From: Nick Shah (nshah@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 20:42:00 GMT-3
Congratulations...
Nick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tarek Sabry" <tsabry@houston.sns.slb.com>
To: <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 8:13 PM
Subject: CCIE #9402
> Hi
>
> I feel like writing a lot, but I promise to be brief and easy on those
> pieces of advice ;)
>
> It all started back in June 2000 with my written exam. I failed my first
lab
> attempt the following January (2-day format), then I was totally unable to
> follow through. I changed jobs, moved, changed jobs again, and finally 4
> months ago decided to restart this process. It was tough because by that
> time the CCIE was totally out of my system. I had to isolate myself from
> everything and everyone because my only chance was to study during the
> weekends or if I get to work one day a week from home. My employer fully
> supported me. This helped. Also my 7 years of networking experience and 2
> years of Cisco hands-on contributed a lot. I went for my final shot last
> weekend and I passed.
>
> My take:
> ----------
>
> - The CCIE lab is much easier and makes much more sense if you have, at
the
> very least, 2 year of solid WAN hands-on experience. If you are not that
> fortunate, I dare not tell you not to pursue the cert, but expect to do
much
> more effort and go through more frustrations while you make up for the
lack
> of hands-on. Lab rats are fine with me :)
> - Try to allocate more study time for IGP and EGP because this is the core
> of the Routing and Switching blueprint. Of course much easier if you are
> already working with those technologies. All the other technologies are
much
> more manageable.
> - Study partners. Nothing beats those technical discussions where each
> person exchanges their findings and shares their experience.
> - Rack time. If you don't have your own, make sure you have other
> arrangements. Be very familiar with the command line.
> - Text books and cert guides. Those are essential in the beginning, but
you
> should not need them that much in the final phases, otherwise you have
> problems.
> - Get interactive in posting to the newsgroups rather than just read the
> posts all the time. Definitely more important if you don't have study
> partners.
> - Don't forget about staying healthy. Remember it's a full-day test. You
do
> need a good energy level when you get to the Cisco lab. In fact you also
> need to maintain this energy throughout your studying. I didn't do very
well
> on that one because my sleep got messed up really badly. Luckily it didn'y
> bite at me in my final attempt. (Thanks to Ash for this tip!).
> - Maintain your motivation level and if you fail an attempt, get back on
> track the next day if not the same day!
>
> Acknowledgements
> ----------------
>
> - Thanks to Paul Borghese for this study group. It rocks!
> - Thanks to Paul Jin, Stan Zheng and Ash (from the UK). I learned a lot by
> talking to you guys.
> - Thanks to all those who took the time to write constructive advice for
all
> the CCIE-to-be's. Each little advice counted for me! Amazing how these
> things got stuck in my head. Manny Gonzales' account of building a full
> scenrio every day in the week before the test totally overpowered me. Yes,
> all I could think of the day of the lab was "config t" also :)
> - Thanks to Kris for those amazing last minute discusions the day before
the
> test. It was good finally meeting at the test location. Congrats for
> passing! I'm really happy we both made it.
> - Last but not least, thanks to my father for being the lead motivator for
> me and for raising the bar for success and career achievements. I could
have
> never done it without you Dad.
>
> Time to get a life ....
>
> Good luck to all and make sure you enjoy every moment ...
> Tarek
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