George,
Way to go. I guess we were good partners for each other at NMC-1!
Congratulations.
Chuck Church
CCIE #8776, MCNE, MCSE
Sr. Network Engineer
Magnacom Technologies
140 N. Rt. 303
Valley Cottage, NY 10989
845-267-4000
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
George Zhang
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 5:57 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: CCIE#8903
All,
The title says it all. I took my first attempt at the CCIE lab test
yesterday (March 5) in Halifax and received the "Congratulations on Passing
the CCIE Lab!" this morning.
I was the only person taking the lab test in Halifax yesterday. I was told
that there was another person scheduled yesterday but did not show up. My
test started about 8:15 AM in the morning. We broke for lunch at about
12:20PM. By then, I only finished all the IGP stuff and felt some pressure
on time. But I have already reviewed rest of the test and knew that I could
go through the rest quickly. After the 15 min lunch break, I worked through
rest of the test very quickly. By about 3:00 PM, I finished every thing
except one small requirement that I had no clue how to do it. I decided to
skip that item. Then, I started reviewing and checking my config. Along
the way of reviewing/checking, I spotted and fixed a few issues. Just about
the time I finished reviewing every thing, the proctor walked in and told me
that it' time. I looked at the watch. It was 4:30 PM. My proctor was
Steve. Steve is a great proctor. He answered quite a few of my questions
and cleared my mis-understanding and confusion about the requirements of the
test.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all people who helped me to
achieve my goal. First, I would like to thank my wife for her support and
understanding. Without her support, there is no way I could achieve my
goal. Next, I will give my thanks to Bruce, Val, and Fred of
NetMasterClass. As I said earlier, the NMC1 class is the most important
part of my final preparation. Thanks to Katie Wong of Cisco who scheduled
me to access the ASET racks. Thats my primary resource for hands-on
practices for the past couple of months. Thanks to Eric Fairfield for
lending me a few routers when I was in Wisconsin. Also thanks to those that
I've either studied with or have helped me one way or another. Thanks also
to Paul for putting this great list together.
As far as my story, I started my quest of the Cisco certifications a little
over two and half years ago. I got my CCNA and CCNP in the first year.
Three months later, I passed the CCIE written test. I wanted to take the
lab a year ago. However, due to work and personal reasons, I did not get
time to do it until now. Last year, I was too busy to do much study. At
work, as a consultant, I was billing at least 40 hours/week for the whole
year. At home, my second child was born in February, my wife finished
school in July, and we moved to New Jersey from Wisconsin in September. In
October of last year, I foresaw a window of opportunity for me to take the
lab test early this year. Then, I lobbed my manager to let me go to the
ECP1 class. By the time my manager approved my training request, I found
that Mentor Technologies went belly up. However, I learned that Bruce and
Val founded a new company called NetMasterClass, LLC
(www.netmasterclass.net) and offering the NMC1 and NMC2 classes. I
registered and took the NMC1 class by the end January. By the end of last
year, the project I worked on finished. So since the beginning of this year
I got a lot of time to study. For the past couple of months, I have studied
8-10 hours every day.
As far as how I prepared, I have read most of the books (Doyle I & II,
Caslow, Halabi, Tam-Nam-Kee, Solie, Satterlee, etc.) recommended by people
on this list. Among this long list of books, the only one I dont like is
Solies book because there are too many errors in the book. There are a few
topics I was more confused after reading the book. I dont have a home lab.
So my primary resource for hands-on practice is remote labs such as Mentor
Technologies vlabs (not available any more), Cisco ASET lab. Because I
dont have a home lab, my preparation included more reading than hands-on
practice. That actually worked out very well for me. Above all, the most
important part of my preparation is the NMC1 class taught by Bruce, Val and
Fred. IF I HAD NOT TAKEN THE NMC1 CLASS, IT PROBABLY WOULD HAVE TAKEN ME
ONE OR TWO MORE ATTEMPTS BEFORE I COULD GET MY NUMBER. There are a lot of
things that just cannot be learned from reading books or practicing. So the
NMC1 class helped me to fill in that gap very well. It also helped me to
access my strength and weakness. So I know what to study on the last few
weeks. I strongly recommend taking the NMC1 class a few weeks before your
lab date.
Thanks again.
George Zhang
CCIE#8903, CCNA, CCNP
Sr. Network Architect
Compuware Corpration
1 Meadowlands Plaza, Suite 1050
East Rutherford, NJ 07073
732-494-0288
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