2017, The Year of Certificates

I obtained 5 certificates and cleared 6 exams in 2017, AWS solution architect, developer and SysOps in associate level, Scrum Master and TOGAF (part 1 and 2).

It has been quite an achievement personally, taking into account a full time job and family with two little monsters.

I have written already about AWS exams but for TOGAF I studied about 3-4 months, 5 hours a week roughly. It’s a very dry subject and requires a lot of memorisation. I might write about pros and cons of TOGAF as a framework in general later but I would suggest everyone who calls themselves an architect in the IT world take this certificate. A Udemy course on the subject was also helpful.

With any certificates you have to memorise a lot to pass the exam; it’s not just about knowing or understanding the subject. This is the part I have problems with and the reason behind not having any certificates after working in IT for many years! This year I thought I will give it a try for a change!

In order to pass a certification exam and truly understand a subject you have to find the right balance between memorising concepts and learning them by heart. This is very important otherwise you get certified and never understand the subject matter in detail. Your certification will just become a worthless piece of paper.