I will finally be taking the CKAD

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Yesterday I took the scariest step for me during this entire year. I scheduled my CKAD exam. I will be taking in about a month. It has been on my mind since the beginning of 2022, and I kept putting it off out of fear of not being ready, but as I like to keep saying: if you’re ready, you’re too late.

I’m a bit behind on my initial schedule as I was supposed to be done with it in August. The reason for the delay is the redesign of ngnr.club. Maybe I used this as an excuse, and a buffer to avoid facing my anxiety and my fear.

Yesterday morning, at my usual coffee place where I like to work near the Louvre, I managed to muster enough courage to go through with it. I have to admit, I feel much lighter and liberated now that I have a deadline to stick to.

After this small win (for me), I decided to go have a look at the kubernetes subreddit to find some motivation and read about success stories.

Aaaaand, it all came crashing.

Apparently, the Linux Foundation decided to change the way the exam is being taken. It used to be that you only had to share your screen with the proctor and use your own browser to access the docs. With this new version of the exam however, everything happens within a remote VM, inside a browser that they provide on the day of the exam.

I’ve heard horror stories about latency issues, ID checks taking too long, paranoid proctors etc … Admittedly, these reports date back to july when the change was being made so hopefully some of these issues have been resolve or will be resolved by the time I sit the exam.

I now have 30 days to prepare myself. The passing grade is 66%, but I’m aiming for a high 80.

As for the resources I will be using, they will be the following:

  • The CKAD prep course on Udemy by Mumshad Mannambath
  • The CKAD exercises repo that covers all the course material
  • The ACG CKAD course
  • The CKAD labs on Killercoda.com
  • Kube Academy
  • Killer.sh

If I pass on the first try, I will then crack on with the CKA, which, according to reports is harder to pass than the CKAD.

The goal I’ve set for myself is to pass both by December 12th, which is the date I will hopefully be returning to the beautiful city of Rotterdam.

In essence, do what makes you scared because growth awaits on the other side.

Keep Coding,

Karim aka 0xfishr