Are AWS Cloud Practitioner or GCP Solution Architect certifications worth it?

Early struggles

When I was a young man, I went through a difficult time.

At 21, I graduated from university with what felt like a useless degree. I had left home at 17 with high hopes for academic achievement, but when I returned at 22 I was not qualified to do much more than minimum-wage data entry for a local auto parts manufacturer.

A bad breakup with the girl who meant everything to me pushed me into a depression. Young men often struggle when their pride is hurt, and I had a very hard time coping.

To make matters worse, the night shifts ruined my sleeping patterns, which is never good for mental health. The work itself only took five minutes every hour. The rest of the time I was left alone with my thoughts, which made me spiral even further.

A turning point

At the time, Microsoft certifications were a big deal. I kept seeing advertisements in the newspaper for high-paying IT jobs. The computer I worked on was a Windows NT machine, so I bought a book on Windows NT certification. Instead of manifesting destructive thoughts, I spent my nights learning about the system settings on my computer.

The Buddhists say life is suffering. The corollary is that our goal must be to find something that distracts us from that suffering while making life engaging and challenging.

For me, studying computers and dreaming of an IT career gave me focus. My depression began to fade.

Success through certification

After a few months of study, I took the Windows NT Microsoft Certified Professional exam and scored 100 percent. About a year later, I completed the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer designation after passing the sixth required exam.

I also discovered Java, a newly released programming language at the time. I answered questions on message boards and lost myself in coding challenges. I could bury my head in a programming problem for hours and come out with the satisfaction of cracking the code. It was bliss compared to sitting alone with dark thoughts.

Building a career

Shortly before finishing my MCSE, I met a few guys in a bookstore studying the same material. They told me their school would pay me to tutor them. That was my first IT job. Even though it was only a dozen hours a week, I was earning five times my old wage while mentoring people my age with similar goals.

A few months later I applied for a job teaching Java at a career college. My resume only had my degree, my certifications, and a few glowing references. I got the position, partly because a snowstorm hit Toronto the day of the interviews and none of the other applicants showed up. But the point is, I never would have been considered if not for those certifications.

I quit the factory job, moved into the city, and started my new life teaching in a beautiful office in the downtown core.

A changed life

I went from a dead-end job, deep depression, and no future prospects to a lifestyle envied by many of my peers. None of it would have happened without those certifications.

And who knows what would have happened if I had not found that focus. Maybe I would have turned to religion, or drugs, or sports, or maybe something worse. I do not know. What I do know is that the pursuit of certification gave me focus, lifted my mood, and permanently changed the direction of my life. So when people ask if certification is worth it, I can confidently say yes.

Looking back

Now in my fifties, I have been doing IT for a long time.

I do not let small setbacks knock me down anymore. But as I write certification books and publish Udemy courses, I often think back to who I was when I was younger. I like to think that someone reading my certification related resources is also hoping to change the trajectory of their life.

Don’t think twice about getting AWS practitioner certified, or Azure certified of Google Cloud certified. It can change your life, just like it changed mine.

Cameron McKenzie is an AWS Certified AI Practitioner, Machine Learning Engineer, Solutions Architect and author of many popular books in the software development and Cloud Computing space. His growing YouTube channel training devs in Java, Spring, AI and ML has well over 30,000 subscribers.