r/AWS_Certified_Experts

I passed the AWS AI Practitioner exam about a month ago, and now I’m confused about what to prepare for next.

I was planning to go for the Machine Learning Associate certification next month because I’m interested in AI/ML, but one of my faculty members suggested that I should do Solutions Architect first since it’s the “core” certification and gives a much stronger foundation.

For context, I’m a CS student and currently exploring cloud + AI together. I don’t want to make the wrong choice in terms of learning path and career value.

So I wanted to ask:

• Should I go for AWS Solutions Architect Associate first or Machine Learning Associate?
• Which one helped you more in internships/jobs/projects?
• Is ML Associate manageable without deep cloud architecture knowledge?
• What topics/resources should I focus on for each exam?

Would really appreciate advice from people who’ve done either (or both) certifications.

My exam is on May 21 and I honestly didn’t prepare properly. I know some basics like S3, EC2, RDS, IAM and SQS/SNS, but I don't feel confident at all.

I just bought Tutorials Dojo practice exams and now I’m planning to spend the next 2 days doing practice tests, reviewing wrong answers and focusing only on weak topics.

Right now I’m stressed because I feel like I wasted my exam money. Has anyone here been in a similar situation and still managed to pass with only 2 or 3 days of serious prep?

Please be honest. I’m not looking for fake motivation. I just want realistic advice.

I’ll come back on May 21 and update if I passed or got destroyed 😅

note:
I already rescheduled this exam 2 times. On the same day, I thought I would just reschedule it again later, but then I found out there’s a limit and you can only reschedule it twice.

Has anyone had issues with Pearson OnVUE not detecting the webcam during AWS exams?

I had my AWS SAA exam today and everything worked fine outside the app my webcam works normally in the Camera app but OnVUE kept failing the video/webcam check-in.

I closed all apps, restarted the laptop, enabled camera permissions, and even retried multiple times, but it still failed and forced me to reschedule.

Is this a common OnVUE issue or is there something specific that usually causes it?