Before getting to the meat of the matter, I also want to show the amazing bag... Well it looks great, but actually I took the exam for the hoodie😰. Anyway, it's still great!
Ok, I first need to state that I may not focus much on how to prepare and pass the exam, because there is a lot of experience shared by many good people. I don’t want to repeat what they had stressed already. Here I will just share my personal experience of it, and I hope that can provide you more confidence and motivation to get certified as well!
My Background
At the time of taking this exam, it’s the fourth month I came to America, and I just finished the Language Training Program (Practicing English), going to take my first-year graduate program for 2022 Spring. I have a bachelor’s degree of Computer Science and Technology, which I get from China Agricultural University. My knowledge from this degree does help me in some way, because as least I know the basics about Programming, database and SQL, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Network, etc. Those helped me to have a better understanding of Big Data Tool when I studied it.
However, I didn’t have any knowledge about Big Data or what exactly Data Engineer dose. Until I began the self-teaching process of Google Cloud Platform, I gradually knew what Apache, Hadoop, Spark, or Beam is, all of which are quite important to know to pass the exam. But I never had an internship or experience of data engineering, which makes me hard to understand how those things works and how Google Big Data Tool works better than them.
So now you have known that I don’t have any experience with data science, but I still have the chance to pass this exam with hard work. So do you!
Why I Choose to Take it
As I mentioned above, I had basic knowledge about Computer Science, but I don’t have any knowledge about Big Data or Data Science, and I don’t have any internship or practical experience. That’s why when I first found this exam exists from Daniel’s YouTube channel, I strongly feel that I want to learn more about it and pass that exam. Because I’m always curious about new technology and want to know more and learn more. Of course it will also help me find a job to some extent.
Honestly, because I’m an international student, English is my second language, I may not have a better chance to find a job than native students or other international students who have studied in America for years. So this is a chance for me to become better and I am not going to lose it.
Timeline
Around Nov. 12, 2021, I began to prepare for this exam, and I take it on Dec. 21, 2021. It’s almost 40 days but I didn’t do full time preparation because I have to practice English and finish my English Training Program. If you need more time, just take your time.
Brief Intro of Preparation Materials
- Other passers’ Blogs. From searching blogs about how to prepare for this exam, I learned how others were doing and what materials they used.
- Coursera. After that I chose the Coursera as beginning, which gave me the basics about Google Cloud and made me have a chance to practice a little bit on Google Cloud Platform.
- Cloud Guru. Then I used Cloud Guru as my second learning material, which gave me a more comprehensive and systematic knowledge framework about different Google Big Data Tools such as Dataproc, Dataflow, BigTable, Bigquery, Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL and Spanner, IAM roles, etc. And I also learned their alternatives upon specific conditions.
- EXAMTOPICS. After I had an overall knowledge about Google Cloud Platform, I began to practice Google’s official sample questions and used EXAMTOPICS for more questions practice. The only drawback of it is that sometimes the answer is not correct, and I have to watch the discussions of people to get the right answer, but which also made me think and helped me understand more deeply.
Reflections & EXPs
This part is my personal reflections and thoughts about the whole process from preparation to certification.
After submitting the assessment, we will immediately see the result, which would be Pass or Fail. So before I clicked the SUBMIT button, my heart beat very fast and I really hope it’s Pass. I haven’t been this nervous in a long time. Even when I saw my TOEFL and GRE scores, I didn’t be like this. Probably it’s because of all the time and hard work I spent on it. Who doesn’t want their work got paid off, right?
This exam is NOT easy at all, which exceeded my expectations. Maybe it’s because of my lack of knowledge & experience and short preparation time. I feel uncertain about the options when I was taking the exam. If you want to pass it, you'd better work really hard and prepare a lot for it. In my view, it’s even harder than the official sample questions at the time.
Most importantly, in the process of preparing for this exam, I learned a lot about Big Data and the Tool to handle it. I also knew how to build the data pipeline for different Volume, Type, Speed of data. Though the final result is important, but what I’ve learnt in process matters more because it is the process that makes me stronger.
That's it! No matter how hard the exam is or how less I knew about the Big Data ecosystem before, I finally did it! If you also feel interested in this certification and still worry about if you can do it, I would say "just do it!" and all your hard work will pay off!
What I got after the exam
After passing the exam, you can opt-in Credential Holder Directory, and potential recruiters may find you on it. Here is my profile
You will also get your badge and certification link in your email from Google. You can share it, and you can also log in with your email to have full access such as a pdf version. I took the exam on 21st morning, and I got the email on 23rd evening. It's really fast!
Most excitingly I guess, you will get a code to choose one of several goodies for free. However I only have the option of either fleece jacket or a flip bagpack, no hoodie! What I'm gonna use fleece jacket for at Los Angeles? So I have to choose the bagpack. Besides, you will get a badge sticker to stick on your laptop or wherever you want.
Additionally, it seems that you can receive a 50% discount to recertification after two years.
Thank you for reading till the end. All the very best!