How I Passed the Terraform Associate Certification

Motivation

At the start of 2022, I enrolled myself on KodeKloud's Terraform beginner course on Udemy to gain confidence and a good understanding of working with Terraform files written by the DevOps engineering team in my current company.

The concept of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) isn't new to me; however, I lacked the hands-on experience to understand Terraform HCL syntax and create my own Terraform files. While working through the labs exercises from the course, I found myself deeply fascinated by this tool. Henceforth, I decided to push myself to solidify my fundamentals on Terraform and test my understanding via the Terraform Associate Certification. I am a strong believer in the fail fast, learn fast methodology.

I am glad to announce that I am a Terraform Certified Associate after about 4 months of preparation!

Strategy

Here is my strategy for acing this exam.

Learn from the Best

1. Enroll in a course that provided both theory and lab exercises eg. Terraform for the Absolute Beginners with Labs.

   • I prefer courses from KodeKloud as they are one of the best resources for learning DevOps related topics.

   • Zeal Vora's Terraform course is equally good, but, you have to set up your own AWS account to do the hands-on exercises.

   • Free Resource: FreeCodeCamp also have a free HashiCorp Terraform Associate Certification Course on YouTube

2. Get more hands-on experience by building your own Resume Foundations Project (optional)

   • Derek Morgan has a well-crafted course on learning Terraform by building a useful project.

Internalize Your Learnings

4. Make your own notes!
   • Taking a certification is not a sprint. Help your future self by taking smart notes that is easy to reference and recap in the future.

Be Exam-Smart

5. Go through the official Terraform documentation to deep dive into the concepts (Important!)

6. Understand the exam by going through official articles about the certification:

   • Study Guide - Terraform Associate Certification
   • Sample Questions - Terraform Associate Certification
   • Exam Review - Terraform Associate Certification

7. Take practice exams

• The questions from Bryan Krausen's practice exams are good and every question comes with a detailed explaination.

8. Build confidence by seeing how others have succeeded before you:

   • How To Pass the Hashicorp Certified: Terraform Associate Exam in 2022
   • How I Passed the Terraform Associate Certification in 2 Weeks After Failing It
   • How I Passed Hashicorp Terraform Associate Certification Exam in 2021