From: Tony Dubiel (tdubiel@ccbootcamp.com)
Date: Sat Jun 02 2007 - 23:21:25 ART
Charles,
That was an excellent write-up!!!!
Best Regards,
Tony Dubiel
Technical Instructor, CCIE#10844, CCSP, CISSP, AWLFS/DS (wireless)
Cisco Technical Solutions Specialist (TSS)
240-882-4304 Cell
Network Learning Inc - A Cisco Sponsored Organization (SO)YES! We take Cisco
Learning credits!
________________________________
From: nobody@groupstudy.com on behalf of CharlesB
Sent: Sat 6/2/2007 11:40 AM
To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: PART II: May 31st, I passed # 18076 at San Jose
This is the second part of my original email I posted a couple days ago.
The following was my recipe to get my CCIE #.
Reading materials I used:
Routing TCP/IP vol I, and vol II, Jeff Doyle
Cisco LAN Switching, Kennedy Clark
BGP Design and Implementation, Randy Zhang
Cisco QoS Exam Certification Guide, Wendell Odom
Developing IP Multicast Networks, Beau Williamson
Cisco Univercd. I spent a lot of hours on this one, in addition to the
above.
And lot of online reading.
Workbook:
Internetwork Expert Ver 3, Vol I and Vol II. I used IE mostly. I have done
all the labs, 2 or 3 times. Some labs even more.
Internetwork Expert technology specific labs, very, very valuable last mile
push I got there.
Netmaster Class. A couple of labs, multiple times.
Training:
No bootcamp, I did take Advance QoS class. (CCIE specific, I am excluding
other courses I took, MPLS, Cisco GWGK etc.).
Racktime:
Racktimerentals.com: more than 30-35 sessions I made, until I built my own
and made additional 40-50 extra sessions on my rack.
Time table:
I committed myself to passing the lab since June 1st, 2006. I passed the lab
May 31st, 2007. I made 3 attempts between Dec. 2006 and May 2007.
Last year I thought I would finish it in 6 months, but between jobs and
projects and studying it took a full year.
Hours:
I cannot tell you how many hours exactly, but with a quick calculation, all
the lab hours/sessions and reading I have done, I would say I spent 2000
hours minimum.
GroupStudy Emails:
I have read probably more than 5000 emails.
Experience:
I worked on many different projects from nationwide DSLs, ATM PNNIs, Frame
relay, Wireless, Sonet backbones to dial up network deployments with
extensive Radius and PPP technologies, and many more projects including
firewall and vpn technologies. I worked mostly for ISPs and work on large
enterprise contracts.
CCIE lab experiences:
1st attempt: Dec 2006:
I got in huge trouble with the 4-switch setup. I was about to go through a
nervous breakdown. At lunchtime, I was still in the first sections, doing
the switching part. I just could not believe it. I went to lunch, could not
eat anything, I am sure I looked like a dead man walking.
I started to think of not coming back in the lab, but I knew I had lot of
knowledge for the other sections. So, I just swallowed a couple bites of a
pizza slice and went back to the lab.
I keep saying to myself, this is the time to test myself, no matter what
happens I wanted to use the time and test my knowledge.
When the proctor said time up, I had only one section to do. I knew I failed
terribly.
But from this horrible experience, I took it to be the worst it could be and
still did not lose my head.
During the lab, I went to the proctor at least 10 times and checked the
doccd more than 10 times.
2nd attempt: Jan 2007:
This time I finished the lab 3:30PM, checked mostly everything (no debugs,
no extensive testing). When I left the lab, I was thinking I really did it
this time.
But when I was driving to the airport, I started to have doubts, I started
to ask myself: Did they mean this? Did I put that there? May be I should
have done it the other way, Did I check that? So, when I came home I had
huge doubts.
Of course, the next morning the result was a fail again.
Actually, after second time, I felt much worse than the first knock out
session I got with Cisco. Before the second attempt, I was thinking that I
felt like I was on top of my game. This was more discouraging than the first
try.
I could not take the lab the following 4 months; I had a big set back,
emotional ups and downs.
During the lab, I went back to proctor 3 times, and checked the doccd 5
times.
3rd attempt: May 31st:
In April, the company (ISP - telco PSTN ) I was working got in financial
trouble. We knew there was going to be a huge lay off, and it was coming. I
took it as positive sign, and I said, if I get laid off, I will stay home
and do another round with Cisco.
I had unfinished business. As I was suspecting, the company went bankrupt
and I got laid off May 1st without any benefits. But, I kept studying for
the lab.
I was finishing the IE labs in 5 hours, doing lots of testing and debugs
and corrections in 8 hours tops. So, I started to feel that I was even
better prepared than the second attempt.
So, I finished the actual lab at 4PM, kind of little later than I was
expecting, but I was going slowly and double checking everything. The last
one hour I went through all my notes and 50% of the lab and I found 2
mistakes probably worth around 5 points, and time was up. I could have felt
better if I could have checked on the remaining.
During the lab, I used localized small diagrams for each task rather than
trying to make a whole new diagram.
Basically, I used big circles on the paper I had. I put 2 to 3
routers/switches in there, showing all the tasks that needed to be
accomplished to meet the requirements. I took notes around the circle, doing
the calculations, and planning, arrows showing directions, tricks needs to
be watched etc.
I also used a lot of notepad to put the detailed configs after the planning,
then all that was left was to copy and paste and check everything.
During the lab I used a fair amount of debugs, and other tools as was showed
in the IE lab solutions.
This time, I went to see the proctor only once to ask for additional paper,
and checked the doccd 3-4 times for the commands and features I could not
remember how to apply.
Actually I had questions about 3 to 4 areas in the lab, but I kept saying
the answers have to be here in the folders, in the cofigs somewhere. Instead
of asking, I concentrated on understanding the task, and kept reading the
question over and over again.
Well long story short, the third time was the charm.
Please feel free to take out of the write up what works for you, and leave
the rest as my faults, mistakes, short coming, my nature and my own unique
life experiences.
What am I planning to do next?
I am already trying to figure out what it takes to get ready for the Service
Provider lab very soon:::::::)))))))))
-----Original Message-----
From: CharlesB [mailto:cbalik@adelphia.net]
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 2:21 AM
To: 'ccielab@groupstudy.com'
Subject: May 31st, I passed # 18076 at San Jose
Guys, I just cannot tell you how happy I am right now. In short all I can
say, no pain no gain, at least that is how I felt during the last eleven
months of prep work.
This was my third attempt in last 6 months.
I will tell you more once I pulled myself together later.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sun Jul 01 2007 - 17:24:46 ART