Yes. I have reached that level. Like in my university days when I would pull all-nighters in the library with friends to hit the deadlines, now I’m just going to rely on writing a blog post. Holding myself accountable while getting this studying done.

A couple of months ago I was set a goal. To study for the AWS (Amazon Web Services) Associate Developer certification. Well, initially my idea was to just learn AWS. Terraform, S3 buckets, all of those things which we use at work but I don’t understand. But what is a goal without a target?

And with that my goal was set: take the exam. Get the certification.

I do love a nice certificate.

But studying is hard. And I have always hated exams. I barely scrapped through my GCSEs and A Levels; I purposely chose my two degrees because they didn’t have any exams. And yet somehow over the last two years I have had the luxury of taking:

• a Microsoft exam (twice)
• GCSE Maths (twice)
• GCSE English (thankfully once, because that would have been embarrassing)
• and a BCS Methodologies exam (by that point I had gotten to grips with revision and actually passed first time)

So here is the plan:

• Do practice papers daily – these will highlight the areas I need to focus on
• Study those areas
• Write up some Anki flashcards
• Practice Anki flashcards
• And hopefully, when I see myself consistently hitting that 75% + score sign up for that exam

That seems easy enough.