Today, I'm finally getting recognised by Microsoft as a Microsoft Certified: Azure Artificial Intelligence (AI) Fundamentals.

Nowadays, in many of the industries, we hear words like AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning. The so-called AI revolution is here to stay and shows no signs of slowing. Hence, it's getting more and more important to equip ourselves today for the future of tomorrow with relevant knowledge about AI.

In addition, big players in the AI industry such as Microsoft have made AI learning easier for anyone who has an interest in the AI field. In August 2021, Rene Modery, Microsoft MVP, shared on his LinkedIn profile about how to take a Microsoft Certification exam for free and Azure AI Fundamental certification is one of them. Without the discount, we will need to pay USD 106 just to take the Azure AI Fundamental certification exam in Singapore. Hence, this is a good opportunity for us to take the exam now while the discount is still available.

Why Am I Taking Certification Exam?

One word, Kaizen.

Kaizen is the Japanese term for continuous improvement. I first learnt about this concept from Riza Marhaban, who is also my mentor in my current workplace, in one of the Singapore .NET Community meetups last year. In his talk, Riza talked about how continuous improvement helped a developer to grow and to stay relevant in the ever-changing IT industry.

Riza's sharing about Kaizen in Singapore .NET Developers Community meetup.

Yes, professional working experience is great. However, continuous learning and having the ability to demonstrate one's skills through personal projects and certifications is great as well. Hence, after taking the online Azure AI training course, I decided to take the Microsoft Certificate exam, a way to verify my skills and unlock opportunities.

My Learning Journey

After I received my 2nd dose of the COVID-19 vaccination, I took a one-week leave to rest. During this period of time, every day I spent about 2-3 hours on average to go through the learning materials on Microsoft Learn.

To help us better prepared for the exam, our friendly Microsoft Learn has offered an online free learning path that we can learn at our own pace. I finished all the relevant modules within 7 days.

In addition, in order to be eligible for the free exam, I also spent another one day of my leave to attend the Microsoft Azure Virtual Training session on AI Fundamentals.

When I was going through the learning materials, I also took down important notes on Notion, which is a great tool for keeping our notes and documents, for future reference. Taking notes doesn't only help me to learn better but also provide me an easier exam revision.

Studying for exam is a time of great stress. In fact, I was also busy at work at the same time. Hence, in order to destress, everyday I will find some time to login to Genshin Impact to travel in the virtual world and enjoy the nice view.

Feeling burned out, emotionally drained, or mentally exhausted? Play games with friends to destress! (Image Source: Genshin Impact)

The Exam

The certification exam, i.e. AI-900, has five main sections, i.e.

  • AI workloads and consideration;
  • Fundamental principles of ML on Azure;
  • Computer Vision workloads on Azure;
  • Natural Language Processing (NLP) workloads on Azure;
  • Conversational AI workloads on Azure.

In total, there are 40+ questions that we must answer within 45 minutes. This makes the exam a little difficult.

Based on my experience, as long as one has common sense and fully understands the learning materials on Microsoft Learn, it's quite easy to pass the exam, which is to score at least 700 points only.

I choose to take the certification exam at NTUC Learning Hub located at Bras Basah. (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

WANNA BE Certified by Microsoft?

If you are new to Microsoft Certification and you'd like to find out more about their exams, feel free to check out the Microsoft Certifications web page.

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