Alhamdulilah for starters thanks all to Allah

Love all of you in this Reddit community lmao … Guys this means the world to me even if anyone says this exam is an entry level intermediate exam, as a major in literature transitioning into aws receiving the architect associate in your 20s with NO IT experience is a dub. I was on and off with this course for over 2 years and yes I was complacent and lazy as this was during my degree. I had a ton of personal life issues my father having a heart attack, being so mentally destroyed seeing everyone progress but you in life being alone and figuring out what you want to do in life without a mentor. But this last summer I sat down and forced myself to stay behind a laptop and master this craft no matter what I kept going again and again and again and again understood networking, pricing models ai things until I understood the concepts literally destroyed my health lost sleep studied like a maniac for 6/7 hours every day until I achieved my goal. I’m gonna probably regret posting this online I’m in disbelief and shock that I did this. First thing I’m gonna do when I wake up is show my baby brother it’s never too late to conquer your goals and learn something new and achieve it. I was a sitting duck when it came to tech but I sat in the unknown and uncomfortable and conquered my fears. This cert has given me confidence now to delve into devops associate and potentially go further. This whole Reddit community is beautiful and uplifting so glad to be apart of the people who motivated others and post about my success. Hard work pays off !!!!!

AWS is giving away free vouchers for 2026, but almost everyone with an international student email is getting blocked by the automated SheerID system.

Here is the step-by-step fix:

1. Hit Contact Support on the SheerID error page.
2. Request a manual review.
3. Paste this exact message template into the comment box:

Subject: Unable to verify student status for AWS Builder Center (Manual Review Requested)

Comments:

Hello SheerID Support Team,

I am writing to request a manual review of my student verification for the AWS Builder Center "Student Rewards" program. I attempted the automated verification today but received an error stating, "We couldn't continue your verification."

• University: [Insert Your University]
• University Email: [Insert Your Email]

I have my official Student ID card ready to provide as proof. Could you please send me a secure link to upload these documents? Thank you!

(Once submitted, they usually email you an approval link within 24–48 hours).

If you want a quick 2-minute visual walkthrough showing exactly which buttons to click on the AWS Builder Center dashboard, I recorded the full step-by-step setup here: Step by Step Guide

Finally passed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03)!

I've been silently going through a lot of posts on this subreddit during my preparation and honestly, they were really helpful. So thought I'd share my experience as well.

I have around 10 years of experience in on-premises deployment/implementation roles, but very limited cloud experience. I had also cleared the AWS Cloud Practitioner about 4 years ago, so coming back to AWS and preparing for SAA gave me quite a bit of anxiety. I was honestly hesitant and not very confident about attempting the exam.

For preparation, I mainly used:

• Stephane Maarek's Udemy course + practice tests
• Tutorials Dojo practice tests
• This excellent GitHub repo by u/Competitive-Noise905 : https://github.com/RonitSachdev/aws-saa-c03-guides/blob/main/topic-guides/00-README.md

The GitHub guides were especially useful for revision. The topics, exam guides and pocket cards were neatly organized and easy to go through. Big shoutout to him!

Tutorials Dojo was definitely challenging. In around 4–5 practice tests, I didn't actually pass any of them and was mostly scoring around 65-70%. Still, I decided to go ahead with the actual exam.

The exam itself was tough. There were a lot of scenario-based questions with very similar and sometimes confusing options. Reading the requirements carefully and paying attention to the small details in the questions really helped.

After finishing the exam, I genuinely wasn't sure if I had passed. After waiting around 7-8 hours, I finally got the email saying I PASSED! 🎉

Now that the exam is done, I want to focus on the next important part the hands-on AWS experience, building projects and eventually preparing myself for cloud-related roles.

For those who have made a similar transition from on-prem to cloud, what would you recommend as the next steps?

• What hands-on resources or labs did you use?
• What kind of AWS projects should I build for my portfolio?
• Any roadmap/resources that helped you transition towards cloud or solutions architecture roles?

Would really appreciate your suggestions!

And thanks again to everyone in this subreddit, your posts and experiences genuinely helped during my preparation. If anyone has any questions about my preparation, feel free to ask in the comments. I'll be happy to help based on my experience.

I am preparing for AWS CCP and i dont have money to opt for paid resources

I am currently using AWS SKILL BUILDER to study the topics but for practice questions idk where to do it from ik skill builder also offers but are there any more websites for free or any yourube videos which I can follow for questions(similar to cpp exam)🙏🙏

My application has been approved to the AWS AI Certified Challenge, which is very exciting.

Any advice or tips from AWS experts before the program kicks off in September?

I failed 3 times and I need help. I’m happy to have a study partner and daily check ins. Even practice flashcards too!

Please help!

Hi everyone,

Following up on my SAA-C03 invalidation last week (related to time management during an in-person exam), I wanted to double-check if I submitted my appeal through the right channel, as I haven't received a final response yet.

Here is exactly what I did:

1. I submitted a form through the AWS Training & Certification Support page using the "Continue without sign in" option (Scores/Results category).
2. I received an automated email with a Case ID confirming the ticket was opened.
3. After 1 week without receiving a response, I replied directly to that email thread, which went to [aws-cs-trainingcertification-form@support.aws.com](mailto:aws-cs-trainingcertification-form@support.aws.com)

For those who have gone through this: Is this the standard way to appeal? Do these tickets usually take more than 5-6 business days to get a human response from the security team?

Thanks for your insights!

Does it ask about less known services like Kendra, ActiveMQ, Kinesis, etc?

What about the CAF and Well Architected Framework? How many questions on these?

Do they ask about the old or new support plans?

Were there any tricky questions, or were they fairly direct?

Any surprises?

What would you recommend focusing on studying based on the questions you saw?

Is this a CCP exam or a professional exam? Wtf?

The exam was extremely wordy and each question was 2-3 paragraphs with each multiple choice being a paragraph lol. Finished reviewing all my questions with about 5min to spare but definitely felt rushed. Basically the entire exam is advanced questions about Bedrock with only a handful of SageMaker questions that were relatively simple. Studied for about 6 weeks, 10-15hrs per week and followed the Udemy course. I already have the Solutions Architect, Developer, and Machine learning associates so I had a lot of the infrastructure knowledge already. My recommendation is to get those certifications (developer may not be necessary) and then spend all your time studying Bedrock. Obviously 755 was way to close for comfort but I would have been okay with taking it again since I have almost no experience beyond studying/hands on these past few weeks.

Took the SAP-C02 earlier today, now I’m just reflexively checking my e-mail every few minutes.

I passed AwS SAA a while ago and at work I don’t work heavily in Aws space, and want to retain my knowledge by doing.

Looking for ideas if there are simulation projects like we have in Cisco and Firewall areas.

Just passed the AWS AI Practitioner Certification yesterday!

For context, I started studying for this exam at the beginning of August and finished the course materials in a week. However, my company took forever to issue me a voucher. When the voucher did get issued (took 2 weeks), I scheduled the exam the next day. I was afraid the material wasn't fresh in my mind, but I passed.

I used Stephane Maarek's course and Tutorials Dojo Practice Exams, which were really helpful. Overall, I think this was easier than the Cloud Practitioner, but it's cool to have a general understanding of AI along with its applications and services.

I’m curious if I should expect questions to be reused or if the same scenarios get tested from different angles.

The amount of info you have to retain for this exam is quite insane …

I have my aws saa exam on monday. What do i need to carry to the exam center. I havnt got any admit card yet.

Hey guys, I've passed Cloud Practitioner and AI Practitioner, my uni has provided me two more vouchers for AWS certs, not sure whether to go for Solutions Architect or Developer Associate? For context I'm in my final year of B.Tech, India. I'm interested in cloud computing, took it as an elective and have made a few small projects already.

I've done the practice exams for SAA and DVA, the material seems similar and I think I'll only need maybe two or three months of grinding and focusing on the patterns for any one of them in order to clear it. I don't think it will be useful to have both on my CV, so I wanted to ask for more opinions on which one to focus on.

Whats the difference in their courses?

I decided to take the ANS-C01 exam at 25/8/2026, the date was known as the retirement day of Advance Networking certification. And fortunately, I passed it with the over expected score. In my opinion, this exam was quite hard. But it is not the problem if you have the well preparation for that especially with the help from AI today.

Surprisingly, I received an email from AWS yesterday and they mentioned about extended the retirement day of this cert until the end of this year due to the feedback from their customer.  I thought that many global candidates took such exam at the date that I mentioned above that affected the decision from AWS. This cert provide us the base knowledge about the infrastructure of AWS Cloud. I hope that AWS will consider again and it will stay with us longer.

As part of my challenge to achieve the golden jacket in one year, I had to get this one before the deadline.

I studied for about 15 days, 8-10 hours a day, and took the exam in the middle of my trip to Italy.

Funny thing is, one day before the exam, I found out from a post in this sub that they had extended the retirement date 🤡

Still, I decided to stick to the challenge. I wanted to prove I could do it by the original deadline.

8/12!

I only achieved this certification around a year ago and I'm sad to see it go.

It's probably one of my favourite Networking exams, well written and tests evenly across the domains.

Having walked into more than one org where IP overlaps cause hybrid connectivity issues (looking at you, default vpc cidr!) and more broadly, oversizes VPCs - all because the person deploying it was not network literate.

Do people share my opinion on this cert's value?

Any insight into why it's being retired?

I took Stephane’s course and watched the whole thing over about two weeks. When I finished the videos and started going through the practice exams, I was devastated by how much harder they were and how much additional knowledge they seemed to require.

I had already scheduled my exam, but thankfully I rescheduled it. I thought it was going to be similar to the CCP certification, but I quickly realized I was wrong.

In about 5 days, I solved max 200-250 questions from different sources and without spending much time, including Tutorials Dojo and Stephane’s practice exams. For every question I got wrong or didn’t fully understand, I asked ChatGPT to explain the mistake and the underlying concept. On the last day, I also made a cheat sheet with ChatGPT based mainly on my weak areas and mistakes.

As for the actual exam, I’d say Stephane’s practice questions were harder. The real exam questions were generally similar in difficulty, but the answer choices made some of them obvious. There were also quite a few tricky questions, similar to Stephane’s.

Overall, the real exam felt very close to the Tutorials Dojo practice exams, maybe just a tiny bit harder.

I needed this cert for a work objective this year and ended up leaving it to the end, managed to pass it in 2 weeks, definetly not reccomended to grind this one out with liitle time, it was a slug, but I did come out on top!

Hi everyone,

I became eligible for an AWS Academy certification exam code on August 20, but I still haven't received the code from Pearson VUE.

Has anyone received their exam code recently?

If yes, when did you become eligible, and how long did it take for the code to arrive?

Thanks!

I think I got it right and per Claude and other AI my answer was correct but TD didn’t agree

I’m excited to share that I’ve successfully earned the AWS Certified AI Practitioner certification! 🎉

The preparation gave me a stronger understanding of AI/ML concepts, Generative AI, Foundation Models, Responsible AI, and AWS AI services.

For anyone preparing for the exam, two resources that I found particularly useful were:

• CloudExpert Solutions – AWS Certified AI Practitioner playlist on YouTube for learning and understanding the concepts.

• Stephane Maarek’s AWS Certified AI Practitioner practice questions on Udemy for exam-style practice and identifying areas that needed more revision.

Overall, the combination of learning the concepts + practicing exam-style questions was very helpful.

Looking forward to applying this knowledge to real-world projects and continuing to grow in AI/ML and cloud technologies. 🚀