Mentor's Corner-Introduction

KevinCSmallwood

I am the dedicated mentor for the Cloud Engineer, Advanced Cloud Engineer, DevOps and Cloud Native IT Professional Programs. As you have probably discovered, there is a lot of information you need to acquire and retain.

To help you progress, I will periodically send out tips and suggestions.

If you are making good progress and are on target to finish the program in 6 to 12 months- congratulations! Stay the course. You are doing great. Keep it up. My advice may not be as applicable to you. As the old adage goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Here are a few tips to help you progress successfully:

• To avoid feeling overwhelmed, focus on where you are in the set of courses and work, step by step, through that course. Worry about future courses when you get there.
• Schedule times and days when you will work through a course or practice for an exam. Involve your family and friends. Let them know it is important for you to carve out time for yourself.
• Work through an entire chapter, including lab practice, versus working for 30 or 60 minutes and stopping mid-chapter. This way, you can capture and absorb the whole concept rather than needing several minutes to figure out where you stopped and gather the context again.
• Reward yourself for working through a chapter and labs. Allow yourself to do things you enjoy when you have completed a work session.

Learning Linux, Cloud and DevOps concepts is a large task. I have more advice for doing this and will share those suggestions in future communications. If I can help with specific advice, reach out and contact me. Please remember that technical information should come from the Forums and the office hours, however, I can share tips to help you be successful in the IT Professional Programs. Until next time, keep working on those courses and Labs!

Regards,
Kevin--IT Professional Program Mentor

itprofessionalprogram@linuxfoundation.org