowledge gaps really surfaced in the official exam. I was sure of only about 10-15 questions. Of the rest, I was certain I had eliminated the bad ones but was still between two options on most of the questions. I was so happy I passed!!
Feedback
I want to thank Mattias for the great ACE course! I don’t think it is enough for someone like me with zero previous experience, but I still learned a whole lot. After the exam I went straight to the book store to buy the Official ACE Study Guide by Dan Sullivan because I want to close the gaps I still have.
Tips
Definitely take a look at the Google Cloud Essential Labs, even if you don’t watch all the videos. The labs expand on the material covered in the ACE 2020 course.
It also makes a lot of sense to look carefully at the answers, and even if you are not sure of the right one, eliminate the answers that just don’t work and then pick from the ones left. I was a bit disheartened midway through the exam, but I kept at it, chipping away at the wrong answers and picking from the answers left the ones that made more sense and it worked.
Material
— There were a lot of questions on IAM and how to share resources between projects. One good tip is that whenever a role is included in an answer (e.g. roles/browser), to assume that the role actually exists. That makes choosing the right answer easier. There is no guarantee that the role does exist, but it worked well for me.
— I was expecting a lot of Kubernetes questions, and there were not than many
— There were like 10 questions that included Cloud Spanner, it was crazy
— A few questions on networking, try to study the CIDR blocks and what it means in terms of IP Range
I am just so excited to have passed!! I will continue on my journey to eventually become a Professional Cloud Machine Learning Engineer. Best of luck to everyone!!