From: Gary Duncanson (gary.duncanson@googlemail.com)
Date: Fri Oct 12 2007 - 07:41:54 ART
We are all reasonable people here. Some people dump the written exam. Others
take labslots like a revolving door until they pass. I think that's been
happening for as long as the program existed. Some people post questions on
groupstudy that break NDA. People who study diligently do find themselves
struggling to get the lab slot they have worked hard to prepare for.
I think the problems are pretty well understood, what is less clear is how
best to resolve them without penalising Joe Soap who is working his nuts off
to get his number. For example, some people rattle out 5 lab attempts in
short order to pass the lab. Other's don't..
I have a friend called Peter who I have not heard from in years who I
swapped email with on groupstudy back in 2002. He had a buck stops here job
running a colocation facility for his company providing hosted solutions to
many customers. Peter was a very busy man working a stressful job that took
him away from his family five days and nights a week. Getting the CCIE was
his ticket to getting a decent paid job closer to home so he could spend
time with his family and small children. Peter studied after work when he
could and if you have run infrastructure yourself you will understand that
after some days he was probably pretty exhausted. No courses, no training
and no time on works time for the IE. You must be joking. He (like a lot
of people) studied for the CCIE in the evenings on and off for the best part
of three years and passed at his fifth attempt. He now has a job nearer
home and good luck to him. I don't think *everyone* would penalise Peter if
his 5 attempts were made public, but given the fickle way the recruitment
business works with it's screening policies, one can never know for sure.
----- Original Message -----
From: "nrf" <noglikirf@hotmail.com>
To: "Darby Weaver" <darbyweaver@yahoo.com>; "Usankin, Andrew"
<Andrew.Usankin@twtelecom.com>; "Rahmlow, Howard F."
<Howard.F.Rahmlow@unisys.com>; <sheherezada@gmail.com>; "Scott Morris"
<smorris@ipexpert.com>
Cc: "Burkett, Michael" <Michael.Burkett@c-a-m.com>; "Brad Ellis"
<brad@ccbootcamp.com>; "Christopher M. Heffner"
<cheffner@certified-labs.com>; "Eric Dobyns" <eric_dobyns@yahoo.com>; "Brian
Dennis" <bdennis@internetworkexpert.com>; <ccielab@groupstudy.com>;
<security@groupstudy.com>; <comserv@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 10:29 AM
Subject: Re: CCIE Lab Price Increase
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Darby Weaver" <darbyweaver@yahoo.com>
> To: "nrf" <noglikirf@hotmail.com>; "Usankin, Andrew"
> <Andrew.Usankin@twtelecom.com>; "Rahmlow, Howard F."
> <Howard.F.Rahmlow@unisys.com>; <sheherezada@gmail.com>; "Scott Morris"
> <smorris@ipexpert.com>
> Cc: "Burkett, Michael" <Michael.Burkett@c-a-m.com>; "Brad Ellis"
> <brad@ccbootcamp.com>; "Christopher M. Heffner"
> <cheffner@certified-labs.com>; "Eric Dobyns" <eric_dobyns@yahoo.com>;
> "Brian Dennis" <bdennis@internetworkexpert.com>; <ccielab@groupstudy.com>;
> <security@groupstudy.com>; <comserv@groupstudy.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 12:03 AM
> Subject: Re: CCIE Lab Price Increase
>
>
>> Let's just cut the number to if you at first you fail,
>> then in your coffin we hammer the nail...
>>
>> One shot pass or fail.
>>
>> That ought to do it.
>>
>> Little or no chance of exams leaks and you only get
>> one shot at the title.
>
>
> I know you're being facetious, but the truth is, such systems do exist in
> the real world.
>
> For example, consider the act of applying to college (not grad school, but
> college specifically). I will use Princeton as an example, and you'll see
> why later. Let's say Princeton is your dream school for undergraduate
> studies. You effectively only get one shot at getting into Princeton.
> You apply during your high school senior year. If you don't get in,
> that's basically the end of the ballgame. Now, I suppose in theory, you
> could just wait a whole 'nother year, not going to any other college
> during the interm, and just apply again during the next application cycle.
> But the truth is, nobody actually does that. If you don't get in, that's
> the end.
>
> Now, the reason I specifically chose Princeton is because of the issue of
> transfer admissions. The fact is, Princeton has not admitted any transfer
> students in many years, and transfer admissions would effectively
> constitute a "2nd shot". Many schools do admit transfers, but Princeton
> hasn't for a very long time. Hence, Princeton basically only gives you
> one shot.
>
> Perhaps another more relevant example would be the simple act of getting
> the job you want at the organization you want. Let's face it. For many
> jobs, you can't just simply apply and interview over and over again every
> month. If you apply/interview for a particular job and do poorly such that
> you get turned down, that's basically the end of the game. You're
> probably never going to get that job with that organization.. If that
> happened to be your dream job, too bad.
>
> Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that Cisco should allow people
> to take the CCIE exam only once. What I am saying is that right now there
> are people who are not taking their lab attempts seriously. They know they
> can just keep coming back every month, and so they know they don't have to
> take their early attempts seriously. That's a problem that should be
> solved. One way to solve the problem (or at least make it better) is to
> actually publish how many attempts you required before you finally passed.
>
> Don't get me wrong. I don't really blame those particular people for
> taking the exam over and over again without bothering to properly prepare
> themselves. They're just doing what the system allows them to do. I
> blame the system for enforcing no sanctions on that sort of behavior.
>
>>
>>
>> And there would be seats - BTW - If you are a no-show,
>> it is considered a fail and that's it (short of if you
>> like died in transit or something...).
>>
>> Now that means only about 18000 x.03 = 540 CCIE's but
>> hey, why in the world would anyone in the world need
>> 540 living and breathing CCIE's anyway...
>>
>> Tell you what: the stock on those 540 CCIE's would be
>> worth their weight in Cisco Partner Gold.
>>
>> Truth is, if Cisco wanted to put a limit on the number
>> of attempts, they would have done so by now.
>>
>> They could cap it at 3 or 4 depending on the average -
>> figuring if you cannot pass past the average number of
>> attempts, maybe a CCNP is what you should be and
>> that's it, or let you go try the JNCIE instead maybe.
>>
>> Man you know it is getting late...
>>
>> Later
>>
>> This is really a useless thread. Keeps one's eyes
>> from going blind on the CLI.
>>
>> Anyone else missing work... and going crazy?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --- nrf <noglikirf@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Well, at least we can agree that X should be no less
>>> than 20. Actually, I
>>> believe that we can say that X should be no less
>>> than 10. After all, does
>>> anybody truly believe that it's perfectly fine to
>>> fail the test 10 times?
>>>
>>> Hence, if nothing else, we can at least set the X
>>> threshold to be 20 (or
>>> 10). I think there would be little argument about
>>> that. Hence, if nothing
>>> else, it's still an improvement over what we have
>>> today (which is no
>>> threshold at all).
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Usankin, Andrew"
>>> <Andrew.Usankin@twtelecom.com>
>>> To: "nrf" <noglikirf@hotmail.com>; "Rahmlow, Howard
>>> F."
>>> <Howard.F.Rahmlow@unisys.com>;
>>> <sheherezada@gmail.com>; "Scott Morris"
>>> <smorris@ipexpert.com>
>>> Cc: "Burkett, Michael" <Michael.Burkett@c-a-m.com>;
>>> "Brad Ellis"
>>> <brad@ccbootcamp.com>; "Christopher M. Heffner"
>>> <cheffner@certified-labs.com>; "Eric Dobyns"
>>> <eric_dobyns@yahoo.com>; "Brian
>>> Dennis" <bdennis@internetworkexpert.com>;
>>> <ccielab@groupstudy.com>;
>>> <security@groupstudy.com>; <comserv@groupstudy.com>
>>> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:04 PM
>>> Subject: RE: CCIE Lab Price Increase
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Well, couldn't agree more. 20 attempts is probably
>>> out of range :) But
>>> as you said before here comes the question - how
>>> many is OK?
>>> Actually I don't mind at all if my scores and
>>> attempts are available to
>>> general public, and from the other hand I'd
>>> understand other people who
>>> doesn't want publicity. In my opinion, lack of
>>> information leads to
>>> speculation. But that is a different discussion.
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: nrf [mailto:noglikirf@hotmail.com]
>>> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 6:34 PM
>>> To: Usankin, Andrew; Rahmlow, Howard F.;
>>> sheherezada@gmail.com; Scott
>>> Morris
>>> Cc: Burkett, Michael; Brad Ellis; Christopher M.
>>> Heffner; Eric Dobyns;
>>> Brian Dennis; ccielab@groupstudy.com;
>>> security@groupstudy.com;
>>> comserv@groupstudy.com
>>> Subject: Re: CCIE Lab Price Increase
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Usankin, Andrew"
>>> <Andrew.Usankin@twtelecom.com>
>>> To: "nrf" <noglikirf@hotmail.com>; "Rahmlow, Howard
>>> F."
>>> <Howard.F.Rahmlow@unisys.com>;
>>> <sheherezada@gmail.com>; "Scott Morris"
>>> <smorris@ipexpert.com>
>>> Cc: "Burkett, Michael" <Michael.Burkett@c-a-m.com>;
>>> "Brad Ellis"
>>> <brad@ccbootcamp.com>; "Christopher M. Heffner"
>>> <cheffner@certified-labs.com>; "Eric Dobyns"
>>> <eric_dobyns@yahoo.com>;
>>> "Brian Dennis" <bdennis@internetworkexpert.com>;
>>> <ccielab@groupstudy.com>; <security@groupstudy.com>;
>>> <comserv@groupstudy.com>
>>> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:52 PM
>>> Subject: RE: CCIE Lab Price Increase
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> >I read somewhere, sorry if I mess it up, but I
>>> liked the following
>>> >phrase:
>>> >"when a class of medical students graduate even a
>>> last one is called a
>>> >doctor"
>>>
>>> And of course the rejoinder to that (with apologies
>>> to those who have
>>> heard me say it before) is that if you graduate last
>>> in your med school
>>> class, you probably won't pass your required USMLE's
>>> to get your medical
>>> license and hence you won't be allowed to legally
>>> practice medicine,
>>> which is the whole point in becoming a doctor in the
>>> first place. In
>>> contrast, anybody can legally 'practice' IT (and I
>>> think I have met some
>>> network guys who need to 'practice' their skills a
>>> whole lot more before
>>> they should ever be allowed anywhere near a router).
>>>
>>> >So would you have to choose between two CCIE's then
>>> yes, that would be
>>> >cool to know how many attempts it took from each
>>> one to pass the lab.
>>> >But that is not the case in reality. Nobody usually
>>> gets to choose
>>> >between two CCIE :) unless you have a very
>>> attractive offer to show!
>>>
>>> I don't know about that. I have known of companies
>>> that have had
>>> numerous CCIE's applying, and the offers they were
>>> providing were really
>>> not that good.
>>>
>>> >Besides, it doesn't matter to me if it will take 15
>>> attempts from Jeff
>>> >Brunner before he gets his number. At the end of
>>> the day all that
>>> >matters is your CCIE number and amount of
>>> experience you have. And
>>> >don't be surprised if at some places nobody would
>>> care if you have CCIE
>>>
>>> >or not and all they look for is your experience.
>>>
>>> Well, let me put it to you this way. What if you
>>> looked up guy who had
>>> his CCIE and found out that he failed 20 times
>>> before he finally passed?
>>> I don't know about you, but I would certainly begin
>>> to question this
>>> guy's
>>> professionalism. If nothing else, that signal
>>> would tell me that this
>>> is a
>>> guy who evidently doesn't believe in proper
>>> preparation. Would you
>>> really want a guy like that on your team? I would
>>> have my qualms.
>>> After all, he might show up to work on a project
>>> without being properly
>>> prepared.
>>>
>>> Look, failing a few times is probably no big deal.
>>> But after a certain
>>> number of failures, I think we can agree that things
>>> are just getting
>>> out of hand. We can debate what that exact number
>>> would be, but I think
>>> we can all agree that 20 (or even 10) is probably
>>> too much.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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