"Get certified and showcase your skills"
It was 2021 and by then, I was already knee-deep in Coursera certifications. To give an insight, this was also the era of Elaine's grind into the cloud. I was fortunate to be a part of the Google Cloud Speaker Series community and through the program, I managed to earn myself a voucher to take the Google Cloud - Cloud Digital Leader certification exam in 2022.
A Cloud Digital Leader can articulate the capabilities of Google Cloud core products and services and how they benefit organizations. The Cloud Digital Leader can also describe common business use cases and how cloud solutions support an enterprise.
This certification is for anyone who wishes to demonstrate their knowledge of cloud computing basics and how Google Cloud products and services can be used to achieve an organization’s goals.
Nonetheless, though I dare say that back then, I had my fair share of experience on GCP, I was nervous about taking the exam. As a student, I'm riddled with endless quizzes and examinations, but none to do with a third-party examiner.
To start off, I went over all the material from the Coursera course that I recently completed - it was the typical study method that I was familiar with: lofi girl in the background, coffee on hand, and scrap paper to help me recall my thoughts. I also made a comprehensive study guide based on the exam guide that was provided by Google and went over the sample questions that were provided by Google and the Google Cloud Speaker Series.
Day of the exam - I was a nervous wreck, I had given myself a scare about how intimidating the exam may be. But here's my advice to those who are in similar situations - the Cloud Digital Leader certification exam isn't something to be afraid of.
Here are my takeaways from my experience:
Prepare beforehand
It is an examination nonetheless. How else will you take an exam if not to study for it? I'd highly recommend for you to go through the exam guide on the website (attached above) as it covers essentially everything that can be expected from the exam. I would cover each bullet point by reviewing the official documentation of the Google product as well. However, do keep in mind that a lot of the questions are situational - as a measurement of how you could conceptualize and apply your knowledge to real-world scenarios.
John Doe wishes to build their application on the Cloud. At the same time, they wish to have the ability to manage the underlaying infrastructure of their application. What type of service should they opt for?
Sample Question
That said, my personal recommendation is to look over a comparison chart of all the different services provided by GCP. An example would be a comparison chart of storage services.
My resources on study materials:
Review sample questions
Reviewing sample questions online, most definitely helped me better prepare for the exam. Furthermore, the sample questions provided by Google were fairly similar to the exam itself.
My resources on sample questions:
Setup Kryterion profile and Sentinel Secure software
I had taken my certification exam online, thus the need to set up my account on Kryterion. For that, I'd recommend completing this at least a day before the actual exam, as it is required in order to take the exam virtually. I don't accurately remember the exact procedure, but it had to do with taking a photo of your identification document and also a photo of yourself. Once verification is completed, you should receive an update about it. Furthermore, you are also required to install a lockdown browser software, Sentinel Secure, which will ultimately be the software used to launch the online-proctored exam.
Guidelines:
Clean up workspace
As I mentioned, I had taken my certification exam online. And to give an insight into how that works, prior to actually taking the exam, you will go through a screening phase, whereby a proctor will have you go through a series of steps to ensure that
your identity has been verified
your workspace is suitable for the exam to take place
They will require you to have a form of identification document on hand and you are to validate this document by holding it to your device's camera. Once that's out of the way, they'll have you use your device's camera to show your surroundings including the table, under the table, and the walls. In my case, I had three types of beverages ready - coffee for all the obvious reasons, tea to help me calm my nerves, and water to help me keep my sanity. Fortunately, the proctor allowed all three beverages to stay on the table:)
Test for network connectivity
As if taking the exam itself wasn't nerve-wracking enough, my connection decided to fail me on the day of the test. I was consecutively told to quit the exam and rejoin, in hopes that the connection stabilizes. Finally, after three attempts, one ethernet cable, one request to my housemates to disconnect their devices from the network, and one prayer, my connection stabilized and I was ready to take the test.
Guidelines:
The test has a limit of 90 minutes and has approximately 59 multiple-choice questions. In terms of the questions, there's a feature for flagging a question (mark for review) and you're allowed to go back to a previous question if you decide to move on to the next question. My favorite feature is that by the last question, you are prompted to review all your answers - basically, a page displaying an overview of the questions that were answered, unanswered, and flagged.
In the fate of the 'submit' button, I was given an approximate value of my examination results. Per stated the examination will not give a value of how many questions were answered correctly, it was a mere 'PASS' or 'FAIL' status. Within two weeks, my official results were announced via email.
By the end of it all, all I can say now is "Hey, that wasn't too bad", and that's my experience of being certified as a Google Cloud - Cloud Digital Leader.
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