Re: CCIE R&S Discouraged

Joe,

I understand your frustration and believe me, you are not alone. Being
a CCIE instructor, I face similar questions from students almost
weekly. "Why the hell am I spending so much money and time studying
when the lab can be found on Chinese/Russian/Serbian/American
websites?". It's most certainly unsettling, but I know for a fact
Cisco is taking these cheating bastards (technical term) seriously and
they are fighting real hard to stop them. Heck, even just few days ago
they made a clarification and improvement to the NDA! Also, the lab
itself is a tricky thing. I talked with some people in the program
about this subject and the protection in the lab and believe me when I
say that in the current version of the test, knowing the questions on
the lab wouldn't help you much! CCIE R&S team has a phenomenal program
manager who found a simple and VERY effective way to put an end to
this kind of cheating! Also, the lab content is changing more often
and I believe this is GOOD. Cisco is doing the right thing.

All that said, it's still discouraging when you find this kind of
thing. As others have pointed out, you SHOULD report it to Cisco! Tell
them what you found and where. Tell them you were doing a legitimate
research into the technology and you found the cheating bastards
(technical term). It may be an equivalent of spitting in their general
direction, but it will help you knowing you did the right thing!

When you are done with that, stop and thing about it for a second. Are
you in it only to get the digits, or are you in it to gain knowledge,
experience and self-respect? If you are looking for those things, then
getting the digits will come in in the end, but what you will have
gained on the journey would be MUCH more worth it then just a silly
5-digit number those cheating bastards (technical term) provide to
cheaters.

Having 2 CCIEs myself, again, trust me when I say - the feeling when
you pass on your own merit is worth every minute and every penny
spent! The feeling is FANTASTIC and it doesn't get old :-).

Take a week off the study to compose a new plan, then hit the books,
labs and bootcamps again, go to Cisco and prove them you're a true
expert, in the process ignoring those cheating bastards (technical
term)! They are NOT worth your time to even consider them.

--
Marko Milivojevic - CCIE #18427 (SP R&S)
Senior CCIE Instructor - IPexpert
On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 06:38, Joe Sanchez <marco207p_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> I wanted to send a quick email out to all of you to get your take, and to
> hopefully give me some words of wisdom.
>
> I recently took my CCIE R&S Lab exam at RTP on Nov 9, 2011; I failed and
> I'm ok with that, I knew going into the exam that I was not 100% however I
> scheduled the lab months prior, set my goals and tried to reach them before
> taking the lab. B I fell behind on a few of the goals that I set prior to
> taking the exam, but I felt I needed to go ahead and take the lab and get
> the butterflies and overall anxiety out of my system.
>
> I know what I need to do, so that my next attempt at the lab is successful,
> and I'm working on those now.
>
> So here is the part were my discouragement comes into play and really my
> overall mindset to stop studying for this exam and move on with my life, as
> we all know that studying for the CCIE takes away your life for a while.
> I've been studying for the CCIE off and on for almost 2yrs, and there have
> been a few breaks in my studies as I have family and work obligations like
> most of you all, "i digress".
>
> I came back from RTP and I had a few questions on my lab that I absolutely
> had no freakin clue, so I set out looking through the CCO Doc CD and trying
> to figure out the answers to the questions B and I read every page on this
> particular subject however, I couldn't find solutions the lab wanted. B So I
> set out in the world of google and began using search strings to find my
> answer, and what do you know I found several scenarios from people that
> were pretty close, so I modified my search string and began my
> seek-and-find again. B After searching for a few minutes more for my answer,
> up pops a website URL in Chinese that redirects me to a website that has a
> document in adobe web viewer so I think lets read this and see what I
> find. B I begin to read the document and see that it is a lab and as I
> scroll down I begin to see the network topology and physical and logical
> layout and the beginning general guideline requirements and I say to myself
> "wow, this is very familiar" as I continue reading I again say " this is
> way to close" and as I scroll down I see a topology that looks exactly like
> the topology I had on my Lab, so I stop... dig out my notebook, "they one I
> drew my LAB topology in, at the airport after my LAB exam" and I say "What
> the hell" this topology is 100% exact to my LAB in RTP and not only that
> but 100% ip addressing, vlan names and numbers, IGP AS numbers, BGP AS
> numbers, "yes" i continued to read and yes everything, again everything was
> 100% my LAB " I found the answer to my question". B So I stopped... stared
> at the wall for hmmm... a long time then said "Why" Why do I nearly kill
> myself studying trying to get these digits when people are out there
> cheating, but not only cheating but killing the reputation of a Expert
> community because they feel that if they get the Digits they can make more
> money than what they deserve. B So I went home, because I don't study at
> home as this is distraction most of them, and I asked myself the entire
> ride home to whether or not a should continue.
>
> So I suppose my Question is to the whole community here is "should we even
> continue", I've spent thousands or dollars getting equipment, labbooks,
> video's not to mention the hours, but what is the point if people are
> cheating and Employers know that people are cheating, and I've seen this
> over the last few years that some CCIE's don't have a clue.
>
> I'm frustrated, p'd off, and discouraged.
>
> I await your thoughts and reply's.
>
> Please do not email me or request that I give you the website or name of
> the company that is supplying the exact labs, as I will make you publicly
> known for asking in this email group and forums. B Really it's not worth it.
>
> Joe Sanchez (Chicago, IL)
>
>
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