From: Michael Marran (louisemarran@bigpond.com)
Date: Tue Feb 27 2007 - 08:09:03 ART
Well done
----- Original Message -----
From: "Colm O'Leary" <co.oleary@gmail.com>
To: <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 5:31 AM
Subject: 17471
> Ladies and Gentlemen,
>
> It is with much relief and excitement that I can report that I passed the
> lab on my second attempt last Thursday in Brussels. After my first attempt
> in December, I was beginning to doubt if I could pass the lab, because on
> that occasion I felt I did well, and my results were very high, but I
> still
> failed. Thankfully my worst fears will not be realised.
>
> My history in the network game started 4 years ago when I moved from my
> position as a Windows Systems Administrator to a Network Administrator. At
> that time I had basic networking experience, and had learned a good bit of
> theory while attaining my MCSE. I had never logged onto a router before
> then. I took the ICND course with GKN and soon after did the CCNA exam.
> Shortly after I began on the road to CCNP and again with GKN I took the
> CCNP
> level Cisco course that were available at the time [BSCI, BCMSN, BCRAN, &
> CIT] and took the respective exams shortly after. My approach when
> studying
> for the CCIE written was to read up on as much theory and try and
> consolidate my learning with logging onto the routers and playing with the
> technologies. While studying for the CCIE written I covered a lot of
> wireless and decided to take the Wireless LAN Field Specialist. I have
> completely forgotten most of it now. I passed the CCIE written in November
> 2005 and started studying for the Lab in February 2006. I spent the next
> six
> months going through the individual technologies that make up the
> blueprint
> and I went through the various Cisco Press books, looking for any
> additional
> information the authors had on the individual topics and I took notes on
> everything I did. This proved invaluable for me as there is so much
> content
> to get through having your own notes outlining your observations and
> thoughts I found helpful, especially with topics that I would not
> understand, and that I would revisit weeks/months later.
>
> In July I purchased InternetworkExperts lab workbook and began building a
> rack based on their topology. I started doing their labs in August, and I
> found them very helpful. Again I took notes after each lab, and I would
> try
> and see what did I learn from that lab, and particular area, the lab
> showed,
> that I needed to brush up on. I would go an brush up on that particular
> area, before moving on. At this stage I did not worry about mastering
> time,
> techniques etc, just on content.
>
> I took 2 x 1 week courses with GKN in London in October and November.
> Apart
> from the information I picked up on the course, the real benefit was being
> able to spend all day on routers, and again at night time back at the
> hotel,
> being able to practice without any interruption from work. I had my first
> attempt on Dec 18 and when I got my results I felt that I was so close
> that
> I submitted them for a reread, which took 3 weeks to get the results of.
> So
> around Jan 10 I rescheduled for Feb 22.
>
> My approach to my second attempt was that I was not going to try and
> reinvent the wheel all over again and go and buy some other vendor's
> workbook, and be critical of my previous methods of study..that would have
> been the easy thing to do. Instead I looked at each area and I went and I
> picked out the area that sucked, the areas that I hated doing because I
> didn't quite understand them, and I could never get them to work. These
> are
> the topics that I focused on for the 5 weeks before my second attempt. I
> didn't need to brush up on timing or technique I had that nailed.
>
> I was much more relaxed the second time around. I stopped studying 2 days
> before the lab. I flew from Dublin to Brussels the day before the lab, and
> did not take any books/notes with me. The day before the lab I got up real
> early [0600] and went for a long swim. By the time I got to the hotels in
> Brussels all I wanted to do was go to bed, I was so tired. I had a good 8
> hours sleep the night before the lab and I felt that this is what kept me
> going and relaxed throughout the day and for me a good nights sleep was
> very
> important.
>
> I read the entire lab from start to finish and drew my diagrams. It is
> important to have a high level view of the lab, but I feel that it is more
> important to meet the requirements of the individual question, and ensure
> that you have the points in the bag before you move. So for each question,
> when I was configuring the routers, I just did enough configuration to
> meet
> the requirements of that particular question and avoided try to do
> two/three
> questions at once and thus save on time. I felt that this approach was
> more
> structured and when I did run into problems it made troubleshooting much
> easier. After each question I would go back and ask myself, have I met the
> requirements before I would move.
>
> On my first attempt I asked the Proctor 2 questions, the second time
> around
> I asked him at least 10-12 questions. Most of the questions were on
> perceived ambiguities I had with the wording of the question and once the
> question was asked in an intuitive way, the Proctor was very helpful.
>
> At the end I had an hour and a half left to go over my configs. I went
> through them meticulously, and to be honest I only found one mistake. So I
> guess I would not get too hung up about having loads of time left over at
> the end to verify things. Also it is important to know the DOC CD inside
> out. I spent a lot of time in the last hour just going through it and
> making
> sure that there wasn't some secondary commands that the feature I was
> implementing needed.
>
>
>
> So that is my 2 cents on the subject. I would like to thanks all of you
> who
> contributed to this list. I didn't do much postings myself, but I read all
> of your emails, with great interest. I do hope that you are all successful
> in your endeavours and that success will come soon.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Colm O'Leary
>
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