From: Scott Morris (swm@emanon.com)
Date: Sun Jan 29 2006 - 22:06:56 GMT-3
Congratulations! And great e-mail!
Scott
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Peter McCreesh
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 5:01 PM
To: Cisco certification
Subject: Passed on Thur 26th Jan
Hi there,
Just sending out a note of thanks to all who contribute to this list. I
passed the lab on Thursday last (26th) in Brussels.
Have been doing a bit of celebrating since so thats why i'm only getting to
this now :-))
I think my biggest thank you has to go out to Globalknowledge and my
instructor in particular, Tom Lijnse, for providing the excellent training
course I attended last year.
It was the CCIE Netgun programme and it was absolutely fantastic. I would
highly recommend it to anyone and this course is a big part of the reason I
got this the first time round. I had to put in a lot of hours between course
weeks and afterwards but it laid a solid foundation to build upon and I
think, for me at least, it was the perfect way to do it. There was more
emphasis on learning the technologies than passing the lab. You can check it
out at:
http://www.globalknowledge.net/NetGun_Programme_CI_CCIE_1360.html
The Netgun programme focused on separate technologies for the most part and
then tied everything together at the end and this was the way I based my
studies after the course finished last October.
I never used any of the popular workbooks discussed on this forum (which I
thought may be something to be concerned about before the exam but that
wasn't the case) but instead, I took a technology and tried to learn the
detail behind it before completing full labs. This was a much better method
of study for me but everyone has their own way to do it.
I never did a full 8 hour lab until the week before the real thing and found
out that my strategy was completely wrong and I wasted too much time messing
around with a question worth a couple of points instead of just moving on
and coming back to it later. In order to improve my lab strategy (I had
heard people say that this is as important as knowing your stuff, I agree
100%) I booked a CheckiT lab from NMC on the weekend before the lab and
found that I still had some brushing up to do so decided to book a second
CheckiT on Tuesday 24th. NMC had no rack space left as they were all booked
up but Indy in NMC was absolutely fantastic and managed to get a rack
together specifically for me and I did the second CheckiT and was very happy
with the way it went.
I thought the CheckiT labs are a fantastic way to guage your knowledge of
the material aswell as ensuring that you have the right strategy. I found
them a massive help for the real thing as I was totally relaxed during the
real lab due to sorting out my strategy with them. Indy and the staff at NMC
couldn't have been better and I would highly recommend them.
I wanted to make sure I was a relaxed as possible for the lab so I knew that
a good night sleep the night before was key. To make sure I slept, I got the
earliest flight from Ireland to Brussels I could get which meant I had to
leave home at 3AM to head for the Airport. I was in Brussels at 10:30 AM and
by 3PM I was trying to stay awake. I went to bed at 9PM and slept better
than I had for about a year (my two young kids may have been some of the
reason for this!!) and got up at 5:30AM.
I made sure I got an excellent breakfast to put me in the right road and
headed over to Cisco at 7AM.
Met a few other guys and waited for the proctor, Eric, who I have to say was
absolutely excellent on the day. I did happen to ask "one or two" questions
on the day but Eric made sure that my questions were answered as far as he
could and this made the whole thing more relaxing too.
When the lab started, I never touched the keyboard for the first hour. I
drew out my own diagrams and made a few notes and then read the exam twice
to see which parts were linked to which. When I finished reading it I was
feeling fairly good as I though I could get through it OK if I just stuck to
my preplanned strategy.
I was a bit behind where I wanted to be at lunch but made this up during the
first hour back after lunch and finished with about and hour and a half to
spare. I rechecked things a few times and corrected a few of those silly
errors that seem to creep in from time to time and then did a bit of
additional testing to make sure the requirements of the tasks were being
met. I reloaded the kit about three times throughout the day. Once at lunch,
when I was finished after my first pass and then after the additional
checking and testing, followed by another bit of checking.
I didn't really know what to think when it was all over. I felt good about
the exam but had heard so many times of people who thought they definately
passed it, but didn't so I tried to keep myself calm without much success I
have to say. I was more nervous after the exam than I have been since I
started studying for this. Luckily I was put out of my misery at 10PM that
night. The infamous email arrived and I opened it. I then seemed to
completely forget how to use a computer as it took me about 3 minutes to log
onto the cisco site (which was a lifetime in the circumstances). The page
appeared and then I seemed to loose the ability to read as all I could see
was a fuzzy web page and then it emerged from the page. The magic number
15722. I couldn't believe it (so checked about 10 more times).
Anyway, apologies for the long email but I just want to make the point that
a study plan for this doesn't have to be the same as anyone elses, as what
works for one may not work for another.
Using the question mark on my lab at home along with the doc cd was one of
the best study aids I had. When I was configuring things that were standard
I would just start looking at options with teh question mark and then
finding out the detail on the doc cd.
This group has been absolutely excellent for me so thanks to those who ask
the questions as well as answer them.
I've rambled on a bit here but emails like this helped me along the way so I
hope it may provide some sort of help to someone.
Regards,
Pete
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