Re: CCIE#35347

Congratulations on your wonderful achievement, and good luck in your new role!

On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Terry Vinson <wantmydigits_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> *Hello Everyone,*
>
> *I passed the CCIE R&S lab on May 1, 2012 at RTP, NC.*
>
> *I ve tried to write my success story about a hundred times since I got my
> pass notification for the Routing and Switching track. Each attempt,
> however, has sounded more angry than happy, which is odd because I am
> ecstatic to have passed. Not having to study anymore and having decided to
> take a week off from everything but family has given me a lot of time to
> reflect on why I get so upset when I think about the last five years. I
> made the realization last night that my anger stems from feeling like I
> wasted a lot of time, and went up a lot of blind alleys during my
> preparation. I need to put things in perspective before I explain that any
> further. I am 45 years old. I have four sons ranging in ages from 5 to 22,
> I am a self-employed consultant, and in the current economy we have been
> struggling just to get by. So in a nutshell my preparation came out of my
> own pocket and I spent way more than I should have to get where I am. I
> bought materials, in the last three years, from virtually every major
> vendor I can think of, to include Cisco 360.*
>
> *I found out about Narbik Kocharians on GroupStudy.com and contacted him
> and let him know that I was very dissatisfied with the first CCIE vendor I
> chose to use due a customers helping customers approach for guidance and
> support with the package. Narbik was very understanding and explained to me
> that he thought I had large gaps in my foundational theory. He told me that
> we could fix that together. I bought his workbook and set out to fix the
> problem. I was livid at how much I didn t know after a year and a half of
> using the first vendor. I flooded Narbik with my frustration and again he
> just let me vent and then said we can fix that too. He told me that he was
> going to have a bootcamp in Columbia, Maryland starting on Monday; this was
> Sunday and he said I could come if I wanted to. I did want to, but we
> didn t have the money to pay for a hotel. So I slept in my truck for a week
> in an arctic sleeping bag because it was winter. That sucked, but honestly
> I had slept in way worse conditions when I was a soldier. It was worth
> every second of it. I learned more in 5 days than I had in the previous
> year. The sad part was that my lab was scheduled for 15 days after the
> bootcamp and Narbik told me straight up I wasn t ready for it. That was a
> tough pill to swallow, but he was right. I didn t even come close to
> passing, but like Narbik said, you know what to expect now! *
>
> *So the next year was all about filling gaps in my knowledge, reading books
> and labs using Narbik s workbooks. In the next two years, I took Narbik s
> bootcamp again twice (at no cost and received updates for all the workbooks
> again at no cost). At the end of the last bootcamp, Narbik told me that
> he thought I was borderline ready, but I needed more lab work (I was too
> slow). I didn t know how to answer that because I had done every lab he had
> to offer half a dozen times. So ignoring his advice I again scheduled a
> lab. I failed again but I was so much closer. But I found another weakness
> that I hadn t really considered. My test taking strategy was virtually
> nonexistent; I was working and thinking too linear. That was when I met
> Anthony Sequiera.*
>
> *Anthony was not what I was expecting from a CCIE instructor, he was
> frequently talking about other things than just technology. He was bringing
> up things that affected my performance on the lab that I had honestly never
> even considered. We exchanged emails and he made me a promise. I ll help
> you get your CCIE no matter what the circumstances are or who I m working
> for. Anthony was able to open a lot of opportunities for me to learn and
> practice and was constantly offering support and advice. But at this point
> I was gun shy of the exam. I was so afraid of failing again I wasn t
> willing to test. It took a long time for Anthony to help me break down
> those barriers. But eventually we did and I scheduled the exam, this time
> it was the Version 4 exam. Anthony and I where both focused on the TS
> section, because frankly it seemed to be what most people were failing, and
> the fact that there were no real tools available to students to help them
> deal with this new lab requirement was adding to my apprehension. So rather
> than just take a wild swing we got together with the great minds over at
> IPexpert, who I should point out Narbik had recommended I use for my mock
> lab practice. Anthony and I created a tool that made sense and held up to
> the troubleshooting labs I had from all vendors the Quick Fire
> Troubleshooting Strategy. We spent countless hours discussing it, tearing
> it apart, and testing it against whatever mock troubleshooting materials we
> could find.*
>
> *Quick Fire centers around a common issues methodology combined with
> intense time management. In our opinion, the biggest problem in the
> training space at that time was that everyone talked about troubleshooting
> and even discussed how to approach troubleshooting, but nothing dealt with
> the biggest issue, which is the two-hour time limit. After getting
> comfortable using the Quick Fire Troubleshooting Strategy, we decided that
> I should schedule a lab. The good news was that the troubleshooting plan
> worked AWESOME! I knew I had 8 out of 10 tickets and was unsure about one,
> the other I did not have a clue if I solved it correctly or not. The
> outcome was not what I was hoping for, because I did not pass the
> configuration section, but Quick Fire held up perfectly. What would have
> been another blow to my ego, was actually an opportunity to retest the
> troubleshooting strategy Anthony and I developed. So I scheduled another
> lab; what would be my second attempt at the Version 4 with troubleshooting.*
>
> *During the next 30 days I didn t even really focus on the lab, but every
> so often I would do an IPexpert Volume 3 lab just to keep my speed from
> deteriorating. Come test time I was way more relaxed, had more even more
> faith in Quick Fire. I even adapted some of the methodology from the
> troubleshooting process to the configuration section of the test. In the
> end it all culminated in passing the lab and getting my digits. That s the
> long and short of it.*
>
> *In my opinion it all boils down to the fact that the CCIE exam has
> changed, it s no longer, answer all the core questions and pick up a few
> of the services and management tasks and you are golden . In my opinion,
> that test doesn t exist anymore. The new test is a broad range of topics
> that all have relatively the same weight, the concept of the core and
> fundamental reachability is there but it s no longer 70 to 75 percent of
> passing. Cisco has upped the ante in terms of the significance of these
> miscellaneous topics, and to tell students that they are not going to
> expect you to be an expert on them is an out-and-out travesty.*
>
> *It was a long expensive journey to get to the point where I had all the
> tools I needed to pass and honestly, we had to invent a few along the way
> as a result of the exam changing and maturing. Technological proficiency
> was pivotal, but having a well-considered and practiced strategy was just
> as important. That concept of strategy extends not just to the actual lab
> but also to the act of preparing for the lab. I came late in my preparation
> to IPexpert on the advice of both Narbik and Anthony, and I found just what
> I needed there. They had an honest, structured approach that addressed all
> phases of the CCIE learning process to include tools like Marko s wonderful
> audio bootcamp that was one of best knowledge sustainment tools I ve had
> the pleasure to use. But for me, the workbooks were the most impressive
> offering because by the time I found IPexpert, that was what I was looking
> for. I wanted, no I needed, multiprotocol labs that where reflective of
> what I d had come to expect to see on the exam after my failed attempts.
> Their workbooks were concise, well planned and the closest I ve seen to the
> actual exam with regard to the wording and structure of the individual
> tasks. The integration between workbooks was seamless. It wasn t a series
> of workbooks created, in a handful of weeks, by different developers with
> no clear transition. As I worked through these books I could feel my
> confidence and general understanding growing, and that process continued
> until the CCIE was just a fundamental part of that transition.*
>
> *It is important to understand that everyone learns differently and at
> different rates. But the one constant is that learning needs to be
> deliberate, and that is so much easier when the actual course instruction
> is deliberate by design. Furthermore, you need to find vendors like
> IPexpert and Micronics Training that are willing to devote themselves to
> your success.*
>
> *I am very proud to say that I am now employed writing elegant, yet
> practical and accessible texts and classes for IPexpert in the area of CCIE
> R&S. I hope I have the opportunity to provide assistance to some of you
> reading this, just as I received the assistance that I so desperately
> needed.*
>
> *For those thinking about giving up. Don't do it! The elation of success
> will completely erase the grief you felt when you didn't pass. It felt bad
> to fail but absolutely incredible to pass!*
>
>
> Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
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-- 
Regards,
Joe Astorino
CCIE #24347
http://astorinonetworks.com
"He not busy being born is busy dying" - Dylan
Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net