From: Scott Morris (swm@emanon.com)
Date: Tue Oct 07 2008 - 13:18:55 ART
Very well written.... And congratulations on your accomplishment!!!
Scott Morris, CCIE4 #4713, JNCIE-M #153, JNCIS-ER, CISSP, et al.
CCSI/JNCI-M/JNCI-ER
Senior CCIE Instructor
smorris@internetworkexpert.com
Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Study hard and be Eeeeviiiil......
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of Leo
Leung
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 12:06 PM
To: Cisco certification
Subject: CCIE journey raised me to become an accountable network engineer
(CCIE# 22227)
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
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