From: Gary Duncanson (gary.duncanson@googlemail.com)
Date: Wed Jan 16 2008 - 07:00:57 ARST
Keith,
While I appreciate folks have their own approaches I pretty much agree. In
the beginning and for quite a while, whole scale practice labs present too
much challenge to be undertaken in 8 hour stints. There's just a LOT to
learn and rushed labs spent plundering the solutions given in workbooks just
to get it finished *in time* is false economy. Spread them out and
understand through your own research what is being asked and how the
solution given really works. Add to that the debugs and verifications as you
go along, which can teach you a lot..and you find labs take a long time to
complete in the first few months. One lab steadily picked away at on a home
rack over the course of a week is not uncommon.
I find early mornings useful and crank along pretty good at that time. A
busy day at work often leaves you very tired in the evenings. Sometimes then
a section in a lab makes perfect sense instead of beating yourself up to try
and attempt too much. There is always work the next day and more deadlines
to meet so keep your energy levels up. Ensure you get enough rest. CCIE
preparation is as you say a long term thing.
----- Original Message -----
From: "keith tokash" <ktokash@hotmail.com>
To: "David Altoft" <davidaltoft@googlemail.com>; <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 6:52 PM
Subject: RE: OT: Time off to Study
> I'm taking the two weeks prior to my lab off, and the week before those
> two is
> a boot camp. It took me about 6 months to fully come to terms with
> exactly
> how slow I'm progressing through the IE labs. I average one per week (I
> really research the hell out of the answers), with occasional labless
> weeks to
> read a book or travel for work. Once you accept (resign yourself?) that
> you
> may be doing this for the next two years you can stop can stop beating
> yourself up about taking too long. At least that's how I function. A
> CCIE
> R&S I work with told me once that the CCIE is a marathon, not a sprint,
> and
> most people fail to get there because they give up.
>
> As for not making enough progress each day, try waking up early and
> putting in
> 2-3 hours before work. I found that I can get some stuff done at night
> after
> work, but I start fading pretty quick. Fresh energy in the morning lets
> me
> pop out a section or two.
>
> It's frustrating sometimes, looking around and thinking, "is *this* as far
> as
> I've gone?" It's really easy to get down on yourself for not kicking
> enough
> ass, but the reality is the material (when taken as a whole, not
> piecemeal) is
> extremely difficult.
>
> With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and
> with
> science.
> --Carl Sagan
>
>> Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:41:07 +0000
>> From: davidaltoft@googlemail.com
>> 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
>>
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