From: Brian Dennis (bdennis@internetworkexpert.com)
Date: Wed Jan 16 2008 - 02:13:56 ARST
David,
If you have to choose between a bootcamp or taking off from work for two
months to study I would recommend taking the time off. At the end of the
day there is no substitute for getting hands-on experience doing labs and
with all of the self-paced classes (CoDs) out there you can still get most
if not nearly all of the live bootcamp experience. On top of that I would
be surprised if you can't get nearly 100% of any questions you have
answered here on GS.
Personally when I prepare for a lab I'll go "off line" a few weeks prior
to my lab date. By off line I mean very limited email, phone, chat or
even Internet access. Before starting to study I make sure I have
everything I need downloaded and then disconnect from the Internet. For
off line DocCD access you can either buy the documentation DVD from Cisco
or use something like HTTracker to download the sections of the DocCD you
want for off line viewing.
You will also need to make a study schedule and stick with it. If you are
married you should share this schedule with your spouse. Every night
before going to bed look over your schedule for the next day and make sure
that everything is ready to go for when you start back up in the morning
(rack cleaned up, labs printed out, etc).
HTH,
Brian Dennis, CCIE4 #2210 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/SP)
bdennis@internetworkexpert.com
Internetwork Expert, Inc.
http://www.InternetworkExpert.com
Toll Free: 877-224-8987
Direct: 1-775-544-1653 (Outside the US and Canada)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
> David Altoft
> Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 1:41 PM
> To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
> Subject: OT: Time off to Study
>
> Hi,
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts/experiences on taking time off work to study?
> I am contemplating taking 2 months off work to study, though I am yet to
> approach my employer. I'm not sure whether it would be an effective use of
> time or whether I would burn out after a few weeks of constant study. The
> other option is that I use the money that I would have lost by not working
> and spend it on a bootcamp, though realistically being at the beginning of
> my study rather than towards the end, I'm not sure how beneficial a
bootcamp
> would be. I have the IE work book and CoD so I would rather spend the time
> working through those and doing some labs.
>
> I am aware of the financial impact that this will have but I am finding
that
> there aren't enough hours in the day to make serious headway in the
material
> that I need to cover for the lab. I can imagine that most people in this
> group are suffering the same time scheduling problems and wanted to hear
> from anyone that has taken time off to study and whether they found it
> useful or not.
>
> Thanks,
> David
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Fri Feb 01 2008 - 10:38:00 ARST