CCIE#35347

Great story! Awesome, in fact!

Also, I passed the same day, but our numbers are 108 digits apart. Are there that many a day passing?

Terry- 35347 May 1- RTP (R&S)
Jay- 35355 May 1- SJC (R&S)

Regards,
Jay McMickle- CCIE #35355 (R&S)
Sent from iJay

On May 8, 2012, at 10:12 AM, Joe Astorino <joeastorino1982_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>
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>
> _______________________________________________________________________
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Received on Tue May 08 2012 - 17:21:02 ART