From: nrf (noglikirf@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 11 2008 - 08:37:16 ARST
> Many managers have no idea how tough the CCIE is. But then again, can you
> blame them? Lately there seems to be an outpouring of posts on people
> passing
> the CCIE in 3, or even 2 months. How many people have completed their
> Master's degrees in two months? If it was accredited, I'll bet the answer
> is
> 0.
Actually, not only do I completely agree with you here, I'll not only call
you, but also raise you. While managers may not have any idea how tough the
CCIE is, well, let's be honest guys, how tough is it really, relative to
other credentials one could earn? Few if any people can earn a real (that
is, an accredited) master's degree in just 2-3 months, and certainly earning
a Phd in such a time frame is infeasible for all except supra-geniuses, as
even Einstein needed over a year to be awarded his. Heck, since the MIT
PhD was brought up, I know quite a few people who have been working on their
PhD's at MIT for over 6 years full-time who still haven't completed the
degree. To repeat, that's working on the degree FULL-TIME, which means they
don't have a job (in other words, earning the degree IS their job).
Honestly, how many of us would really need 6 years of full-time study in
order to pass the CCIE? Hence, while I realize that this is a discordant
position to take, the fact is, the CCIE isn't that weighty of an
accomplishment, relative to some of those other credentials.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: what severely weakens the
difficulty of the CCIE is the fact that you can simply take it over and over
and over again until you finally pass. Sure, it costs money, sure it takes
time, but nevertheless you can just keep taking the test repeatedly until
you finally get the particular set of questions that you know well. That
sort of process has no parallel in those other credential processes. For
example, take the PhD qualification exams (which don't allow you to
graduate, but merely allow you to advance to candidacy status). Almost all
respectable programs have a finite limit to the number of times you can fail
those exams, usually being 2-3 attempts, with some (harsh) programs allowing
you only ONE attempt. Once you exceed that threshold, that's it: the game
is over and you're officially and irrevocably expelled from the program.
Similarly, once you're a candidate who has submitted your thesis, you can't
just keep failing your oral defense over and over again until you finally
succeed. After a certain number of defense failures, your candidacy will be
revoked. But a CCIE "candidate" can repeatedly attempt the test with
impunity.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue Apr 01 2008 - 07:53:53 ART