From: Scott Morris (swm@emanon.com)
Date: Fri Apr 08 2005 - 10:05:44 GMT-3
Congratulations!
Scott
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Jelle Borsje
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 3:58 AM
To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: Finally
Hej all,
In the last few days I have seen a few success stories flying around. I have
now sufficiently recovered from the shock to write my own story about it,
mostly for those who are still in pursuit after their number.
During the learning process I have often had the feeling, that is was never
going to happen, that I was simply not smart enough to obtain this
certification, that there was too much to know, etc, etc. There are probably
a few of you out there feeling the same way at times.
I passed the written exam towards the end of 2003 and after a year of
preparing for the lab exam, I finally went down to Brussels towards the end
of October last year. I didn't feel too bad about the exam after I came out,
but what I did know was that I hardly had enough time to finish the exam. It
was not completely unexpected, but a huge disappointment anyway, when I
found out that I FAILed. I worked out that I must have been around the 70%
mark... I could hardly oversee how I to proceed. I had used a lot of my time
and money on this thing, and failing at the end of november meant that I
could first sign up again in Jan. 2005. This meant, that IPv6, which I knew
nothing about yet, was to be included.
Anyway, I used December to read everything I could about IPv6, and to find
spare equipment at work to put a lab together. After the holidays I have
used every single evening practicing and configuring routers, building up to
the exam, which was scheduled for 1/4/2005. Some people a talked to thought
it was a bit over the top to choose such an exam on April Fools Day, but, I
do well on such days (Friday the 13th as well). This time, I was prepared
much better, and had a battle plan, which reminds me much of Jongsoo's,
posted a few days ago. I had worked out for myself when I had to be finished
with various topics at various stages into the exam. I was able to stick to
it... and even managed to perform better than I planned. Around lunch time I
had completed everything up and until BGP (including ISDN) and when we were
called in for lunch, I was almost halfway the security section. During
lunch, I was already working on the next section in my mind, and was not
very social (there is a time and place for everything, I guess). I managed
to completed the remainer of the exam (skipping only 4 questions) in the
next 1.5 hours after lunch. This meant, that I had 2 hours remaining to
test, verify and improve on the configurations, as well as look at the
questions I skipped (worth about 8 points). I spent an hour testing
everything I could.
Universal connectivity, NAT, the funny security features, QOS and maybe
more. HOW DIFFERENT from last time, when I just managed to get the exam
finished in time, without testing!!! The last hour I spent working on the 4
questions I skipped. I managed to come up with a solution for 2 of them,
increasing my maximum score by 6 points to 96. The last 4 points I had to
abandon. It was a good run, felt good about what I had made, but felt
unsecure after last times failure and the fact that I was not able to solve
everything. The results were on the Cisco website 3 hours later!!! A big fat
PASS showed, along with my new CCIE number. I was, and still am, on top of
the world. Shocked, happy and soooo relieved that I dont have to make the
journey again. It was the happy ending of 1.5 years of on and off
preparation.
I'm very greatful to the people that have supported and helped me. Those
people include my girlfriend, who has supported me through thick and thin.
She never complained in the last months, when I was spending all my time at
the computer, or with my nose in Cisco books. I'd like to thank all the
people on both this forum as well as the NetMasterClass forums. Lastly, I'm
very grateful to the staff of NetMasterClass, of which I have used a lot of
the materials, including the DOiT workbook (with IPv6 and 12.2T features)
and the associated AnswerKeys with the solutions. It has absolutely helped
me to get ready for the exam, and get used to the type of questions I could
expect. In the 2 weeks before the exam, I completed a lot of CHECKiT exams.
It has completely prepared me for the 8 hour exam experience. I am aware
that the performance has to be delivered by oneself (no one can do the exam
for you), but they have definately given me the structure and guidance I
needed to get to this result.
I will probably stay on my pink cloud for a bit longer, and will always
think back fondly about this experience and the helpful and kind people I
met along the way.
Thanks again! And all of you still in pursuit... keep up the good work. It
can be done!!
Greetz
Jelle Borsje
CCIE #14524
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue May 03 2005 - 07:54:55 GMT-3