Microsoft certifications

[scorpion]

How easy/hard would you say that these are in comparison to other computer classes? I got the free Azure training from Pluralsight and I've been sitting on it because I thought it wouldn't align with my goals of getting a CS degree as quickly/easily as possible.

I'm only familiar with the Developer/DevOps/Architect certs, so I can't speak to the rest. I'd say these would be very difficult without dedicated study and at least some practice with Azure. They're probably best if you already have an interest in working on cloud services.

The questions on any individual topic aren't difficult, but the tests are extremely broad and cover many, many different topics and Azure services. Some exams also have integrated labs, where you will be doing the same steps necessary to deploy/configure services as if it were live -- if you haven't practiced on the real thing at least a little, you won't pass these. The expert-level certs also require you to pass multiple exams, so expect to spend more time on these.

The good news is that the content hews to the Microsoft Learn training materials they publish for free, and you can do them all on the free Azure tier. If you put in the time to go through Pluralsight and the Learn modules, you should be able to pass comfortably.

For example, here's the learning paths for the Azure Developer Associate cert (one exam):

• Create serverless applications - 10 modules, 8 hr 11 min
  
• Connect your services together - 4 modules, 3 hr 31 min
  
• Store data in Azure - 5 modules, 3 hr 50 min
  
• Deploy a website with Azure virtual machines - 4 modules, 4 hr 6 min
  
• Manage resources in Azure - 6 modules, 5 hr 2 min
  
• Deploy a website to Azure with Azure App Service - 6 modules, 4 hr 37 min
  
• Secure your cloud data - 7 modules, 5 hr 38 min
  

That adds up to almost 35 hours of dedicated study for a single exam.