From: Scott Morris (smorris@ipexpert.com)
Date: Fri Oct 12 2007 - 10:10:37 ART
Since we're talking about colleges and their policies... Not all of them
make sense (although it's a policy nonetheless).
Way back when... When I applied to college, Indiana Univeristy was one of
my choices (no, I can't remember why, but it was) and I was rejected by them
simply because I was not in the top 25% of my class.
The details didn't matter that I had almost a 4.0, or that my graduating
class of 144 people was the most academically accomplished that school had
ever seen, or all the AP classes/exams or anything else. It was simply a
checkbox they had from the plethora of applications they had coming in.
In the long run, I think it was much better, as I ended up at a much better
college (who was bright enough to look at more items than simply a checkbox
like that).
Colleges have guidelines much like companies do. No doubt about that. The
number of college applications received versus open spots is very much akin
to how many resumes/applications a company gets for any open position. But
if someone simply has a checkbox to fill (did this person take the CCIE lab
more than 'x' number of times) they are really not looking at the whole
picture.
I certainly don't have any hard feelings against IU. I just think it was a
stupid reason for making a decision like that.
Getting a job is often like a sales technique on the side of those people
who really want a particular job. How you write your resume, how you
present yourself, all of those things. If you want to boil this all down to
a checkbox format, what is it going to help? Just delaying being at the
same place.
Anyway... IHMO, this conversation isn't really going anyplace. I think
enough people have been inconvenienced. You have your opinion, I have mine,
and I believe we have both stated our points about why the other isn't
seeing things right. :)
Cheers,
Scott Morris, CCIE4 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/Service Provider) #4713, JNCIE-M
#153, CISSP, et al.
CCSI/JNCI-M/JNCI-ER
VP - Technical Training - IPexpert, Inc.
IPexpert Sr. Technical Instructor
A Cisco Learning Partner - We Accept Learning Credits!
smorris@ipexpert.com
Telephone: +1.810.326.1444
Fax: +1.810.454.0130
http://www.ipexpert.com
-----Original Message-----
From: nrf [mailto:noglikirf@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 5:30 AM
To: Darby Weaver; 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: "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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