From: Leo Leung (leo0430453@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Oct 07 2008 - 13:06:14 ART
Dear GS members,
I passed the lab last Wed. on Oct.1, 2008.
Before I first sat R&S lab in 2005, I had 10 years voice experience
and got my CCNA/CCNP. I was surprised with the report shown "0%" in
many sections. I asked myself did I forget to save config? Yes, I
did save; but no, I totally underestimated the lab as I studied only
from Cisco websites without taking any vendors workbooks. Then I
realized I need to change my way of thinking to look for help; you see
CCIE journey began transforming me. I got IPexpert and ccbootcamp
workbooks and found myself pretty much relied on solution guide,
meaning I was unable to perform a lab section myself and the speed was
horrible. After a long while I decided to go to bootcamp at
netmasterclass.com in early 2007 and it proved me that I was the worst
one in the class. What happened? I exhausted all my savings, when I
discussed it with my wife that only solution was to take credit card
debt that she went for a minimum wage job to pay the interest. It was
sad soon she got serious sick and went through 2 major surgeries in
2006 and followed by endless medical bills. My 7-year old son asked me
when his dream to Disneyland will become true, boy, I never have time
to bring him to local cinema even once. My heart broke as I saw his
tear in his eyes. At that particular moment an event occurred in my
journey. after a mock lab I happened to speak with Narbik over the
phone about my journey status. Immediately he sent me the whole OSPF
section material for free, offered his phone number for any questions,
but most importantly he told me that he believed my determination and
ability to accomplish this journey. I found as if he looked into my
eyes with the word of "you can do it". Since then I kept telling
myself nothing can stop me from moving forward. Then, I was quite
comfortable with his approach to complete each technology section in
its own scope before ever touching a full lab. He asked me to do
every section 4 times and make sure no question you are not aware of.
Man, I doubled that; I valued his books more than gold, no kidding.
Please, please I do not mean to devaluate any other vendor's
workbooks. It was my understanding level at early stage of the
journey did not come up to that height and different people have
different ways of learning that may be closer to one another kind of
workbook design. Another critical moment in my journey was in second
half of 2007 I found 2 study partners in the bay area, Jean-Marc
Mazzoni and Jay Jwalanaiah. We got together from netmeeting every
week to work primarily on InternetworkExpert labs and go over Jean's
very detailed notes that he worked so hard and shared with us so
selfishlessly. They sincerely pointed out that I have English
proficiency issue that needed to overcome and they made a lot of jokes
out of it, well that's one of many reasons I love CCIE program that
allows me to meet such great men that I otherwise no way to know, not
only that after they both passed the exam, they gave me their routers
and switches for free so that I was able to build a fully scaled lab
without compromise. You all know what value of such an available lab
for a candidate is.
What I am tying to say is this,if you have guts to pursue this
journey, do not drop it! for it defeats your own purpose, even if you
do, you may eventually come back, because we are engineers by nature
and we like to complete things from A to Z, why wasting time? and
Cisco is also interested in seeing how you deal with failure (no
offend to 1st time pass). I have learned to convert complaint for
compliment, appreciated failure as identification of weak areas, and
taken pain on the journey as necessary cost to pass. As world needs
CCIEs and equivalents to keep its networks up, no excuse is
acceptable. I am now glad that we took that credit card debt, because
all the skillset learned along the journey, the creditability
established in work place, the confidentiality in oneself facing
assigned projects, and the opportunity upcoming to one's reach are
much, much more weighted than this debt, that too, would be soon
disappeared as well. On the other hand you can say me primitive, but
nothing makes me more happier than being able to support my family,
especially in economic downturn.
For everyone on board, I say thank you mate. Hanging there, you'll be
CCIE one day; For all instructors including list owner I have deepest
respect for your dedication, willingness, patience and all that will
be forever our integrate part of the journey.
Leo
22227 (R&S)
P.S
Input to improve my English proficiency is greatly appreciated.
Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Nov 01 2008 - 15:35:19 ARST