From: John Crawford (john.m.crawford@googlemail.com)
Date: Mon Mar 20 2006 - 14:15:54 GMT-3
Hi All
As a regular reader of this forum one of the things I have benefited
from most are independent reviews of CCIE products/classes, etc.
Hopefully this might be of use to anyone considering a trip to CXP.
I spent two weeks at CyscoExpert last month and passed R&S the
following week (thankfully!) on my first attempt. I had already
attended the 3 week Heinz Ulm bootcamp last year (as a kick-off to my
CCIE preparation) and was using CXP for fine-tuning.
However from what I experienced/observed you could really use CXP at
any stage of your preparation as there was no set teaching-style and
all exercises/lectures were per-student.
For the two weeks I worked consistently with the same tutor (Bahram)
who is absolutely excellent and a very nice guy. He was able to spot
the weaknesses I had in topics I actually thought I was good at!
On the final day we spent all afternoon just on a whiteboard together
with Bahram pushing me one last time on all those weaker topics to a
level which to be honest was probably way above what is needed for
R&S. I left Chicago believing I could pass.
It's really hard to review CXP as I think every persons experience
there will be different. The student:teacher ratio was always 1:1. I
never had to wait to get Bahram to help me. Any exercises were marked
and discussed together as soon as I was ready which was great.
One thing I enjoyed was that the atmosphere was very relaxed and
well-paced so even at the end of two weeks I didn't feel overly tired
(well, not until the long travel back to Ireland!) and Naren gave me
the brilliant advice to just do nothing until my lab the following
week. So my last weeks preparation was plenty of long walks, sleep,
and a few pints of Guinness with my friends!
I really reckon you can't underestimate the power of taking a break. I
learned this by taking (the excellent IE) Mock Lab one weekend while
at CXP (instead of resting as advised!) and I just performed abysmally
on it! It really dented my confidence which thankfully CXP restored in
time for the real thing.
Anyhow hope this helps anyone pursuing R&S/Security and sorry for the long post!
John Crawford
CCIE #15870
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