Re: The story of number #24235

Congrats! Well done.

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 12:40 AM, Tharak Abraham <tharakabraham_at_gmail.com>wrote:

> Congratz George !
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 5:56 AM, George Roman <georgeroman_at_gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I thought it will never happen....
> >
> > I started my journey in 2007 when i took my CCNP. For some reason i was
> > caught in this frustration thing that CCNP was not enough because i have
> > seen a lot of guys passing this exam and they did not have a clue.
> >
> > So i took the written in June 2007 with a very decent score. I thought to
> > myself.... how hard can the lab be?? What can they make me do that i do
> not
> > know already??
> >
> > In June, the company where i was working back then sent me to a CCIE
> > Bootcamp for two weeks in Austria at FastLane. After we started there i
> > realised that i am not even close because most of the lab requirements
> have
> > nothing to do with the best practice. I started to feel unprepaired and
> to
> > regre that i attended the bootcamp that early but on the other hand i was
> > happy that this bootcamp make me realise what i should focus on and that
> i
> > can practice for 2 weeks full time.
> > I started to work harder on the lab and i decided to take a shoot
> >
> > I did my first attempt in Dec 2007 and after the lab i had a feeling that
> > it
> > was not so bad. My score was about 70% and i have scored most of the
> tasks.
> > Ofcourse after the lab itself i thought i would have scored more and i
> > started to wander if i do not missinterpret the tasks. By far i can tell
> > you
> > that this "interpretation" fear is the most crap feeling that a candidate
> > can ever have (you do not know what you did wrong in the lab).
> > The strategy that i used back then was to read the entire lab and then
> drow
> > a diagram. It seem that this did not worked good for me...After 1 hour of
> > lab i realised that i did not even started. By reading the whole lab did
> > not
> > helped me because it didn't steak into my head. The diagram did not
> helped
> > me much either.
> >
> > The second attempt was in June 2008. After the lab, on the way to the
> hotel
> > i remembered that i forgot to do two things for two tasks, but even with
> > that i thought i would pass. The score came back in and after i
> calculated
> > i
> > was stoned (aroud 79%). My good friend Hrvoije Sostaric (a guy that i met
> > in
> > that FastLane boot camp) encouraged me to rase a reread which i did.
> > Normally this should have taken like 3 weeks but after 5 weeks i still
> did
> > not get any answer back so i asked Cisco: "what is going on there?" Few
> > days
> > after i received an email that the result is unchanged. I was complitely
> > depressed, but what could i do? The fact is a fact.
> > For this second attempt i have changed the strategy: i started to do the
> > top-buttom approach (but by analysing some of the implications for the
> > future tasks, for example if you have frame relay, then try to see what
> > protocol are you going to run there, if there is going to be
> > authentication,
> > just few things so that you do not do it twice) without any diagram. I
> felt
> > that this strategy is much better and i had lot more time.
> >
> >
> > After this i took a short break due to the fact that i got a better job
> > into
> > another country at a company which name i am afraid to tell because some
> of
> > you might consider that a blasfemy :) The guys at J encouraged me to take
> > the CCIE off of my head. So i started again...(this time since i did not
> > have my own equipments i started using Dynamips and rack rentals) I can
> > tell
> > you that it is quite interesting feeling to do both vendors at the same
> > time.
> > I started by taking my first moc lab (MOC3) from Internetwork Expert just
> > to
> > know where i am, if i forgot things or not, etc. to this one i scored
> like
> > 82 percent with very light mistakes. On the way i did another 2 Moc and 2
> > Asset labs.
> > Gys... i can tell you some of the moc labs are realy disscuraging. You
> > think
> > you did it and then BANG!! the report kicks you. Anyway the proctors at
> IE
> > are very nice persons. Because i was not sure about the score that i
> > received, I wrote them about some of the tasks which i thought that i did
> > and they helped me understood what i missinterpret.
> >
> > Now the good part. Yesturday i have been in Brusseles for the third time.
> I
> > was not scared about the lab anymore but the OEQ freak me out because the
> > paranoia is huge among the candidates.
> > I took a complete 30 minutes to answer the OEQ (at one moment the proctor
> > said that i am writting too much). I finished the lab around 14:30 i
> > reviewed it untill 16:25 (found one mistake, and i cleared up some more
> > possible missinterpretation with the proctor for some of the tasks). My
> lab
> > strategy was to go streight forward (top to buttom) but try to see the
> > implications on the future tasks also (guess what it si going to happen).
> > After i arrived home, i was very nervous because of the OEQ mainly
> because
> > of the remark that i had from the proctor. I could not sleep all night
> and
> > now, around 4 o'clock i decided to take a look and see if i have update
> > from
> > cisco. I opened.... and.... BOOM!! the number :)
> >
> >
> > Now i know that a lot of you, candidates are interesting of the material
> > that you should use for the preparation. After i went through the exam I
> > personally think that there is no need to do some extra prep if you
> really
> > study for the lab. Anyway i tell you what i did: i took the IE product i
> > did it like 1 and a half times, i took also the free IPexpert thing and i
> > went through this one two times (just to get an ideea how the questions
> > should look like and what to study). After that i started to review the
> > materials for the written. In the last 3 weeks (think of this like 3
> hours
> > per day during the week and full weekend, so if you have more time you
> > maybe
> > clear it out faster) i have used the Ciscopress and for some of the
> topics
> > that were not covered (like IPv6) i used TCP/IP 1,2.
> >
> > For the lab preparation, i would recommand you to visit IE forum, there
> are
> > a lot of good discussions about each IE lab that they have and you can
> > learn
> > a lot from the guys that are doing the same mistakes as you.
> > Also find a strategy that works for you and then during preparation use
> > only
> > that one.
> >
> > First i want to thank Good for giving me strenght to finalyze this, than
> to
> > my family and especially to my wife who supported me so much and
> encouraged
> > me all the way, my good friend Hrvoje Sostaric who encourage me all the
> > way,
> > to the proctors of IE who understood my frustration and helped me
> > understand
> > what i do wrong.
> > As for the future i am planing to take a short break and then i will go
> for
> > JNCIE.
> >
> >
> > Best regards,
> > George Roman
> > CCIE#24235 (R&S)
> > JNCIP#685 (M/T)
> > JNCIS (M/T), CCNP
> >
> >
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> >
> > _______________________________________________________________________
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>
>
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Received on Tue Apr 28 2009 - 00:49:28 ART