From: Darby Weaver (darbyweaver@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Feb 23 2007 - 15:51:29 ART
Maybe it is just me, but as I am watching the IE CODs
there are a lot of things that I am catching this time
around (about my third time around with them more or
less) that I just somehow missed or overlooked before.
Some things, I am simply more keen to and perhaps know
what to look for since I was originally introduced the
"issues" by IE or NMC since about this time last year.
But overall, I feel like I am now a lot clearer than I
was the first time around and even by the time I went
to my first and second lab attempts.
Or maybe I am just taking a little more time to smell
the roses this year.
One things for sure, whatever I did last year, for
better or worse, helped me qualify for better (more
Cisco-centric) career opportunities this year.
Anyone else felt like this at some point in their own
journey?
I mean I recall Bruce Caslow saying things about how
things just pop up in our heads and we just start to
"get it".
Kewl feeling when the plans start to come together.
There are still things I am working on but I can see
where I am visisbly stronger this year than I was this
time last year.
I went through my self-eval from NMC last night, where
one evaluates the skills one has - a self-evaluation.
Last year, I did the survey and I came up with about
55% - Strange enough almost all of my graded labs
averaged out to 54-61% - with the 57 bing the number.
I did it last night, and now it appears my
self-evaluation is now 81% or so.
Now this is number is just gathered from how one
gauges their own ability on each topic area and
somehow NMC has devised a mathematical formula to
compute a percentage based on one's answers.
But, I think I find this little trick refreshing.
Also it is a nice little checklist that helps one
figure out where he/she may still have areas for
improvement.
It goes something like NONE (No experience) to EXPERT.
There are 4 values per topic and seem to be a fair
estimation of one's skill familiarity of one is honest
to one's own self while marking them.
I thought it odd how this little self-eval seemed to
be right on the money with where I actually was and
where I actually tended to be scoring in real life on
graded labs.
Now as I am gearing up to meet Mr. Heinz Ulm and try
my luck at his graded Mock Labs, I am hoping to gain
some ground on my weakest areas.
If I were say a 55 last May or June or so...
I'm hoping to be closer to an actual 80 or so by now.
Hopefully, I am not too disappointed with my studies
and my level of actual achievement gained thus far.
But also recall, I am specifically trying to close the
gaps on a few things I simply did not understand, or
rushed through, or failed to complete before.
Being able to complete my Golden Moment confidently
meant a lot to me and now cornering QoS and Multicast
mean quite a bit to me as well.
There have been other topics that were sore for me,
and I've been nailing them as well. Literally one by
one.
I must commend the Brians for their work on
Spanning-Tree on the current set of IE CODs -
amazingly clear examples that one can try at home.
Love the "reverse Z". The work they did with HSRP and
Port Security is very nice as well. It was probably
as good before, but maybe I did not quite appreciate
the intricacy of it all at the time.
I actually implemented HSRP and Port Security and so I
could definately appreciate the thorough lecture with
CLI examples. And the same for Spanning Tree and the
Order of Operations for Path/Port selection. My
coworker and I recently had to contend with RST issues
with Foundry and so this topic was fresh and the
lecture and CLI examples burned away any remaining
cobwebs.
Good job guys...
Overall - don't be afraid to revisit topics if you do
not totally understand something - or better yet when
you actually think you do understand a given topic.
Later...
Darby
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Mar 01 2007 - 07:38:48 ART