Do you ever get involved in something with no real idea what the end-point or goal is?
I most certainly do.
As a technical writer, I constantly need to hone my technical skills so that I can understand and communicate tech to a wider audience. This is why, without giving it much thought, I jumped aboard a program shared on LinkedIn — Andela’s ALC4. This program was a partnership between Pluralsight, Google, and Andela to upskill African residents in various technologies.
I joined the cloud stream, whose end goal was to qualify candidates for the ACE certification. The interesting part of the challenge is that this certification is intended for people doing the job; that is, they are already cloud engineers.
The question in my mind was: “Can someone who does not do the job understand enough to qualify?”
The answer is — YES!
So, how did I do it?
- I asked all my stupid questions
People who are ashamed to display ignorance will, most likely, remain ignorant. Andela supplied the cohort with a Slack channel, and I was not shy to use it.
2. I answered other people’s questions
Once I had gained some just-in-time knowledge that allowed me to understand a concept or complete a Quicklab, then I spent some time assisting others to get through that step. There is no better way to learn something than to teach it!
There is no better way to learn something than to teach it.
3. I consumed all the relevant content.
The challenge with Pluralsight is that there is too much content. I drifted off track several times (it was interesting). Self-containing was vital, and they don’t make that easy via their interface! I do like their constant assessments; it helps to have tight feedback cycles. I was also lucky enough with the timing to have free access to relevant content on Coursera. It helped for the revision stage to have a focused, quick re-run.
4. I wrote my own notes.
Anyone who wishes to have access to my notes is welcome. Be warned, however, there was probably more to be gained by writing them than there is by reading them. Forcing yourself to organise your thoughts and explain concepts is part of the learning process for many people.
5. I practised tests
I purchased a (discounted) set of 4 tests on Udemy. This was the only financial outlay I made (though as a freelancer, not working to study is a financial outlay). I also did the (shorter) Google example test.
I love knowing more than I did before!
So, What Next?
I have no idea!
Thanks to my immersion in the Google Cloud Platform and associated tech, I have already written an article on Docker and another on Kubernetes. I won a new client who tested me to demonstrate that I could install their monitoring agent. So, I popped over to the GCP, set up a Virtual Machine as a web server, installed their service, set up their monitoring and deliberately “broke” the server (paused the VM) to trigger an alert.
I am ok that I have no idea where this will take me or whether the time invested in grasping such a wide range of technologies will ever be repaid.
I know more than I did before. That is a joy. So is knowing that I can grab a supercomputer and use it from my laptop!
What Did I Gain?
Apart from new clients, I am more confident in bash. Obviously, I understand more about designing and configuring cloud solutions. I hope to make use of the GCP for some of my dabbles in data, however, for now, I really have to get back to my day job!
As an unexpected bonus, when Windows broke my Ubuntu environment with an update, I discovered that my GCP SDK environment had survived and switched to using that (my Cloud Notes are written in reStructured text using Sphinx and Read the Docs and my ‘make HTML’ commands are now run through the SDK’s python).
I love knowing more than I did before! If I were too focused on the value of knowledge, then I may miss out on the joy of learning.
Thank You
Thank you Andela, Google, Pluralsight, and my cohort, you folks inspired me (and covered the cost for me) to do something that I would simply never have had the imagination or courage to take on alone. What an inspiration!
