From: Scott Morris (smorris@ipexpert.com)
Date: Fri Oct 12 2007 - 09:20:50 ART
Ok, so now it comes down to the whole premise that you believe the shortage
of seats is taken up by this amorphous group of people who ping-flood the
lab until passing.
Now, being that there's no preferential treatment when it comes to signing
up for lab dates, I'm interested in just how you think this group really is
causing that problem, or if you are asserting that the VAST MAJORITY of
people take it over and over and over and over until passing which is
causing the shortage of seats.
Shortsighted view IMHO. There may be people who keep taking it and keep
taking it, but if they keep paying, why would Cisco care to dissuade them?
You can only sign up for one date at a time. So someone has to take a lab,
figure out they failed and try to sign up again. How they sign up again is
the same process that everyone else goes through.
I just had a hell of a time finding a voice lab date after dropping my 10/19
date last month. I'm not given any special treatment either, nor would I
expect any. So you are attempting to solve a problem that you honestly
don't know exists, at least not in the magnitude you appear to think it
does.
So your "test seat hogs" are really no statistical variant simply from the
quantity of people trying to gain this certification. With bar exams, CPA,
CFA or others, the benefit that they have is that there are several
locations across the US (perhaps one per state, but that's a diluted pool
vs. CCIE which is worldwide) and they also sit several hundred people at a
time as opposed to the limited number of CCIE seats. So the two really are
not related in terms of solutions or in terms of problems.
I can say lots of things about my grades and such. Not the least of which
is that if I were still 22 and applying for a job, my grades would speak a
lot about my ability to follow through to a commitment and things along
those lines which is what most evaluations are done for. Now that I've been
out of college for over 15 years, chances are that I'm not the same person I
was back then, and MOST employers are simply interested that I have a BA/BS
degree to begin with.
If an employer really was that interested in having my grades, I would
inform them that while they could have them, I would be interested in
knowing what information that would think would be relevant and perhaps it
would affect my decision about whether it was a company worth working for or
not. Now, perhaps that's just me, but if anyone is going to dive into that
kind of detail and pretend to make some ongoing decision about me as a
person based on things I essentially did as a child, then I would be
concerned with what other short-sighted decisions would be made about other
things along the way.
As for Google, what you are leaving out is that they also set out to hire a
younger crowd. And with the younger crowd, the college degree/transcripts
were the best way to measure the people, their personality, their drive and
accomplishments. The CCIE is a varied age group, a varied ethnic and
socio-economic group, so it really does not apply.
Again, I'd simply reiterate, if you adjust the test itself, those not
qualified will spend more time preparing for it. Solve the problem where it
makes sense, not by trying to mimic some other process that is not anything
like the CCIE.
Scott
-----Original Message-----
From: nrf [mailto:noglikirf@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 3:58 AM
To: Scott Morris; 'Rahmlow, Howard F.'; sheherezada@gmail.com
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: "Scott Morris" <smorris@ipexpert.com>
To: "'nrf'" <noglikirf@hotmail.com>; "'Rahmlow, Howard F.'"
<Howard.F.Rahmlow@unisys.com>; <sheherezada@gmail.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 10:33 PM
Subject: RE: CCIE Lab Price Increase
> So dare I ask for for some context? How many times before you passed?
Well, how many times before you passed each of yours? Does it really
matter?
No, it doesn't. It doesn't matter how many times it took for me, and it
doesn't matter how many times it took for you. A problem is a problem no
matter who is pointing it out.
>
> If the task were simply to make less people interested, then your tack
> would likely work. If the task was to boost sales of "real labs" or
> other things like that, your tack would likely work.
First off, I don't see how my idea would make less people interested. For
example, like I said, the Bar exam places a great premium on being able to
pass the first time (mostly because you can't practice law until you pass
the Bar). Yet that fact doesn't seem to make people less interested in the
Bar. I believe there are actually more people taking the Bar today than at
any time in history.
Secondly, as far as boosting sales of 'real labs', I think we are now
confounding 2 issues, and we should keep those issues separate. The issue
of cheating is separate from the issue of guys just taking the exam over and
over again until they finally pass. As has been said by Darby Weaver,
somebody who fails the exam 20 times is probably not cheating (or, at least,
is not a good cheater). He's just a guy who doesn't believe in proper
preparation and is therefore basically just using the exam for 'practice' .
But this shouldn't be allowed, as he's hogging test seats and therefore
preventing/delaying other people from taking the test. Just like how nobody
takes the Bar exam for 'practice' (because the stakes are so high), nobody
should be trying to take the CCIE exam for practice either.
>
> If we are trying to get more highly qualified people then playing with
> pricing or punishing failure is not the answer.
>
> Adjustments to the exam/exam process are the proper path to get that
> desired result.
I am not opposed to adjusting the exam process. But even if we were to do
so, as long as there is no strong penalty for multiple attempts, then no
matter how you adjust the exam process, you would still have people taking
the exam over and over again until they finally pass.
As another case in point, you can take the SAT's as many times as you like.
But each attempt is recorded and ALL of your test scores will be sent to the
colleges to which you apply. You can't take the SAT 20 times, cherry-pick
your highest score, and send only that one to your colleges.
>
> As for some employer asking for my transcripts, I'd just tell 'em I
> was way too old for that. :) And if they had any desire to know
> about my journalism/photojournalism majors or philosophy/political
> science minor studies we could always talk about it, but whatever I
> did or did not get for grades wouldn't have any bearing on my
> capabilities as an engineer.
Well, that's nice to think that's the case. But like it or not, many
organizations out there will want to see your grades and will judge you
accordingly.
Probably the simplest example are universities themselves. For example,
let's say that you wanted to apply to a PhD program in engineering at MIT.
MIT is going to want to see your old college grades, particularly your
engineering college grades. Now, you can tell the admissions office that
your grades don't have any bearing on your capabilities as an engineer.
You can say that your many years of working in industry proves that you're a
competent engineer. You can say anything you want. But they're not going
to listen. At the end of the day, they're still going to demand to see your
grades, and they are going to admit or reject you based on your grades (and
other factors).
There are also companies out there that will also judge you on your old
college grades and consider them to be more important than your work
experience. Consider this 2003 blurb about Google.
"For the most part, it takes a degree from an Ivy League school, or MIT,
Stanford, CalTech, or Carnegie Mellon--America's top engineering
schools--even to get invited to interview. Brin and Page still keep a hand
in all the hiring, from executives to administrative assistants. And to
them, work experience counts far less than where you went to school, how you
did on your SATs, and your grade-point average. "If you've been at Cisco for
20 years, they don't want you," says an employee. "
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/12/08/355116/ind
ex.htm
Now, you might say that Google is wrong (at least, in 2003, as things may
have changed now). You can say anything you want. But, whether we like it
or not, we can't deny that there are companies out there that will judge you
on your grades.
But anyway, getting back to the point. I agree that many (perhaps most)
organizations out there won't care how many times you took to pass the CCIE;
just like how many organizations don't care very much about your college
grades, especially if you've been out in the workforce for a long time. But
some will care. You might end up wanting to apply to one of these
organizations one day. Hence, that possibility will drive you to take each
CCIE attempt more seriously. You shouldn't be using the lab for 'practice'.
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