From: Tom Larus (tlarus@cox.net)
Date: Tue Sep 03 2002 - 12:12:37 GMT-3
At the risk of bothering some people like I was bothered by those success
emails that said "I would not have wanted to try to pass this exam without
having X years of solid field experience," I think my peculiar background in
law and languages (which involved primarily legal research, analysis and
writing, not much courtroom drama) prepared me well for learning Cisco
material. From the very beginning of studying Cisco material, I have felt
right at home in a way that, say, Microsoft IIS 4.0 material did not make me
feel. Once I started studying Cisco material, it was very hard to finish
the MCSE, because Cisco material was so much more inviting.
It is obvious that Cisco developers have worked hard to make the IOS as
elegant as it can be, given the enormous number of features they have
crammed into some images. Yes, they fell short in some spots, and I don't
think the IOS is as elegant as I thought it was a year ago, but it is still
pretty elegant.
I left law because it is crowded and generally combative, and I learned just
how crowded after I left a fairly elite law job to go to live in Hong Kong
with my wife who was teaching and doing research for her PhD. there, and
returned to a very bad job market for lawyers. A great personal decision
amounted to a bad career decision, at least for a legal career.
Best wishes,
Tom Larus
----- Original Message -----
From: "Asim Khan" <asimmegawatt@yahoo.com>
To: "Abraham, Ajith" <Ajith.Abraham@FLHOSP.ORG>; "'Tom Larus'"
<tlarus@cox.net>; <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002 8:27 AM
Subject: RE: Tom Larus passed last Friday at RTP. CCIE # 10014.
> Dear Tom,
>
> Its simply great. You started with CCNA and in just 2
> 1/2 years you have attained CCIE. Could you please let
> us know as being a lawyer how much difficulty you
> faced while learning the networking concepts and
> finally what motivated you to switch from law to
> networking.
>
> Again congratulations!
>
> Asim Khan
>
>
>
> - "Abraham, Ajith" <Ajith.Abraham@FLHOSP.ORG> wrote:
> > Dear Tom:
> >
> > That is outstanding. I often think and wished folks
> > would write up a few
> > notes about what the CCIE journey was like, instead
> > of just saying thank you
> > and I have the numbers..... It is messages like
> > this that keep us on track,
> > and tell us to "shake it off, stomp it down, and to
> > rise up to the next
> > level". Thank you and God bless as you continue
> > this journey.
> >
> > Sincerely
> >
> > Ajith Abraham
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Tom Larus [mailto:tlarus@cox.net]
> > Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 2:46 PM
> > To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
> > Subject: Tom Larus passed last Friday at RTP. CCIE #
> > 10014.
> >
> >
> > I passed last Friday at RTP, and have been on
> > vacation since then. It was my
> > second attempt. I rented internet access for a
> > half-hour last Saturday to
> > find out whether I passed, but I did not want to
> > announce to the group when
> > I was not in a position to reply to congratulatory
> > emails.
> >
> > I would like to thank Paul Borghese for hosting this
> > group. The
> > collegiality of this group is one thing that makes
> > this whole field so
> > great. When the "field experience" versus "lab rat"
> > debate is as bad as it
> > gets, you know it is a a pretty collegial group.
> > And it is understandable
> > that people would be a bit insecure in this bad job
> > market. We "lab rats"
> > worry about whether there is a place for us in this
> > field, and some of the
> > guys with lots of field experience feel like their
> > field is being invaded by
> > folks who are driving down the salararies. All of
> > these concerns are real
> > and valid, and the the fact that we remain glad to
> > help each other is
> > beautiful.
> >
> > I have some thoughts on preparing for the CCIE that
> > may be helpful to some
> > people, but not to others. There is not one "best
> > approach" to CCIE
> > preparation. Each person needs to use the methods
> > that work best for him or
> > her, but I will throw out a few ideas.
> >
> > We all know that you need to read several core texts
> > very carefully, and
> > probably repeatedly (Doyle I, Halabi, Caslow &
> > Pavlichenko), but I would
> > urge you to read as broadly as you can, and to read
> > exactly what you are
> > most
> > interested in learning about at the moment. That
> > means, picking up, say,
> > Srinivas Vegesna's book on QOS, and reading a
> > chapter at random, or whatever
> > chapter covers a topic that you want to nail down
> > something about. When
> > people set
> > out to read a book cover to cover, they often find
> > themselves in a situation
> > where they are covering a lot of pages, but they are
> > not really absorbing
> > everything they are reading as well as they would if
> > they just read what the
> > wanted to read. Take the books everywhere and read
> > them every chance you
> > get. Obsession is helpful in achieving the CCIE.
> >
> > Read the IOS Docs for fun, and read them to answer
> > specific questions. Doing
> > practice scenarios should generate all kinds of
> > questions about details you
> > want to nail down. Read to answer these questions,
> > and flip through and
> > look for sections that look
> > interesting and read them.
> >
> > I knew that buying the 12.1 IOS printed docs was one
> > of the best decisions I
> > had made in this process right after I had bought
> > them. To pick up the docs
> > and read them for fun the way you would read any
> > other Cisco book gives you
> > a comfort and familiarity with the Docs that builds
> > confidence and exposes
> > you to lots of material that is not covered
> > elsewhere. The IOS docs are
> > pretty thin on IP Routing, so you cannot use them as
> > a substitute for the
> > great books on IGP routing and BGP.
> >
> > I recommend keeping a lab notebook, in which you
> > write an estimate of the
> > time you spent each day, and the most important
> > lessons you learned that
> > day. Just putting the lessons into a few coherent
> > sentences will help you
> > to
> > remember what you learned. Two hours in which you
> > learn "when configuring
> > x, you need to remember to put y under the
> > interface" can be better than
> > doing four hours of router configuration without
> > digesting what you learned.
> > I count reading separately from router
> > configuration, and I generally do not
> > count reading groupstudy at all, even though it is
> > an important activity.
> > Reading groupstudy is like a break, so I end up
> > learning even on my breaks
> > from the more intense work of router configuration.
> >
> > Following are some books that stick out in my
> > memory:
> >
> > Robert Caputo's Cisco Voice and Data Integration was
> > very well written, and
> > was very practical in approach. (I am going from
> > memory here, as I had to
> > return this book to the college library). McQuerry.
> > McGrew, and Foy's Cisco
> > Voice over Frame Relay, ATM, and IP (Cisco Press),
> > was pretty good, too.
> >
> > Parkhurst's BGP book from Cisco Press book was
> > actually fun. Yes, Halabi is
> > the master of the big picture, but this book allowed
> > me to get a real
> > feeling of comfort with Cisco's BGP syntax. (And
> > no, I do NOT consider
> > myself an expert on BGP.)
> >
> > I did not use Solie's Practical Studies all that
> > much, partly because it
> > weighs too much to be convenient to carry around and
> > read, and partly
> > because it has too many errors to be trustworthy.
> > It is the product of
> > enormous effort, and has outstanding coverage of
> > certain topics, but should
> > have gone through more rigorous proofing. Doyle
> > volume I weighed too much,
> > too,
> > but the spine broke and around 200 pages came out,
> > which made it a bit more
> > manageable. Also, Doyle volume I is practically
> > perfect.
> >
> > I strongly recommend checking out "used" books on
> > Amazon.com. I got the
> > Vegesna QOS book for a great price, and it is not an
> > old, outdated book. I
> > also got Terry Slattery's Advanced IP Routing in
> > Cisco Networks the same
> > way, and Chris Lewis's TCP/IP Reference, and
> > Parkhurst's older McGraw Hill
> > OSPF book (not his new OSPF Cisco Press book). Like
> > many books on OSPF, the
> > older Parkhurst book covers too much that is not
> > OSPF, leaving little space
> > for in-depth coverage of OSPF. Thomas Thomas' OSPF
> > Design Solutions was the
> > same way, but is still worth examining closely. I
> > would imagine that the
> > new Parkhurst OSPF book is probably great, since I
> > loved new BGP book so
> > much. I think you should buy and read liberally
> > from just about everything
> > you can get your hands on. Each book has its strong
> > areas and you can learn
> > a lot from reading (even skimming) broadly.
> >
> > If you can somehow manage it, take the NMC-1 class
> > from Caslow,
> > Pavlichenko, and Ingham. From what I have seen on
> > this list from and about
> > the brilliant Brian McGahan, I would imagine that
> > CyscoExpert is also an
> > excellent choice.
> >
> >
> > Bruce Caslow insisted that I use a more efficient
> > approach to switching
> >
> === message truncated ===
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Oct 07 2002 - 07:43:42 GMT-3