From: Paul Crist (pcrist@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Wed Aug 29 2001 - 13:48:35 GMT-3
Now it's my turn to write this email. Unlike many I started my journey 7
years ago with my first Cisco course. The instructor was a CCIE he was so
smart I figured I could never reach that level. I kept doing Cisco work as
part of my job. I got a job at a Cisco reseller, but they already had a high
end CCIE canidate. I got my CCNA, I was one of the first to get a CCNA. Then
I went on to CCNP, I could go on about the early CCNP tests. The high end
CCIE canidate quit to explore other opportunities, AKA 2 tries and still had
not passed the Lab test. I passed my written on 12/15/2000. When I came back
from passing the test I saw the local Cisco rep in the office and told them I
passed. They were there to tell my manager that we need to get a CCIE or we
lose our reseller status. Opportunity knocks, answer the door. The last 9
months have been spent in training, working on labs and another 40 hours a
week at my job.
How do you do it? I have a great wife, Sally and kids, Megan and MacKenzie.
I have to thank them for the support through this. When they were going on
vacation I was going to training classes, when they were doing the family
stuff I was studying. You also have to have support from your manager at
work. Thanks to everyone at WNYCS.
Materials, again I have to thank my wife, I spent alot of money on routers,
isdn simulator, switches, etc. You have to have a home lab or access to a lab
via telnet. I took some early classes with Global Knowledge, hopefully they
have changed their classes. I took ECP1 with Fred, he will answer any
question I email him, Ingham. Great course, great teacher. I took BGP at
Mentor with Rick Burts. I took the 2 day course, they have a 5 day course
coming out soon. 2 days on BGP was not enough, I am sure the 5 day course
will be great.
The test, welcome to the new format....I am a multi timer, I took the test in
June and was happy with the changes that they made. I am not going to violate
NDA so don't ask. We had 6 in lobby on day 1. RTP only has space for 5 to
start day 1. One was there a day early, he was back for day 1 the next day.
5 of us started day 1, 3 multi timers and 2 there for the first time. The 3
multi timers got to day 2, the 2 first timers got the nice try, but not enough
points. I went into day 2 with all of my points. Day 1 down not so bad I
should be good to go......Not so fast, I was so nervous on the morning of day
2 that I didn't get anything working until around 10:30. Stupid errors. One
part of the lab was not working and I asked Jeff, the greatest proctor on the
face of the earth. He came over and tried it, the router rebooted on him. He
told me that he would look at the configs and give me credit based on that.
Made it to troubleshooting with about 10 points to spare. I could not get a
link working, after all it is troubleshooting, after spending about 30 minutes
on and off on the link I when to Jeff, he looked a the config and said that it
was correct, played with the physical connections and could not get it
working. He told me to keep going and get as far as I could. I sat down and
went over the troubleshooting with Jeff, he said he wanted to go check
something....he came back with my number.
I was good to see all three of us, Tom 8080, me 8081 and Adam 8082 pass.
Thanks Paul for keeping the mailing list going, Bill, the local Cisco SE for
pushing me along, Mike my study partner, Alan, former proctor at RTP, he
taught me how to take the test and Howard, current proctor at RTP, that is why
they call it EXPERT.
Again, you need to have support from your family to do this. There were many
spots that I could have gotten off this ride, but their support kept me
going.
Thanks to all,
Paul Crist
CCIE # 8081
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