Re: CCIE#35347

Congrats, enjoy : )

Regads,
CCIE #29919

2012/5/8 Tom Kosa (takosa) <takosa_at_cisco.com>

> 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.*
>
> *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!*
>
>
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>
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Received on Tue May 08 2012 - 13:33:56 ART