From: David Ham (ccieau@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 21:10:47 GMT-3
Congraturations...
David Ham
>From: Tarek Sabry <tsabry@houston.sns.slb.com>
>Reply-To: Tarek Sabry <tsabry@houston.sns.slb.com>
>To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
>Subject: CCIE #9402
>Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2002 05:13:16 -0500
>
>Hi
>
>I feel like writing a lot, but I promise to be brief and easy on those
>pieces of advice ;)
>
>It all started back in June 2000 with my written exam. I failed my first
>lab
>attempt the following January (2-day format), then I was totally unable to
>follow through. I changed jobs, moved, changed jobs again, and finally 4
>months ago decided to restart this process. It was tough because by that
>time the CCIE was totally out of my system. I had to isolate myself from
>everything and everyone because my only chance was to study during the
>weekends or if I get to work one day a week from home. My employer fully
>supported me. This helped. Also my 7 years of networking experience and 2
>years of Cisco hands-on contributed a lot. I went for my final shot last
>weekend and I passed.
>
>My take:
>----------
>
>- The CCIE lab is much easier and makes much more sense if you have, at the
>very least, 2 year of solid WAN hands-on experience. If you are not that
>fortunate, I dare not tell you not to pursue the cert, but expect to do
>much
>more effort and go through more frustrations while you make up for the lack
>of hands-on. Lab rats are fine with me :)
>- Try to allocate more study time for IGP and EGP because this is the core
>of the Routing and Switching blueprint. Of course much easier if you are
>already working with those technologies. All the other technologies are
>much
>more manageable.
>- Study partners. Nothing beats those technical discussions where each
>person exchanges their findings and shares their experience.
>- Rack time. If you don't have your own, make sure you have other
>arrangements. Be very familiar with the command line.
>- Text books and cert guides. Those are essential in the beginning, but you
>should not need them that much in the final phases, otherwise you have
>problems.
>- Get interactive in posting to the newsgroups rather than just read the
>posts all the time. Definitely more important if you don't have study
>partners.
>- Don't forget about staying healthy. Remember it's a full-day test. You do
>need a good energy level when you get to the Cisco lab. In fact you also
>need to maintain this energy throughout your studying. I didn't do very
>well
>on that one because my sleep got messed up really badly. Luckily it didn'y
>bite at me in my final attempt. (Thanks to Ash for this tip!).
>- Maintain your motivation level and if you fail an attempt, get back on
>track the next day if not the same day!
>
>Acknowledgements
>----------------
>
>- Thanks to Paul Borghese for this study group. It rocks!
>- Thanks to Paul Jin, Stan Zheng and Ash (from the UK). I learned a lot by
>talking to you guys.
>- Thanks to all those who took the time to write constructive advice for
>all
>the CCIE-to-be's. Each little advice counted for me! Amazing how these
>things got stuck in my head. Manny Gonzales' account of building a full
>scenrio every day in the week before the test totally overpowered me. Yes,
>all I could think of the day of the lab was "config t" also :)
>- Thanks to Kris for those amazing last minute discusions the day before
>the
>test. It was good finally meeting at the test location. Congrats for
>passing! I'm really happy we both made it.
>- Last but not least, thanks to my father for being the lead motivator for
>me and for raising the bar for success and career achievements. I could
>have
>never done it without you Dad.
>
>Time to get a life ....
>
>Good luck to all and make sure you enjoy every moment ...
>Tarek
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