From: Wayne (ccie_lab@inetiq.com)
Date: Sat Jan 27 2007 - 14:58:37 ART
Nick,
Congrats dude!!!!!!
You certainly deserve this. Looks like I am one down now, and playing catch
up ;-)
Best Regards,
Wayne
-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Griffin [mailto:nick.jon.griffin@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2007 6:26 AM
To: Cisco certification
Subject: The Road to 17381
First and foremost I want to say thank you. Thanks to the Paul for the list,
as well as the usual guys. The guys at IE, you have great products and you
are very knowledgeable, thank you. Scott Morris, thanks for answering my
questions and everyone elses. It's great that you guys are active on this
list. Anthony, your network world article help to make this CCIE thing make
sense to people that aren't familiar with it around me. It really showed
what it takes. Victor Cappuccio, genius! You will be a CCIE without a doubt,
multiple CCIE's. Thank you for motivating me, and really helping me
understand this stuff, you are no doubt a master. Sarah Kent, Dave Schulz,
Leigh Nash, Wayne Downing, and everyone else that I am forgetting. Thank
you!
I had to get my thanks out of the way, for those of you interested in what I
used to get there, please read on.
Well, it officially started about 1 year ago in January. While working
dedicated on miscellaneous Cisco products for the last 5 years I finally
decided to get serious. I booked my first attempted for March 2006, I
studied on average about 4 hours a night, at that time particularly using
NMC Do It Labs. I never did much with Frame Relay at the time, so the tricks
we are all so familiar with were kicking my butt. By my first date, I still
had issues with binary acl's, so I was nowhere near ready, but I finished
the lab and gave it my best shot. I scheduled my next attempt for May.
Preparing primarily with Internetwork Expert Labs. Again I fell short, got
hung up on some things and couldn't get past my problems. I rushed this
attempt due to projects at work knowing that unless I worked and studied
24x7 I wouldn't have much time to study. Along came miscellaneous IPT
projects, CS-Mars, Clean Access, etc etc. Stuff that makes it hard to stay
on track for the R/S. So I pretty much took a break from studies from May to
October. I began ramping up for my Dec 19th date in the beginning of
October. Aware of the Nov 13th changes I pressed on working on really
understanding switching, and how the new topology could really change
things. Trying to block out the rumors on G/S with the lab changes, and
people failing I went out for my best performance in Dec on the new format.
All I can say about the lab was wow, what a change from May to Dec! I did
well, so I stayed on top of it and booked January 26th, which happened to be
the time, try #4.
For those of you pursuing, I will say what worked for me, and echo probably
a bit what others have said. If your on a budget, which most of us are, IE
Class on Demand is a must. I went through this thing end to end at least 3
times, and other sections more than that. This was great because I could
never afford a boot camp as much as I would have liked to have gone. IE Core
workbook was great as well, I purchased this after failing my first attempt.
IE Mock lab workshop, I got a great deal on this class, I took it two weeks
before my last lab, but it sure helped to keep my speed up. This was
probably the only real labs I did end to end my last month of study. Most of
the other time was spent studying things in isolation. NMC DoIT and NMC
Checkit are great. I find NMC wording nearly as vague as the real deal, from
a difficulty standpoint these things are over the top. I learned a great
deal about redistribution from these guys. Their Check IT labs have the best
results you can get. People say you don't have to buy everything from every
vendor, but I believe it is very key to use multiple vendors. DO not get
accustomed to only one vendor, or you will be unpleasantly surprised on your
lab attempt, especially if you learn by lab. Learn to understand the
technologies.
About the actual lab I passed. When I went in this time, I went in with the
mindset I am Cisco's customer and they need to support me at least during
the $1250 bout. Over my last 3 attempts, I probably asked 6 questions in
total. They will not give you the answers, if you word it correctly they
will give you valuable feedback. By lunch time I was 90% complete with my
lab, I had completed every task by 1:35 PM. I spent the entire afternoon
verifying EVERYTHING over and over again. Reloading, TCL scripts, show
commands, anything I could think of. I even removed my "ip rcmd" commands at
the end. I answered everything I could. I got to a section where I was a bit
intimidated, so I decided to grab the things I thought of as easy. This
would give me much needed points, while also making sure if I ran into a
problem that I would battle with it for and hour or two only to realize I
still have 40 more points to complete. This comes back to having a game
plan, you have to have one to pass this thing. I also read the recent post
from Alex De Gruter on questions to proctors. This made up my mind, I was
going to clarify as much as possible. I worked through eveything I could and
went to verify. I had a list of 10-15 questions that I took up at one time
and quickly went through the list. Asking questions with their is ambigbuity
is a must. Don't be scared, go ask, it's $1250 bucks. There wasn't one thing
on this lab left un-touched. Being honest with myself, there were some
things I was about 90% sure they were right. I totaled up everything minus
these, and felt I was at 92 points. Brian Dennis gave me a great idea
regarding building this list, it's on their free COD presentation on their
site. I used this my last 2 times. It really helps if you stick with it.
In summary:
IE Class on Deman
IE Core Workbook
IE version 4.0
IE Mock Lab Workshop
NMC Do IT
NMC Check IT
NMC FR COD
CCIE Assessor
IP Expert Workbook ver 8.0
Safari online subscription, why by all those cisco books?
www.gigavelocity.com flexibile/affordable labs/ great equipment and support
www.racktimerentals.com great equipment
countless hours of study and lab time
Thanks to everyone. Don't ever give up, you will never forgive yourself.
Obtain what you desire. If you put in the time on Cisco, you deserve it.
Thanks,
Nick Griffin
CCIE 17381
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