Re: REVIEW: Narbik's 2.0 CIERS-1 Bootcamp class

Wow.... I know he is a very good teacher .....

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:59 AM, Nate Lee <natetlee_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> Just finished up the last day of Narbik s 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 vendor s
> classes. After
> narrowing it down to Internetwork Expert and Narbik s boot camp, I
> eventually settled on Narbik s because he was going to be having one in
> Minneapolis and I could forego the travel costs. This didn t 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 didn t 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 Narbik s 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 can t 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 I m sure that everyone has heard
> the following: He doesn t use slides and uses only a whiteboard, he teaches
> and doesn t lecture, he has a different philosophy than other instructors
> towards teaching and he knows all the commands by heart. I d read it before
> in other people s write ups of his class but didn t really care if he used a
> whiteboard or not, I was here to learn IOS, and couldn t 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
> wasn t a selling point for me, but after seeing him in action with it, I m
> not looking forward to the next slide driven training I m 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 don t 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.
>
> I m sure most CCIE boot camp instructors can rattle off tons of commands
> like they were singing the alphabet. They wouldn t be very qualified if
> they couldn t. 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
> didn t 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 isn t 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 money s 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
>
>
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Received on Sat Dec 05 2009 - 01:33:33 ART