About 10 hours ago Challenge 2.0 was released for scholars currently on ALC 4.0; Google Africa Certification Program. The available learning tracks are Android, Web and Cloud (google cloud Platform). This is a follow up to Challenge 1.0 which lived up to it's name. it was indeed a real challenge for many, and it actually took learners unawares even though it was announced before it was given, Perhaps no one foreknew the task that lay ahead. This post however is specially for those on the Associate Cloud Engineer track.
I am a scholar on the ALC 4.0 program and a learner on the Associate Cloud Engineer Track. The program has been smooth, challenging and interesting considering it is first time for me doing anything with cloud technology. Like most learners I was a bit relaxed until challenge 1.0 came up, I faced some issues that were also faced by others also, some people could not complete the challenge for various reasons and some quit ultimately, from my experience in completing challenge 1.0 tagged #5DaysofCoding Challenge, below are a few tips to help learners complete and submit challenge 2.0.
First thing first Read the Instructions before you start a lab. This will save you time and avoid errors that you are likely to make as you go on with the Qwiklabs. some procedures seem very much alike and if you just assume you know what is required, you may end up typing a wrong code, and errors will pop as you go on. Spending 5 minutes to go through the instructions before you hit the start button will save you time and ultimately your data. Assumimg that the procedures is the same with another Qwiklab is a costly assumption as a change in a character of code will definitely pop up errors.
No shortcuts Follow each procedure step by step as outlined in the instructions. Now this is not just a normal scenario of writing a program to execute with shorter lines of code, am not saying it is impossible to achieve this on Google Cloud Platform, but as a learner it is only good you follow step by step, because any step you miss out or skip will hunt you in a short while. so just as slow and steady wins the race, step by step is the way to successfully complete a Qwiklab successfully (100%).
You need help? The live support Chatbots are right within your reach. If you are stuck or faced with errors or cannot implement a step, why not chat with the support staff, just down right of the Qwiklab page where the Instructions are found, you can chat with support staff and I assure you they are fast and give responses in real time. I personally benefited from such rapid support during my challenge 1.0
You still need more clarifications? Slack should be your one collaborative tool to share your challenges, fears and uncertainties relating to the Cloud learning Track, you may meet other people with similar challenges who received help on Slack and you can also provide help with the knowledge you have, truth is, when you show others, it sticks more to you so help others while you also receive help as you learn. of course you google out any other issues you have and believe me, someone has already outlined the path to arriving at the solution.
Done with a Qwik lab? You are sent a mail that shows you the level or how successful you completed the required task for each lab, it comes after a few hours or less. since we required to take a screen shot of those mails, it is advisable to take a screen shot and save them in a folder for easy accessibility and to avoid looking for them in your mail box when you are due for submission. This will save you time and effort I assure you.
The last but not the least If you do all the above and you fail to submit via the submission form, then I think you have not been fair to yourself, so go ahead and create a folder on Google Drive or Drop Box where you can upload the screen shots of your completed (attempted) labs and very importantly make them visible so that anyone with the link can view your uploads.
I hope this will help you and spur you on to complete the challenge 2.0 before the deadline, even if you did not submit or complete challenge 1.0 give yourself a mandate to complete challenge 2.0. Remember nothing beats practice, so the more Qwiklabs you do, the more accustomed you get to Google Cloud Platform and how the workspace works. Good luck to all learners on the track and hope to see you and myself among the top 1000 selected students to be considered for Google Certification Examination.