My learning path to HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate
This post is about the journey I took to clear Terraform Associate Certification
HOORAY..! I am happy to share that I have achieved the Terraform Associate certification badge from HashiCorp. It’s been over 3 years now since I started terraforming the infrastructure on AWS but it was not until last month I started thinking about getting certified. It was an exciting 2 weeks of learning for Terraform Associate.
Even though we use Terraform in our day-to-day life it is very unlikely that we use all use cases of Terraform. This Terraform Associate Certification helped me know more about Terraform best practices and Terraform Cloud. If you are from DevOps or Cloud background this Terraform Associate Certificate is definitely for You as Terraform could do wonders for you.
Prerequisites
According to the Hashicorp website, prerequisite for Terraform Associate Certificate would be basic terminal skills and a basic understanding of on-premises and cloud architecture. Having hands-on experience would be really great as this would make things easier for you.
If you are new to Terraform it is better to follow Hashicorp Associate Tutorials as this would give you some hands-on experience with Terraform.
Exam Details
- Assessment Type: Multiple choice
- Format: Online proctored
- Duration: 1 hour
- Price: $70.50 USD plus locally applicable taxes and fees Free retake not included
- Language: English
- Expiration: 2 years
While preparing for certification first I bought HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate 2022 from udemy by Zeal Vora. This Course covers almost all topics for exam. This course also provides practice tests and quizzes which could help you practice. Apart from this course I also bought HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate Practice Exam 2022 by Bryan Krausen which helped me validate my learnings. Each day I would have spent time on one practice test along with studying from mistakes I made. Also, I would spend one hour on the course which helped me understand the core concepts. Apart from this I also went through Hashicorp study materials.
Exam Experience
Before starting the exam your computer must pass PSI’s system compatibility test. Make sure you run this a few times prior to the exam, this would help you know whether the system is compatible with the test. When we click launch exam they prompt us to download the secure browser. After downloading and installing the secure browser we start the initial process of Capturing a GOVT-issued ID, Capturing a video of the premises and once all recordings are uploaded the proctor will join you via chat.
I had 59 Questions with one fill-in-the-blank question. I felt 60mins is enough for the test. I was having a 20–15mins balance when ended the exam. We can flag the questions if we felt doubtful. We can come back later to review the questions even if we answer them. Soon as the exam ends we are directed to a survey about the exam. Once the survey is done the results will be displayed. We are not allowed to record or screenshot the results. Soon after that, we can end the session once you confirm with the exam proctor. Later we close the secure browser and once you check your Email you will be receiving the badge link that can be accepted and will be shown in your credly profile. This can be used later in your LinkedIn profile for others to verify. You will also receive a mail regarding the areas to improve and your score this would help you know more where we went wrong. We would need a 70% passing score to get certified. You can also download the following certificate from credly.
All the best
I hope this is post helped you clear some doubts regarding the exam. There are likely to be many strategies to pass the exam. But honestly to possess the hands-on skills, use terraform for your work and other side projects. This could give you some real-time errors and this helps you learn more.
Happy Terraforming!
