Hey everyone, 

Today I passed my Data Analyst Associate exam! 🥳🙌

I'd like to say thanks to the Databricks community. The questions that people ask and interactions I've been a part of have been invaluable. Starting tomorrow, I'll be moving onto my data engineering exam preperation 😎.

Advice I want to share based from my study experience:

1. The prep guide: https://www.databricks.com/learn/certification/data-analyst-associate reference this throughout your learning. I thought it was a great revision resource to take each question and write my thoughts/response.You can then upload your answers (with the question) to AI and get it to grade you and provide suggested changes. It's really useful to find the appropriate documentation links and then store them in a spreadsheet against the relevant question. The documentation provided by databricks is really comprehensive, I've been really impressed.

2. In terms of the learning, I'm fortunate enough to work at a business that's a Databricks Partner. This meant I had access to the Partner-Blended learning for a Data Analysis cohort. If I wasn't a partner, I'd have completed the self-paced (available in Databricks Academy): Data Analysis with Databricks. Please note, the self-paced course will soon be replaced with the following two modules.

• AI/BI for Data Analysts
• SQL Analytics on Databricks

You can also look into getting lab access for the learning. There's some deliberation here, have you got the funds? If yes, all resources are provided within the labs, with a sandbox environment to experiment and learn. You could argue the databricks free edition could facilitate alot of the learning if you create your own resource/tests but it's a time thing.

3. Practice exams. I got access to 6 practice papers. I sourced these from Udemy and I found them to be really useful! I will admit that some questions are frustrating as the answer is incorrect or there's multiple correct answers available and it's difficult to determine the correct one 😂. However, I'd say 90%+ of the questions were really useful and helped a great deal with getting exam ready, at least for me. 

Exam prep questions (set 1): https://www.udemy.com/course/databricks-certified-data-analyst-associate-mock-test-questions/ 
Exam prep questions (set 2): https://www.udemy.com/course/databricks-certified-data-analyst-associate-practice-exams-j/

4. Make sure you explore the databricks UI and get a feeling for it! Know where things roughly are & what the various UI elements/components are called.

5. Leave no stone unturned. Dig around the docs to find the answers! If not, get a discussion started on community. 

I wish you all the best! 🤞

All the best,
BS