RE: CCIE#35347

Congrats on an amazing journey which ended well. Get some much needed
time with the family. :)

I forwarded your summary over to my wife as it demonstrates so well what
a lot of engineers go throuhg to get their number.

Regards,

-Tamas

-----Original Message-----
From: nobody_at_groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody_at_groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Terry Vinson
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2012 10:03 AM
To: ccielab_at_groupstudy.com
Subject: CCIE#35347

*Hello Everyone,*

*I passed the CCIE R&S lab on May 1, 2012 at RTP, NC.*

*Ive 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
didnt 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 didnt 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 wasnt ready for it. That was
a tough pill to swallow, but he was right. I didnt 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 Narbiks workbooks. In the next two years, I took
Narbiks 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 didnt 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 hadnt 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. Ill help you get your CCIE no matter what the circumstances
are or who Im 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 wasnt 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 didnt 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.
Thats the long and short of it.*

*In my opinion it all boils down to the fact that the CCIE exam has
changed, its 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 doesnt 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 its 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 Markos wonderful audio bootcamp that was
one of best knowledge sustainment tools Ive 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 Id had come
to expect to see on the exam after my failed attempts.
Their workbooks were concise, well planned and the closest Ive seen to
the actual exam with regard to the wording and structure of the
individual tasks. The integration between workbooks was seamless. It
wasnt 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
Received on Tue May 08 2012 - 08:58:43 ART