From: Jake (jakeczyz@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Apr 04 2004 - 20:08:33 GMT-3
Here here. I also agree that my 9 months of IE preparation taught me more than any job
ever had (technical material, that is), I've found that those that disrespect "school
knowledge," are sometimes just the type of people who never really excelled at school.
Jay, your post helped me to verbalize why my employer wasn't eager to put me "on the
pager" and into a mid-level role after I got my IE. When I first got it, interviewers at
other companies were impressed by the fact that I passed the lab on the first attempt
after just 9 months of study, but since I had never even touched a router or switch
outside of school, they were skeptical about my "practical" skills. [But the IE is a
hands-on exam, I would say fruitlessly...] In the end, I was forced to babysit an
extremely stable access layer at my company (zzz...) Consequently, after two years of
"experience" in this role, I have now forgotten 90% of what I learned studying for the
IE. Last month they moved me into the role that I wanted two years ago, and I'm
struggling to remember basics about OSPF and BGP, not to mention a little shaky about
having to retake the written! Moreover, it's difficult to find the motivation to hit the
books as hard as I did during that 9 month marathon. But yes, now I know the default
password on a 6513/SUP2, and I know that an OIM is the same thing as a GBIC.
I was bitter for most of these two years about all of this, as I'm sure most people on GS
would understand, since I had invested over $22 grand and considerable blood, sweat, and
tears into the effort. Now, I realize the company's perspective, and I've learned that
being humble is better than being right; still, I wonder if it all couldn't have happened
differently...
Anyway, thanks for everyone's thoughts. (Hi Tom, Brian, Peter, Tom2, and gang)
humbly,
Jake
9102
--- Tom Larus <tlarus@cox.net> wrote:
> Jay:
>
> Yours is one of the best posts on this topic I have ever read.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tom Larus
>
> > From: Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net>
> > Date: 2004/04/03 Sat AM 01:57:59 EST
> > To: trouse@cisco.com
> > CC: ccielab@groupstudy.com
> > Subject: Re: Bad Interview Experience
> >
> > On Sat, 3 Apr 2004 trouse@cisco.com wrote:
> >
> > > Thanks for sharing this story. It touches on alot of issues that many
> > > of us can probably relate to.
> > >
> > > I say all this to lead into my question: What is the equivalent
> > > experience level of a ccie? Say someone with no experience get a CCIE
> > > ( with hard work and commitment none the less ), what are they good for
> > > in your opinion? Are they not a valubable engineer?
> >
> > Absolutely. And the hard work and commitment in a lab environment is
> > a form of experience, even though not on-the-job. What such a person
> > might lack is the respect for a customer's or an employer's production
> > network.
> >
> > By this, I mean that reloading a lab router or making changes that break
> > things that you know how to fix become routine in CCIE training and
> > preparation. If you work for a stockbroker, or a bank, or the FAA in
> > air traffic control (to cite a few mild examples), this type of habit
> > can be quite counterproductive.
> >
> > With CCIE lab preparation, speed and the knowledge of not-the-best-way
> > practices are of the essence, and the traffic flowing through the network
> > is relatively light in terms of running a router out of memory or CPU if
> > configured sub-optimally. And the traffic is of little or no importance
> > or intrinsic value.
> >
> > A "lab rat" CCIE with little practical experience is certainly a valuable
> > engineer, but a prudent employer is going to want to impart some other
> > skills before turning over a production network to such a person. Such
> > a CCIE will probably excel at diagnosis and troubleshooting before gaining
> > the design and scalability planning skills needed for large, critical
> > production networks, IMHO.
> >
> > --
> > Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Administration - jay@west.net
> > WestNet: Connecting you to the planet. 805 884-6323 WB6RDV
> > NetLojix Communications, Inc. - http://www.netlojix.com/
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