From: Darby Weaver (darbyweaver@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Feb 18 2007 - 01:22:19 ART
I still live in Orlando, and I think that by the time
I paid for travel, hotel, lost wages or vacation time,
etc. just to audit one day's class, for more than one
or two vendors it would not be the best use of my
time...
But, on the other hand if I could go to say the DC or
Las Vegas area and take one day with each vendor (2-3
vendors) and we could add GK to the list providing
they were offering a class in and or around the same
time...
Then by "auditing" 3-6 days... if I kept good notes,
I might not need a bootcamp as much anymore.
Assuming I got a good spread of the topics.
I still think it is a lot of trouble, when so much
about each vendor is available remotely.
I think mostly each vendor has some type of COD/VOD
snippet that a potential student can watch to get a
feel for things.
Also, guys like the brians for sure offer a one-day
"audit" of their 2 week classes online.
I did that with them myself once to ensure I'd feel
comfortable with the experience.
It made a customer out of me then and would likely do
so now.
I still recommend their offerings and have nothing but
to speak about them.
For NMC, I went to them but did not audit before I
went, but I had read Caslow/Pavlichecnko and had read
a wealth of comments from Bruce and when I got their I
Fred was not teaching and I got Bob Sinclair for
free... :)
Bob is the most down-to-earth guy who really brings
topics home. He does not talk down to students and
works with a student to resolve a problem even when he
might have just covered it (thanks again, Bob). Total
professional.
Val watches everything like a hawk, and when a student
needed help or if he saw anyone needing help he would
quielty approach them and get right to the meat of the
matter every single time. Val could very well be a
machine - and people say this of me all the time,
since my life is my career.
Bruce went through everything and never failed to take
a moment on breaks, lunches, etc. to have a word with
a student, address concerns on the lectures and was
able to take topics as complex as QoS, and go through
each command and subcommand one-by-one, with practical
exercises filled with show, debug, and whiteboards
each minute detail of the entire operation.
NMC has a staff who mantained the gear and ran the
first line scripts and actively corrected errors or
omissions immediately during the entire presentation.
The overall score was 5 or 5 stars.
With the Brians, they covered a lot of topics as it
was online, I could not see them but their voices were
crisp and clear and their examples were easy to
follow. Recall I used the COD for 2 week portion
which is excellent for breaking into tasks. I could
compare and contrast discussions with some of what was
covered by NMC, but I won't, at least not here. I
will say that they opened my eyes to a lot of little
items and they are extremely thorough throughout their
materials and provide an excellent foundation to build
on even more thorough studies. Again 5 of 5 stars.
I'll tell you guys about Heinz Ulm's Mock Labs next
month.
NMC CheckIT Labs were, in my opinion, the most complex
I have seen to date. The only issues I had that I
think might be better for a student is the grading, it
seemed to me to be more non-standardized and left room
for interpretation. What I mean here is that tasks
are not graded in block but instead in section i.e BGP
= 15 points. And from there it is not as clear what
the breakdown was. Aside from this NMC-2 covered
mostly every topic in the blue print and was well
delivered. The CheckIT Labs best feature is the
ability to relive your labs over and over again with
the customized ShowIT engine - SECOND-TO-NONE...
There just is not anything I have seen like it. It
allows you to test each config in a CLI-Like
envirnment and even search all of a given set of labs
for mostly anything. This is TOTALLY AWESOME. BTW -
You get access to this with your Workbook and if you
take graded labs. WORTH THE PRICE.
IE Mock Labs - I thought these were graded very near
to how I would imagine the actual labs to be graded.
The diffoculty is very much on par with the real lab
so, as far as I have seen so far these are the most
"real-lab-like" labs. However, I was disappointed by
my own performance on one lab since at least one L2
task was asked and since I wanted to truly gauge my
performance tried to limit myself to the UNIVERCD
could not come upon the correct answer. I think this
was unfair but that aside, the Brians did a very good
show. One of the BEST items I love about their Mock
Labs is that while they do not have the CheckIT
engine, they actually made COD's (Video) detailing and
discussing every single aspect of each of their Mock
Labs - HOW KEWL IS THAT - So anytime I want to relive
the lab I did, I simply use my browser and start from
scratch and listen/watch as the Brians flawlessly
tackle each lab step-by-step. Now this is really,
really kewl.
I'll probably still make it Brad/Narbik and Scott's
offerings before I complete my journey or
afterwards...
I was interested in speaking to CyscoExperts as well
as I understood their program was focused on helping
each student with his/her weaknesses. And for me, I
still have a few and am working them out and might
benefit from a week or two in Chicago.
So...
I want to add a note about NLI, since I have not yet
perused their Mock Labs or been to their camp, but I
have been taking advantage of their workbooks - they
do an awesome job with the sheer number and creativity
that they have infused into their workbooks. I read
them - literally cover to cover - anytime I can. The
same can be said for the Golden Labs I bought from
them. And yes, although one might think it redundant,
I even read their 12.2 Solutions guides from back in
the day... Again - I took one to lunch just now -
the orange book.
Having been to some of the offerings, I just shared
some tidbits - each vendor has some very, very awesome
offerings.
So choosing one was hard for me (OK - Caslow was one
of the first books I read byond Roosevelt Giles), so
it is always hard trying to simply pick one.
I hear good things about Scott Morris (one of my
friends sat his class 3 times and was and probably is
still on good terms with Scott - he had nothing but
good to say and was very impressed) and I've heard
about quite a few other places as well by now - some
may be of the same caliber as what we have seen in the
CORE-4 vendors, but overall, these guys are the best
for a reason.
So... do take time and try to pick carefully, but int
he meantime use the resources available to you that
are there and by all means verify with show and debug
and use the doc cd... even when it may appear to be
wrong... Test it for yourself. You are going to be
the expert... How?
--- Narbik Kocharians <narbikk@gmail.com> wrote:
> I did not say that you can audit the entire 5 days
> of boot camp, obviously
> no one will allow that, but i think you should know
> within few hours if you
> like the boot camp, here is what I would do:
>
>
>
> X How are the lectures conducted? Is every
> thing in the blue print
> covered?
>
> X How long has the instructor been around? Did
> he just get his CCIE
> yesterday and now he is teaching a CCIE class, how
> long has he been
> teaching?
>
> X Are they teaching you to pass, or are they
> teaching you the stuff?
>
> X How is the instructor explaining some of the
> difficult issues, does
> he/she just go over them, or does the instructor
> explain the entire thing.
>
> X Talk to the students and i mean every one of
> them to see if they are
> all happy. Ask the students what they would change
> in the boot camp, that
> way you will know the weak points.
>
> X Why do the students like the instructor? That
> way you will know the
> strong points.
>
> X Is the instructor answering all the
> questions, helping them with the
> labs, do they have lab problems (Equipments and
> etc).
>
> X How is the staff (If there is one)?
>
> X Do they have a separate work book for the
> boot camp? Or are they just
> covering what you can purchase online?
>
> X Are you paying 4000 5000 for a slide show?
> Or maybe you paid 4
> 5000 and did not get slide show. My personal opinion
> is that if the
> instructor does not have the ability to getup in
> front of students and
> perform a thorough chuck talk without slide show,
> that instructor should
> start teaching A+ or even a CCNA class, but then
> again that's my opinion, an
> instructor should engage every student in the
> lecture and pump the students
> boost their confidence and so forth.
>
>
>
> That's what i am talking about. Please do not
> misunderstand me, I am not
> recommending that you should definitely go with
> www.ccbootcamp.com just
> because I am teaching there, understand that I will
> get paid with or without
> you, and the firms that I mentioned are fantastic in
> what they are offering
> as well, you are talking about the top few in the
> world, it's just some
> times you just don't click with the staff or the
> instructor, and I would
> definitely like to know before I pay the money and
> waste my week there and
> get frustrated.
>
>
>
>
> On 2/17/07, Tim <ccie2be@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> >
> > Narbik,
> >
> > If a person can audit a class for free, why would
> anyone pay to take the
> > class?
> >
> > Tim
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: nobody@groupstudy.com
> [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
> > Narbik Kocharians
> > Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 5:10 PM
> > To: Darby Weaver
> > Cc: saurabh khera; ccielab@groupstudy.com
> > Subject: Re: Startup for CCIE (R& S) LA
> >
> > I only have one recommendation:
> > If you can, you should audit major vendors boot
> camp and then YOU decide
> > who
> > you should go with, i must add they are all great:
> ccbootcamp.com,
> > IPexpert,
> > Netmaster and internetwork expert.
> > If a vendor does not allow you to audit, i would
> not go with them.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 2/15/07, Darby Weaver <darbyweaver@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Saurabh,
> > >
> > > Welcome to Groupstudy's CCIE List.
> > >
> > > I'll assume you have passed the CCIE Written
> Exam, and
> > > if so have a certain familiarity with most
> topics that
> > > are on the lab.
> > >
> > > 1. Go to cisco.com/go/ccie and take a look
> around
> > > there - you will find the CCIE Lab Outline among
> other
> > > things.
> > >
> > > 2. If you decide to go with a vendor, there are
> > > several and since you got this far, you probably
> are
> > > quite proficient with using search tools - this
> forum
> > > has answered this question at least hundred if
> not a
> > > thousand times already and the answers have not
> really
> > > changed that much over the years and no matter
> how
> > > many times asked.
> > >
> > > I will tell you that currently, I myself have
> had good
> > > experience with all vendor workbooks (yep - I
> have
> > > used them all if nothing else than for
> additional
> > > reading material), and I am going to instead
> point you
> > > to another direction - first.
> > >
> > > Not that you cannot just totally blow me off and
> think
> > > I am a bit insane for suggesting you actually
> read the
> > > books, do some real exrecises, and gain
> additional
> > > insight before asking the vendors to simply fill
> your
> > > head with concepts, terms, tips, tricks and
> valuable
> > > advice that you are probably not yet ready to
> > > comprehend yet. And no offense is intended -
> none at
> > > all.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Since you are new, go to lulu.com and search for
> CCIE,
> > > you will find Tom Larus, he offers a free guide
> to the
> > > CCIE Lab. It is dated and is not quite up to
> date,
> > > but you owe it to yourself to have a look and it
> is
> > > free so it won't hurt to look.
> > >
> > > Here is the specific link:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?_shopSearch=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lulu.com%
> >
> >
>
2Fbrowse%2Fsearch.php&_helpSearch=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lulu.com%2Fhelp%2Fsearch.
> >
> >
>
php&_forumSearch=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lulu.com%2Fforums%2Fsearch.php%3Fmode%3Dre
> >
> >
>
sults&search_forum=-1&search_cat=2&show_results=topics&return_chars=200&sear
> > ch_keywords=&keys=&fSearch=ccie&fSearchFamily=0
>
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