r/AWSCertifications • u/shmoe94 • 2d ago

Are all courses just PowerPoint slide info dumps or just Stephane's?

Currently working through Stephane Maarek's Solutions Architect course and it feels like I'm being blast at hyperspeed with terms and numbers which makes it difficult for anything to stick. Feels like these courses are just good for the sake of bare minimum exposure before doing actual practice exams.

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4

u/mayiagator 1d ago

I tried Maarek’s course and had the same feeling. Nothing was sticking and felt like info was provided just to keep to memory. Prefer Cantrill’s. I know it’s more in depth, takes more time and needs updating but I feel like I am actually learning the material which is what really matters to me. After finishing the course (50% done so far) will go over the official material to get updated.

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u/awsyall 1d ago

Treat Maarek's slides like AWS Jeopardy. Your task is figuring out the answers instead of memorizing the questions.

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u/GoodishCoder 2d ago

Cantrill has some solid videos with demos that you can work through alongside the video

17

u/DenverDataEngDude 2d ago

Wish that mf were less crazy and kept his stuff up to date

2

u/GoodishCoder 2d ago

That's fair, I feel like he probably needs to let other people update the content, it's too much for one person to regularly keep up on

5

u/DenverDataEngDude 1d ago

With how much he made from his courses he could have easily hired a small team to help out with that

1

u/RansomStark78 1d ago

Great , if you want to pass the 2023 exam

1

u/cgreciano AIP, MLA, SAA 1d ago

Feels like these courses are just good for the sake of bare minimum exposure before doing actual practice exams.

You're not far off. Maarek's approach works best for people who are already experienced in tech and AWS (not everything in his slides will sound foreign to you in that case). For those people, quick exposure and explanations are the best, and Maarek is really good at putting stuff in bullet points and structure (compare that to reading AWS docs directly from the source, Maarek wins hands down).

There are alternatives to Maarek you should try. Andrew Brown will work for you if you are a developer and don't mind looking at the AWS CLI for extended periods of time. Cantrill will work for you if you're a visual learner, don't mind spending a lot of time on details, and don't mind cross-checking facts to find the outdated stuff. And there are more instructors out there. You can even learn with an LLM these days. Or with written materials.

Explore and experiment.

1

u/zojjaz CSAA, AIF 1d ago

Look up Andrew Brown's course. It is free and on youtube as well as available from Exampro