From: Salau, Yemi (yemi.salau@siemens.com)
Date: Tue Mar 11 2008 - 13:22:52 ARST
Wise talks NRF
At the end of the day, we all need to ask ourselves why we're going for
this CCIE of a thing. There is no comparison though with traditional
qualifications ie. Phd or even Professorship. I've met people in my
career who knows a lot more than most CCIEs.... I'm yet to meet people
who knows that Professors at their special areas of interest.
What I'm saying is, the Phd & Prof. World is very parallel to the CCIE
side of things, I'm speaking as a CCIE who is one the other side of the
road ... So I know what I'm saying. People do CCIEs just for the fun of
it, others to guarantee job interviews, some more money, others more
respect. But CCIE itself is just the beginning for some people.
Whichever way you see CCIE as, it's still very well respected in the IT
industry... And with it comes greater responsibility... However CCIEs
hardly invent anything in life ... Most Professors do!
I'm not saying CCIE is lower than Phd or otherwise, from my own first
hand perspective, I think they are 2 parallel planes that can't
intersect on a common ground. Having said that, I still find it hard to
believe that there are Phd holders from MIT in the unemployment
industry.
Many Thanks
Yemi Salau
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
nrf
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 10:37 AM
Cc: 'groupstudy'; comserv@groupstudy.com
Subject: Re: How to Become a CCIE v2
> Many managers have no idea how tough the CCIE is. But then again, can
you
> blame them? Lately there seems to be an outpouring of posts on people
> passing
> the CCIE in 3, or even 2 months. How many people have completed their
> Master's degrees in two months? If it was accredited, I'll bet the
answer
> is
> 0.
Actually, not only do I completely agree with you here, I'll not only
call
you, but also raise you. While managers may not have any idea how tough
the
CCIE is, well, let's be honest guys, how tough is it really, relative to
other credentials one could earn? Few if any people can earn a real
(that
is, an accredited) master's degree in just 2-3 months, and certainly
earning
a Phd in such a time frame is infeasible for all except supra-geniuses,
as
even Einstein needed over a year to be awarded his. Heck, since the
MIT
PhD was brought up, I know quite a few people who have been working on
their
PhD's at MIT for over 6 years full-time who still haven't completed the
degree. To repeat, that's working on the degree FULL-TIME, which means
they
don't have a job (in other words, earning the degree IS their job).
Honestly, how many of us would really need 6 years of full-time study in
order to pass the CCIE? Hence, while I realize that this is a
discordant
position to take, the fact is, the CCIE isn't that weighty of an
accomplishment, relative to some of those other credentials.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: what severely weakens the
difficulty of the CCIE is the fact that you can simply take it over and
over
and over again until you finally pass. Sure, it costs money, sure it
takes
time, but nevertheless you can just keep taking the test repeatedly
until
you finally get the particular set of questions that you know well.
That
sort of process has no parallel in those other credential processes.
For
example, take the PhD qualification exams (which don't allow you to
graduate, but merely allow you to advance to candidacy status). Almost
all
respectable programs have a finite limit to the number of times you can
fail
those exams, usually being 2-3 attempts, with some (harsh) programs
allowing
you only ONE attempt. Once you exceed that threshold, that's it: the
game
is over and you're officially and irrevocably expelled from the program.
Similarly, once you're a candidate who has submitted your thesis, you
can't
just keep failing your oral defense over and over again until you
finally
succeed. After a certain number of defense failures, your candidacy will
be
revoked. But a CCIE "candidate" can repeatedly attempt the test with
impunity.
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