REVIEW: Narbik's 2.0 CIERS-1 Bootcamp class

Just finished up the last day of Narbiks CIERS-1 boot camp and wanted to do
a write up on it while the experience was still fresh in my mind. Sorry if
I get a bit long winded, I hope some of you who may be looking into his
class find this to be helpful.

I had been looking for a Routing and Switching boot camp to attend in order
to polish my skills and help prepare me for my lab date coming up in March.
With no dearth of choices, I looked online for reviews and asked questions
in forums to other candidates who have attended various vendors
classes. After
narrowing it down to Internetwork Expert and Narbiks boot camp, I
eventually settled on Narbiks because he was going to be having one in
Minneapolis and I could forego the travel costs. This didnt work out as
there was not enough demand in MN so the class was cancelled. Although they
offered me a refund, I was impressed with the personal attention I had
received from Narbik on the mock labs I was working on so I decided to stick
with his class. The fact that his class was costs around 50% less when you
figure in the workbooks certainly didnt hurt either. When you are paying
out of your own pocket, every little bit helps J They sent out the new
workbooks he has been producing which I found to be extremely well designed
and thought out. I also purchased the IE Volume I workbook but prefer the
formatting and explanations of Narbiks so I have been focusing on them up
to now. Each lab is setup perfectly to illustrate a particular technology
from many different angles. The workbooks contain very thorough
explanations and verifications each step along the way and focus on
individual technologies one lab at a time.

Enough with the prologue, onto the class..

I arrived in Glendale via the Burbank airport the day before class and after
waiting an hour for the hotel shuttle to appear, made it to the Hilton where
he holds the classes. The hotel is in a very nice part of town and the rate
was decent enough for a nice hotel ($129/night). I grabbed a bite to eat
and went to bed early to get a jump start on the next day. Word to the wise
 skip the $10 optional add on breakfast buffet - the food there is
terrible. I cant believe people normally pay $20 for that when there are
some decent alternatives within a block of the hotel.

Narbik showed up promptly at 9 and introduced himself to us. He seemed like
a nice guy, very outgoing and friendly. He got unpacked and readied his
infamous whiteboards and markers. By now Im sure that everyone has heard
the following: He doesnt use slides and uses only a whiteboard, he teaches
and doesnt lecture, he has a different philosophy than other instructors
towards teaching and he knows all the commands by heart. Id read it before
in other peoples write ups of his class but didnt really care if he used a
whiteboard or not, I was here to learn IOS, and couldnt have really cared
less as to whether or not he drew on a board, in fact, it almost sounded
gimmicky to me.

After the introductions, he gave us an overview of what we were going to be
studying and then went right at it. It took about 15 minutes for my
preconception of what makes for a good learning experience to be completely
blown away. The guy is born to teach. He is concise and articulates
complex ideas in such a way that ensures everyone understands the problems
and all the possible solutions within each blueprint topic. Not only do you
hear what tactics to use, but where and why you would or would not use each
option. He really draws you into the class and makes you excited to learn;
never once during the week did I feel bored in class, he really kept the
wheels in your head turning the whole time.

When it comes to the whiteboard, like I previously stated, it certainly
wasnt a selling point for me, but after seeing him in action with it, Im
not looking forward to the next slide driven training Im sure I will
eventually have to attend. Got a what if question about the current
topology being discussed? BAM! Within 3 seconds, he has redrawn it to
illustrate and answer to your question as well as explain the all important
why? behind the answer. This is something you simply dont get with
PowerPoint decks and really enhanced his ability to go into detail and
clarify questions from the class. The whiteboard may not sound like much,
but in his hands it was an invaluable tool to convey ideas in a far more
interactive and dynamic fashion than I was used to. The class was about
60/40 lecture to lab time which I found to be a good balance that allowed me
to take in a bunch of information and then work on some labs to let it all
soak in before jumping into the next topic.

Im sure most CCIE boot camp instructors can rattle off tons of commands
like they were singing the alphabet. They wouldnt be very qualified if
they couldnt. Narbik has that down pat, but on top of that, he really
raised the bar for what I perceive a great teacher to be. Narbik takes each
topic, breaks it down into well thought out, logically arranged parcels and
explains it in an understandable manner without having to resort to dumbing
the material down. On top of that, the entire week the guy never once
looked at a slide or opened his laptop to pull up a router or switch. He
did it all on the white board. From his head. Every single topic. It
didnt hit me what a difficult task this would be to pull off in an
effective manner until the second day when I realized that runs the entire
class without any sort of written syllabus in front of him. Somehow he
manages to do this freeform thing while still keeping the class very
structured. You never thought he was rambling or meandering when he spoke,
it was always very to the point. It just seemed like second nature for him
to be teaching the material. He really knows every command, every option,
and every flag in every header inside and out. More than once during the
week he started writing out the potential values of a header field or the
results of an obscure show command and everyone in the class just stared
with a look of disbelief that he was doing it all from memory. You would
check it on your laptop and sure as shit he had it nailed spot on every
time. He isnt rattling them off just to show off his knowledge either; it
is always integrated into the class in a way that the theory and the
configuration flow together as a single idea. You never felt like you were
being overwhelmed by a vast array of archaic commands because he always
showed the practical use for them.

The final thing that stood out to me as we were leaving on the last day was
that he made sure that we all knew that he considered the class to be the
beginning of an ongoing relationship until we get our numbers and reassured
everyone that he was just an email away if we had problems with the labs in
the workbooks. The guy even gave *everyone* in the class his cell phone
number on the first day in case there were issues while we were doing labs
outside the classroom time during the week. I can certainly say that I have
never had an instructor do that before.

Overall, I walked away feeling like a much stronger candidate that got much
more than my moneys worth out of the class. I feel focused, re-energized
and even excited to hit the books and labs regardless of whatever new
foreboding news passes through groupstudy regarding V4. I plan to study
hard until March and then re-sit the class he is doing outside of San Jose
(no charge of course) the week of my lab to re-blast my brain with all the
knowledge I can before I hit the real deal.

The worst part of the class is that it is in sunny southern California. I
now have to head back to a well below freezing Minneapolis. Good study
weather though, right?

Nate

Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
Received on Fri Dec 04 2009 - 23:59:33 ART