Google Cloud Ready Facilitator Program Feedback and Guidelines
Is it worth the Hype? Do’s & Don’t! 📑
Good Day! Nice to see you here 😄. On 10th June 2021, I completed a 2-month long journey of Google’s most popular program Cloud Ready Facilitator program. This self-organized program by Google provides you an opportunity to kickstart your career in the cloud and get hands-on practice on Google Cloud — the tool that powers apps like Google Search, Gmail, Youtube, and many more products. ⚡
This program is organized every year and you can follow https://twitter.com/GoogleCloud_IN in case you want updates and information about more such Google Cloud Programs. To register and get more information about this program check this 👉 Google Events Page.
Follow Up Timeline
1️⃣ About the Program
Cloud itself being the most booming technology, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is one of the top competitors amongst all those in the market. To attract as many people towards the GCP and other services that they provide they host this 2 Month-long program and gives opportunity to students who want to learn this Tech Stack for free.
To give the real Development Operations experience they don’t provide a simulated environment to practice but an actual unbilled GCP Students Account where we can grab the real hands-on experience by practicing in the pre-designed labs and completing the quests.
More details regarding the labs and experience in the next session. If you are particularly in the Development Operations field or a bit aligned towards backend in the Web Development then it could be a good opportunity for you to learn new things #GoogleCloudReady.
So is it free to apply? Definitely Yes!✨This 2 Month-long program is free and even you get cool goodies and swags for participating in it, Depending upon the number of Quests and Skill Badges you get. (Will be discussed in a later section)
Simply follows the motto to learn, earn and Grow 😄 Remember in the article I am sharing my experience of participating in the program as a student and not applying to become a facilitator.
2️⃣ Curriculum & Environment
Covering a large set of topics and fields, There are 3 Tracks in the program. Each track has 10 Quests (Practice Labs) and some of them have a Skill Badge (Practice Test). You have to complete a minimum required number of Quests and get a Skill Badge to achieve a milestone and you will receive your goodies accordingly.
Each lab has a specific rating tag of Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced and is designed in such a way that you can learn it by doing it. Whenever You start a lab you get temporary Google Cloud Platform Login Credentials (Sandbox Environment) for a student account in which you have to log in and complete the tasks by reading the documentation or follow the guided steps to get a total score sum of 100 in the allotted time.
Track 1: Cloud Infrastructure consists of labs to practice Application Deployment, Development Operations, Web Security, Cloud-Native Applications and tools, and understanding the Google Cloud Architecture.
Track 2: Cloud-Native App Dev majorly consists of Google Tools and Products, IoT, Google APIs, Cloud Logging and Management, and basic Application deployment with machine Learning.
Track 3: Big Data & ML majorly consists of Machine Learning, AI, SQL, Data Processing, Basics of Blockchain, and Data Analysis. Here you majorly work on the Big Query service of GCP.
After applying to the program, Your account gets a 2 Month Credit Pass which you can use to complete these labs on QwickLabs. Every time you complete a lab you complete a Quest (Having certain Labs), Your QwickLabs profile gets a practice completion Badge, and whenever you successfully complete a complete the practice test (If present) for that Quest you get a Skill Badge which indicates that you have acquired the appropriate Skills for that Quest.
You can check my QwickLabs Profile Page where you can see that I have successfully completed 17 Quests and acquired 9 Skill Badges.
Based upon the number of Quests and Skill Badge collections, A particular milestone can be completed and you can collect your Prices.
Based upon your interest in the field you can complete any number of Quest and achieve skill badge to achieve a particular Milestone.
PS: You can’t use the student’s Google Cloud Platform account for personal use or anything else other than tasks mentioned in the lab.
3️⃣ My personal Experience
Since my personal interest lies in Web Development & Development Operations. 👨💻 So in beginning, I took an overview of Tracks and their Quests and decided to complete 1st two only based upon my Interest.
The labs have great detailed documentation and steps to follow and complete the challenges. But there were some of the problems that I personally feel should be improved as those affect the learning curve.
In Google Cloud Platform all of the features are accessible using the Console (UI) or with CLI (gcloud — Google Cloud Shell). In CLI you just need to use the inbuilt tools, Write commands and add parameters and you can perform the same task in a very less time span.
But does that sound too easy? 🤔Actually Not, For someone who is just starting it could be difficult to get settled with CLI for most of the work. There isn’t anything in the later labs that will help you memorize the concepts from time to time. The scenario is like, Sometimes they are guiding to use CLI or sometimes using Console. And while using CLI there will definitely be a moment when someone will just copy and paste the command from instruction for the sake of completing the lab. Each lab also has some pre-requisites that are needed to be completed prior to starting the lab.
Talking about the pros, Participating in this program definitely made me learn a lot from many perspectives. Getting the real industry experience as claimed worked well and I have personally gained some confidence in using the Google Cloud Platform and am now able to use it practically. 😃
4️⃣ Conclusion
If you get a chance to participate in this program, Make sure you make the best use of it. Ultimately, It’s your time and you will acquire skills for yourself. The program is crafted especially for those who actually need that industry experience. Few important points to note here are:
- Analysis and Introspection — Make sure you check the syllabus and choose the quests accordingly based upon your interest. In case, You don’t have any idea to get started you can simply start with Track 1 and proceed accordingly. There are many fields covered in three tracks, So if you don't aim to actually step into the Development Operations or Cloud Engineer you don't need to complete all the quests. Just choose which attracts you the most & aligns with your field.
- Time Management — You must not complete a large set of labs in a day. Spend a daily hourly based time and complete the lab in specified time only. If you complete a lab too early, Usually means that you might have skipped the documentation and Steps that were meant to be read.
- Learning and Applying — Writing the key things of a lab that you learned in a notebook could be a great idea so that you don’t forget the commands and steps in Skill Lab. Trust me! Some concepts and definitions were so great that I couldn't find those on any other site in such a great depth.
- Completion and Tracks — Completing the labs for the sake of swags and prices is definitely a really bad practice. The opportunity that you have got is only one time and very great. So make sure you make the most out of it. Never try to search for the solutions of Skill Labs on search engines or ask or just blindly follow the instructions in the lab.
I hope you could step into my shoe the analyze the situation. So, Make sure to apply and give your best 😀 Just don’t focus on the number of Quests and Badges but more on your personal learning curve.
For any help or information regarding this program, you can contact me via Linkedin. Check out more of my articles here. 🎉
🚩 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/WINOFFRG/
🚩 QwickLabs Profile: https://sh.winoff.ml/qwick-labs-profile
🚩 Github: https://github.com/winoffrg
