RE: I passed

Great story and congrats. Totally agree with on the volume 1 ver4 to ver5 difference. It's a great feeling to be done :)

-ryan

-----Original Message-----
From: nobody_at_groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody_at_groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of Richard Dodson
Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 2:43 PM
To: ccielab_at_groupstudy.com
Subject: I passed

It's been several days but I don't think it's quite set in. I had
determined back in September that I wanted to be a CCIE by the summer
time. I had just finished a bicycle ride from Canada to Mexico along
the pacific coast, and needed to decide on my next challenge. I had
my CCNP, but I felt that seemed to be more about trivia than actual
networking skills. Not trying to knock that test or anything, it was
still a challenge. I just wanted more. I mainly wanted the lab
experience. So I started studying by reading the usual books that
people recommend. I took the written test in January and passed at
the bare minimum points required. Wasn't really sure that I was going
to be ready for the lab exam. Still, I had my goal so I pushed on. I
scheduled the lab exam for June 16th and stuck with that date.

I studied as much as I could, but I was having a hard time coming up
with scenarios to play with. I had printed out an extended blue print
I found, and was methodically learning each technology one by one.
Sometimes it went well, sometimes I was clueless. My 90 day limit
came up and I went ahead and paid for the lab exam, despite feeling
like I was extremely unprepared. I am an instructor, but classes
aren't necessarily full time so I would have time in between classes
to spend a lot of time studying. I had full use of the classroom and
equipment, as well. I am extremely grateful for that. I had more
than enough routers, switches, serial cables, etc to set up pretty
much any situation.

I bought IEN's lab workbook Volume I, and started going through those
labs. I went through the whole workbook, but I didn't like it. I
thought I had wasted my money but then I checked out the Version 5
PDFs and I went through all of those, and thought those were
wonderful. There were still some mistakes here and there, but for the
most part some extremely thorough explanations. On the merit of the
V5, I bought the 2nd workbook. By this time I had just over a month
left until my lab date. Still felt horribly unprepared. The month
before, I spent 8-10 hours a day, 6 days a week in front of the
equipment. I set a goal of one mock lab a day. I'd do the lab, the
next day I would grade myself, and then run over whatever subject I
messed up until I got it. Then I'd repeat. It was fun going through
the labs. I thought they were mostly well put together. Every so
often I'd get really annoyed trying to figure out a solution that
conformed to the rules given, or did not break other tasks, just to
find that on their solution it either broke a rule or broke another
task. Luckily that didn't seem to be too frequent.

A week before my lab and after finishing all of workbook vol II, I
felt that I was close but that I was missing some huge gaps with
multicast & qos. I lost use of the classroom because they needed it
to teach a class. I came home and set up dynamips. I had just
discovered the "ghostios" and "sparsemem" options and found that made
a huge difference in performance, which was good because I really
needed it. I ran through as much multicast, QoS, BGP, IP Services &
System management as I could in those last few days. Made sure I
could set up a bgp inject-map anywhich way... things of that nature.

I flew up to San Jose two days before my test. I was unfamiliar with
the area and wanted to check it out, make sure I could get there okay,
etc. I drove to Building C monday around 10 in the morning to make
sure I had it. It was a very anti-climactic experience. I asked the
lady at the desk if I was at the right place. Her answer was pretty
much "yeah, right place". At least I knew it was incredibly easy to
find, and that parking wouldn't be a hassle (for some reason I always
stress about parking). I had brought Routing TCP/IP Volume II and was
planning on reading bits about complex multicast scenarios, but
everytime I tried to read my eyes would just roll off the page.

I ended up only getting 2 hours or so of sleep monday night. Stupid
insomnia but I kinda expected it. I woke up feeling extremely tired
and determined to pass this test. I slammed a redbull in the parking
lot and walked in the lobby 45 minutes early. I was the first to
arrive. 8 other candidates eventually showed up. There was some
idle small talk about which test each of us were taking, but for the
most part everyone kinda stuck to themselves. I felt a little out of
place, I hadn't shaved in months and I'm wearing my ratty (but
horribly comfortable) baggy jeans & sweatshirt. Everyone else seemed
kinda well dressed & clean cut. Oh well, the only person I was there
to impress was whoever would be grading my lab, and as far as I know
my looks were not factored in.

The proctor came out and took us back. He was talking about how it
was "Bloomsday", but none of us knew what that meant. I just wanted
to start the test. We were separated into two groups and another
proctor told us rules, or whatever. Then said to sit down at a desk
and start going. I didn't know if we were assigned a rack or just
found one. Then I saw my name on a piece of scratch paper and figured
that was my assigned rack. I thought it was weird they didn't mention
that. Or maybe I was too nervous to understand what he was saying. I
manage to be completely clueless sometimes when I'm nervous.

I started. My panic was high. I started on the OEQs. Two seemed too
easy. A third was slightly challenging. The last question I had
typed out the right answer at first, but then had this stinging doubt
sensation and changed my answer. I realized after it was too late
that I had gotten that one incredibly wrong. So I knew that my other
three had to be right or, well... you guys know. That was slightly
stressful.

I started the lab portion. I immediately separated all the sheets and
spread everything around. I started scribbling notes on my paper. I
had all my windows open and maximized, with many notepads for some
copy & pasting, of which I did lots. I was used to the right click
button being paste in the putty & teraterm I had been using. This was
my first time with securecrt. The middle button was paste. I got
used to it quickly, though. I started going through each task
methodically. I tried to see the big picture I was putting together.
Three hours later, at lunch, I was more than halfway done.

During lunch I only picked at my food. Which is weird because I never
just pick at my food. Finally i got to go back and start. An hour or
so after lunch I had finished going through all the tasks. I spent
the next hour going over everything, and testing, making slight tweaks
along the way. Five hours into the test I felt that I was done, but
felt there must have been something I missed. So i spent another hour
going through everything again. Then I went through the documentation
to see if I could figure out some of the small little details I wasn't
sure about. Didn't have much luck with that, so I left an hour early.
 I knew I had passed the lab portion.

I knew it would all come down to the OEQs, I even knew which one. I
went back to the hotel room and looked it up, and I was 99% certain I
was right, but not 100% certain. So that meant I had to play the
waiting game. I went out to go buy a movie and a six pack of beer.
In my drained mental capabilities I somehow bought a six pack of non
alcoholic beer. So I went back to the store and got real beer (i left
a gift of non alcoholic beer for housekeeping). I was a few stress
relieving beers in when I finally got my result: pass. Spent the
next few hours on the phone with various friends & family. Most of
whom have no clue what it is that I do but are very supportive of me
anyway. I spent the next few days hanging out in San Francisco, which
ended up being mostly tiring. I'm finally back home and still not
sure what to make of the whole thing. Still hard to believe that
after all this time of such a narrow focus, it's done.

I didn't even know about this mailing list until the day I took this
test and another candidate had mentioned it. Probably a resource I
could have used, but I'm still glad I did. I hope to eventually (not
anytime soon) take the SP exam. I also just love learning in general,
and I love helping out when I can, so it will be fun to participate.

So there's my story! I would say that I'd be going to look for a
really cool job right now, but instead I'm taking my little brother on
a bicycle ride from Seattle to San Francisco. It will be a good form
of stress relief.

(I did my best to leave out *any* details of the test, but if I broke
any rules then please let me know!)

-Richard
#24589

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Received on Sat Jun 20 2009 - 14:57:10 ART