Well done Aaron. I hope this opens some nice doors for you.
>From: "Aaron K. Dixon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: "Aaron K. Dixon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "GroupStudy LAB" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "GroupStudy"
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: CCIE #6460
>Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 12:32:58 -0600
>
>Hello all,
>
>This is a brief synopsis of my ccie lab and the tools I used to study. If
>you're not interested you may want to just hit the delete key now.
>
>I just thought that I would take a few moments to share my study
>methodology
>for the CCIE lab. I've been meaning to do this since I passed the lab on
>November 15th in San Jose, but I always seem to get sidetracked with all of
>my newfound free time. This was my first attempt at the lab and I found it
>to be fairly straight forward. It wasn't as convoluted as I expected and I
>had seen pretty much everything before.
>
>Day 1
>
>The first thing that I did was read through the entire lab TWICE. I
>realized that I knew how to do everything and went to work on my diagram.
>I
>found day one to be very easy and was done by 2 o'clock. I checked and
>re-checked all of my work and felt very confident in everything that I had
>done. After that I spent time making sure that ALL of my information was
>recorded correctly and neatly on my diagram. I felt very confident when I
>left, but I have to admit as I tried to get some sleep the what if's were
>creeping in my mind.
>
>Day 2
>
>I arrived for Day 2 happy to see the Day 2 binder on my desk and went
>through the same process of reading the entire lab twice. I realized that
>I
>knew exactly what to do on 90% of the lab and may have to browse the cd for
>the other 10%. Again, I found that there was plenty of time and I had
>completed everything that I knew how to do by 10:30. I spent the next 30
>minutes reviewing the cd and configuring the remaining 10%. I then re-read
>everything and checked over all of my work and made sure that my diagram
>was
>complete. Documentation is very important in the lab not only for
>troubleshooting, but to ensure that the proctor can see what you were
>doing.
>The proctor spends all day at the lab and then has to check your work in
>the
>evening or at lunch for day 2. The last thing he wants to do is spend 30
>minutes trying to read your diagram. Of course, this is just my opinion.
>
>After day 2, I felt real good about my work, but nervous none the less.
>This made for what seemed like a never ending lunch. Once we arrived back
>at the facility I was called first and on the way back to the lab I was
>told
>that I had made it to troubleshooting and that I had three hours. When I
>returned to my desk I found the paperwork for troubleshooting and for the
>first time found out how many points I had. I had gained 70 of the 75
>points and only needed 10 of the 25 from troubleshooting. At that point, I
>knew that I had passed and just needed to knock out the troubleshooting.
>As
>I looked around I realized that no one else had progressed from Day 2. I
>spent about an hour and a half on troubleshooting and felt like I fixed
>everything so I turned in my sheet. About 5 minutes later, the proctor
>returned with a yellow sticky note with my number on it. He then asked me
>if I would erase all of my configs and then I left with a huge grin on my
>face. I just couldn't believe that all of my studying paid off.
>
>I met Chuck Larrieu a few hours later for a victory dinner. I knew that it
>would be nice to have some company one way or the other and I was glad that
>it turned out to be for good reasons.
>
>Passing the test was very rewarding, but the journey was just as rewarding.
>It's amazing the amount of material that you learn along the way and the
>many friends that you make. I have become friends with many people that I
>may of never met if I wasn't studying for the CCIE.
>
>Study Materials
>
>I studied the normal books Caslow, Halabi, and Doyle and found them all to
>be very helpful. I also used three other books extensively that I don't
>see
>mentioned very often. I used the configuring cisco routers for bridging,
>dlsw+, & desktop protocols and the Cisco Press Lan Switching Book. I found
>them both to be very helpful as I work extensively with cisco routers and
>rarely use cisco switches. I also used the CCIEBootcamp labs which I found
>to be an excellent resource for practice. There are a lot of other labs,
>but most of them don't throw everything together like the bootcamp labs. I
>have to admit that I only completed about half of them and never did the
>dreaded lab 8, but I studied all 17 of them and read up on anything that I
>didn't know how to do. It often takes a large amount of time to do a full
>lab, but reading through it and "spotting the issues" can be very helpful.
>About 2 months ago I attended the ECP1 course which was taught by Bruce
>Caslow. I found Bruce's methodology to be excellent and really got a lot
>out of the course. About a month after that I attended Cisco's ASET
>(www.cisco.com/go/aset) program. This turned out to be an excellent
>program
>as well and I just wished that I would of known about it sooner. This is a
>3-day lab taught by Jay and Jose in San Jose. The lab is a simulated CCIE
>environment where each student gets a pod with 8 routers, a cat 3920, cat
>5000, and a ls 1010. Jay and Jose really helped me on good diagramming
>skills and allowed me to sit down for a timed lab. I did very well on the
>lab and this really boosted my confidence for the actual lab. Another
>benefit to the ASET program is that after completing the 3-day mock lab you
>are able to get access to the rack via internet access. I was able to
>reserve 5 days of rack time just prior to taking my lab.
>
>One of the keys is practice, practice, and more practice. It is very
>important that you understand how the protocols behave. If you're just
>used
>to configuring them based on a manual or cookie-cutter config you will have
>difficulty due to the way the lab has you configure things. If you
>understand the behavior of the protocols then the lab will seem very easy
>because you will immediately see what they are looking for. It is also
>crucial that you have the core topics down pat. There are things on the
>lab
>that you haven't seen before, but they won't comprise near the points that
>the core topics cover.
>
>Finally, I would like to thank all of the helpful members of groupstudy. I
>have been on the list for quite awhile and the group has brought about many
>thought provoking questions and helped me to see things in a different
>light
>than just based on what I read or how I interpreted it. I am very thankful
>to Paul for taking the time and money to run this list. I had the
>opportunity to meet Paul and have dinner with him this year at Networkers
>and you can tell that he enjoys running this group and works very hard and
>adding to the group.
>
>I've probably bored you all to death by now so I'll end it here.
>
>Regards,
>Aaron K. Dixon
>
>
>
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