From: Weidong Xiao (Weidong.Xiao@vi.net)
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 05:24:38 GMT-3
Congratulations! This is one of the top 10 advices that I saved.
Weidong
np/dp, css1
-----Original Message-----
From: Jean-Francois Vaillancourt [mailto:hans@cam.org]
Sent: 22 June 2003 00:46
To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: CCIE 11874 - and some reflexions on the nature of the beast
Hi guys,
I passed last thursday in RTP. It was a pretty long journey, I guess fairly
representative judging from the posts I've been reading here those last
several months. So, I won't elaborate too much on my background or the
resources I used: no bootcamps, built & used my own rack, borrowed a 3550,
broke the spines off the standard books, and practiced a lot, mostly my own
labs and variations on a few commercial ones. I'll instead try and focus on
a few more psychological and process-related aspects.
1) When are you ready?
One of the questions that kept bugging me is, how do I know I am ready? I
tried last summer, and failed. I felt I was shaky, but had a chance. Well,
that's not good enough. Trust me, when you are ready, you know. Towards the
end of my practice, I started feeling a kind of quiet confidence grow, a
bit like those crystals out of high-school chemistry experiments. That was
the knowledge settling, you sort of integrate all that you have been
reading over the previous months and years. When you read the OSPF chapter
in Doyle, and you feel like you are reading a letter from an old friend,
and you go hm-hm -- you are ready. When you read the questions in this
forum, and for most of them you can think of a couple answers, you are
ready. The exam is definitely not about knowing the fancy tricks you see
popping here all the time. You simply need to master the well known core
subjects, and be very comfortable with the doc CD. If you can quickly build
a stable network, you will most definitely have time to look up the weird
stuff and check your work. Also, most of the fancy tricks won't be once you
have mastered the core :-)
2) Master your fears.
All of us have subjects we like better, and some we dislike. I realised for
one that I was pretty stong on routing, but feared getting VoIP, QoS, and
multicast. One of the most important things I did was to get down in the
dirt, and force myself to face those subjects. Once I knew them more, my
confidence started growing, and again trust me having that confidence is
simply essential. Once you are ready, there should not be a single subject
on the blueprint that makes you squirm, or think "I wish I won't get hit
with that". Call it serendipity, but I for instance discovered that after
all, multicast is quite interesting...
3) Dig deep.
This whole CCIE thing is a great occasion to structure knowledge, fill the
holes, and temper the intellectual scalpels with which you will dissect new
networking challenges. Don't waste your time looking for quick answers, in
this mailing list for instance. You got a doubt? Research it, lab it up,
and organise your findings in your notebook. This is how you will learn the
most. BTW one of the great resources here is Alex Zinin's book. Get it. You
will for instance be amazed how much more there is to static routes than
you thought :-)
4) Learn to manage time and stress
Most people seldom need to maintain concentration for more than a couple of
hours. Even in university, exams typically last less than 3 hours. Our work
is typically done in bursts, interspersed by meetings, phone calls, etc.
So, you must deliberately practice keeping your wits together for hours on
end, taming that rising feeling of panic when something doesn't work or you
get confused. That is why hands-on practice on whole-day labs is so
important. You must know how long it takes to perform the usual tasks, and
keep track of your time and questions. Based on the questions here, I think
many folks put way too much emphasis on the fancy stuff (remember that FRTS
thread? TCLSH ping scripts? :-), when they would be much better served
building mental stamina, practicing the less exotic, meat and potatoes core
stuff. In other words, KISS.
So, that's it for now, long enough a post as it is. Outta the gopher hole
for me. Cheers from Quibec, land of the poutine and beautiful wild women :-)
Jean-Francois
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