From: Perminder Grewal (percy_gunner@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Oct 29 2002 - 12:29:35 GMT-3
Well it is finally over; I passed on the 28th October in Brussels on my
second attempt.
First of all I want to thank my wife and my kids putting up with me for last
18 months on this incredible journey and also my transatlantic friends
during this process Bruce, Val and Fred at http://www.netmasterclass.net.
without you guys, it would of taken me a few more attempts and all the
agonies to go with it. Big thank-you to my cousins Darsh and Dault for
putting me up in D.C. and shipping me back and forth to class and trying to
make me relax a bit. Also a big thank-you to my brother-in-law Bob Chahal
#8223 in keeping me motivated, I now know what you went through and also to
my colleagues in Colin and James at Cable and Wireless allowing me to borrow
kit from the labs to practice at home. Thank-you to Paul for this great
forum, there are some great thinkers on this site and long may it continue.
I have been working in the Telco business for 13 years the last 6 years as
Principal engineer 2nd line technical support and embarked on the
certification track in September 1999 obtaining my CCNA & CCDA, from that
day I knew I wanted to work in the IP arena and involved myself in the
development of Voip product for C&W. From then on it was a learning curve
keeping up with new technologies and also studying on and obtaining my
CCNP by November 2000. Last year I decided to embark on the CCIE program, I
thought long and hard as knew it would take away a large chunk my family and
social life up and also hit me financially as I was paying for this program
out of my own pocket.
I passed the written in July 2001 and then started the hard studying on 1st
October last year. I read till my eyes bled, some real painful nights
walking through treacle on subjects like switching, dlsw and multicasting. I
ate and slept Cisco till February and it was then I realised I was not ready
for my date in April. I pushed the date back till May. Re-defined my study
plan as I felt I had no study plan so I decided to take the NMC1 class in
Washington and that gave me my road map that I needed. The class is geared
for your success; I chose this class due to the book written by Bruce and
Val Cisco Certification Bridges, routers and switches for CCIEs. If they
can write a technical book you enjoy and can understand, then there class
must portray that. I was not disappointed; Bruces teaching energy is
immense, Fred excellent on DLSW and Multicasting at a nice slow pace
(especially for me) and Val in the background answering any question thrown
at him in a professional manner. From that class I found out my weakness and
worked on them till my lab date at the end of May, which I failed.
I was glad I did the lab but disappointed as I knew I could have done
better. I took the month of June watching the World Cup. During that month I
worked on my strategy for my re-take in October which are as follows:
1) You have to know EVERTHING and KNOW it well
2) Work on speed
3) To find obscure stuff on the Doc CD
I went back to basics bought the BGP and OSPF Parkhurst command reference
book and also Cisco QoS by Syngress and worked on that in July. Took a
family holiday in August, again taking my books with me for the umpteenth
time and reading them on the beach. I suppose this is part of the CCIE
animal in us.
When I got back I had 8 weeks till my lab date and had the opportunity to
attend the NMC2 class on 16th September. This class tuned me up and pushed
me over the line. Having 4 well worked 1-day lab scenarios. I was able to
use Bruce, Fred and Val as my proctors for those labs and put my points to
them as I did to the proctor yesterday. I cannot STRESS enough that batting
ideas with your fellow students in class is the best training you can have
due to everyone being at the same level.
This improved my confidence and when I got back I worked on the ipexpert
labs version book 3. The last 10 to 12 labs were good, however they have an
8 router lab and I was able to do the labs in about six hours, so I knew my
speed had picked up in thinking and typing. Then I would spend 1 hour a
day looking at the Doc CD using the CCIE power session/blueprint as the
template . You dont have to know everything on the CD only what is on the
blueprint. At the weekends I would do the NMC2 labs at home one each weekend
prior to lab date. On my final week I worked on stuff I dont like traffic
shaping, QoS , multicasting etc . I bought Beau Williamson book on
multicasting and mastered the subject. So there we have it I was tuned up
and ready to take the test.
I nearly did not make the lab, we had bad storms in the north of Europe and
my flight was cancelled in the afternoon, I made the last flight out to
Brussels and what a white knuckle flight that was.
During the lab I read the whole lab once made a drawing which took me about
30 mins. Then the panic set in, can you believe I could not get my
frame-relay to ping each other, I was typing the wrong ip add on the map
statements. I told my self to calm down, you have done this in your sleep
before, so I slowed up and started to cut and paste the configs as would at
home router by router, first for layer 2 to 3 mapping and then my IGP. I
back in the race swiftly and by 3:00 pm was finished. I could not get one
part of my lab to work so I decided to leave it till the end as was only
worth 2 points. I went through my configs and clawed back 10-12 points on
typos and other stuff. At 4:30 I had another attempt on the lost 2 points,
got a blank sheet of paper and worked out scenario. Thought hard as I did
this NMC2 and finally the penny dropped it was in. With 45 minutes to go I
checked my work again and used the CD to verify some obscure commands. By
now I knew my way round the CD Bang Bang like the back of my hand. The
proctor was great he answered my questions well.
I flew home and sat with my daughter at the PC we both clicked on the mouse
and opened outlook and there it was, my CONGRATS mail. In that moment all
those days and nights of hard work, the disappointment of failing 1st time,
the stress the financial costs I incurred were gone, it was worth it. This
has been the hardest thing I have done in my life and I am proud of my
number.
To all of you keep working hard. I have seen people come and go on this
study forum. Victory is sweet and it will come.
Percy
#10604
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