HOW I ACED SIX ORACLE TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION
THE INFORMATION🗣 —
Around April, during the pandemic, a colleague of mine shared a post about a list of organizations giving free courses. I looked through the course options, and I found Oracle Cloud Infrastructure by Oracle. I checked and saw that Oracle had released all six Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) training and exams from foundation to professional. I was very excited. I read through the processes and chose my most preferred date for the exams because I unsure the exams’ duration will be available.
THE STUDYING 👩🏽💻—
After registering for all six exams, I started reading from the Foundation course and wrote my exams in that sequence. These were the steps I used to approach all study packs made available by oracle.
- I visited the oracle site for more information about certification paths https://education.oracle.com/oracle-certification-path/pFamily_647. I did this repeatedly until I concluded my last exams because I always felt there could be a piece of new information.
- I choose to start my certifications from the foundation, as I mentioned earlier. I wanted to progress into the higher courses with a better understanding plus the OCI certification path was new to me. I did my study and took each exam in order below:
- ☑Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations 2020 Certified Associate
- ☑Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud 2019 Certified Specialist
- ☑Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2019 Cloud Operations Certified Associate
- ☑Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2019 Certified Architect Associate
- ☑Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2019 Certified Architect Professional
- ☑Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Developer Certified Architect
3. I studied video tutorials provided by oracle (https://www.oracle.com/corporate/blog/free-certifications-oracle-oci-autonomous-033020.html) and used YouTube tutorials for more hands-on practice. Thankfully, Oracle cloud platform provides Free Tier services that helped me get through the hands-on training; see link https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/
THE CERTIFICATION👩🏽🏫—
After general studies, I began to focus on exam topics, time-slots, and passing score. In summary, I did the following;
- First, I focused on the areas of concentration provided by the oracle and understood the subtopics.
- I checked for FAQS on each topic for better understanding; for example, https://www.oracle.com/cloud/storage/file-storage-faq.html gives details information about file storage in OCI. I found that FAQS are the right places to learn critical concepts on topics and real-life theoretical scenarios; I am most unlikely to find these details on lecture videos.
- I went through the practice questions provided by oracle. It gave me an idea of the question structures.
- I leveraged my online connections whats app and LinkedIn to ask questions on the exams and better prepare for the exams.
EXAM DAY👩🏽💻 —
All my exams were registered to be taken online because of the COVID 19 pandemic, it was a completely whole new experience for me, but the PEARSON VUE process was quite simple and direct:
- I took a system test a day before my scheduled exams
- I made sure I had good internet service on the day of my exams
- I used my international passport as my means of identification, and this could be anything between, drivers license and a National Identity Card
- Sat for my exams and waited for my result on cert view and badge by Acclaim
CERTIFICATION BADGES 🚀🚀🚀—
CONCLUSION 😁—
You never know what you can attain until you push yourself. I took all exams in the space of five months. I still can’t believe I achieve all this; there were times I wanted to give up, but seeing my fellow DBAs posting their achievement on LINKEDIN motivated me to keep pushing. I am happy I made it through. I achieved it all by God’s grace, hard work, and constant support from my spouse; he bought me a gift for every exam I passed; it was great motivation like I was always looking forward to it, so failure was not an option. During this pandemic and lockdown, I have learned how to be more productive by setting my priorities right and working towards achieving every goal I set for myself. I know this is just the beginning of better things to come.
GOODNEWS🚀 Oracle still has the lecture videos available for free study; check it out https://www.oracle.com/corporate/blog/free-certifications-oracle-oci-autonomous-033020.html
