From: Gary Duncanson (gary.duncanson@googlemail.com)
Date: Fri Oct 12 2007 - 09:50:48 ART
School and the IE. Apples and Oranges?
Do I want someone who can talk about string theory and beat Stephen Hawkins
in an argument when my peerings are flapping and the realtime FX trading ASP
model implementation is a few minutes behind what I would really like to do
with my dollars?
Google and the younger crowd? They called me about a job. I'm young!
----- 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: Friday, October 12, 2007 1:20 PM
Subject: RE: CCIE Lab Price Increase
> 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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