From: alsontra@hotmail.com
Date: Sun Mar 14 2004 - 17:04:42 GMT-3
Nick,
I for one think your opinions and experiences are welcome here. The CCIE
is an education track for me, passing the exam is not a complete measure of
your success or failure. Keep on truckin' and don't look back.
Alsontra-
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Guy" <nickguy@semaphore.com>
To: <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 9:53 AM
Subject: Failed again.
> Hello,
> I want to start by throwing out the caveat that I just failed my 5th
> attempt at the lab. Just saying that makes me feel like a complete
> idiot but it is time to start facing the fact that I am not able to nail
> this exam easily. In my own defense I have to prepare for the lab on
> top of being a Dad and husband and running a network department for a
> small, sometimes struggling company. The caveat is there because I am
> fully aware of the fact that I could be accused of being
> a little bitter. I am in the state of shock one has after failing a lab
> and still deciding if I care enough to try it again.
> One thing I would strongly recommend against is spacing out attempts
> too far. Anyway it has not worked for me.
>
> Here are some of my opinions/beefs, for what they are worth good, bad
> and ugly
>
>
> The good,
>
> It is fair to say that the effort put into my CCIE prep has widened my
> knowledge to arenas that I do not encounter very
> often in a Network Engineering/Manager job. In some circumstances that
> additional knowledge has been useful for customers.
>
>
> The proctors are awesome.
>
> If I ever move to Mexico my knowledge of ISDN will be helpful... :-)
> (sorry, could not resist)
>
>
>
>
> The bad,
>
> For $1250 air fare and prep costs I deserve more than the less than
> thorough feedback I got. 15 minutes on the phone
> with a proctor would be invaluable.
>
> I think, and it is difficult to discuss this without violating NDA, it
> is wrong to develop testing to trip people up on
> obscure gotchas. It is lazy. Also, if Cisco is concerned about the
> Microsoftization of the credential this is the kind
> of stuff that will generate paper CCIE's
>
> On a similar note, while I can buy into the notion that to some degree
> creating networks that would never exist in the real
> world might be a reasonable measure of a candidate's handle on minutiae
> I fail to see how this prepares one for running and
> or designing networks. I reminds me of taking a British driving test
> after driving in the States for a while. I had to
> learn to drive like an amateur.
>
>
> The ugly:
>
> I am beginning to feel ripped off.
>
> When I pass the test I will ban myself from configuring GSR's. and
> confine myself to making little lans and data link
> switching people's netbios.
>
> As a group I think it is important to us all to view and value the test
> as an good measure of the kind of skills necessary
> to configure Cisco's equipment for our customers. It is I feel
> important though that as customers of what I am sure is
> one of Cisco's higher margin departments, that we apply our critical
> thinking skills to giving Cisco feedback about our
> experiences. I have done this using the feedback form already but for
> any of you that have used it, it feels about as
> interactive as the Internet over cable.
>
>
> It is my hope that I will lick my wounds and develop another strategy.
> Wanted to post this while I am still pissed off.
>
> Anyway that is my .02 please do not flame me too much.
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Please help support GroupStudy by purchasing your study materials from:
> http://shop.groupstudy.com
>
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Apr 01 2004 - 08:15:21 GMT-3