Sitting here and still staring from time to time at the Cisco Certification Status Page. Cause i’m still in the process of realization.
After the lab the proctor told us, that the result would be there at 9 PM in the evening. Was still waiting the same evening until 11 o’clock, but got no mail regarding the grading. Then after i woke up the next morning, i got the mail from Cisco in my inbox, that the score result is available. The mail does not tell you anything about failing or passing the exam. I had to open my certification profile on the cisco website to see the result. Two times before i had failed the exam and this time i was not sure if i had passed. But i did it.
I was through the exam before lunch, except for 4 question, which i had just skipped and one left over question at the end. The key for me to success was time management.
In the previous attempts i was also spending to much time on tasks, while in the middle of the exam. This time i just skipped any question i was not able to solve right away and noted it for later processing.
So i got more and more confident with my overall performance in the lab and after lunch, i double checked everything and could spend the rest of the time to search DocCD and double or triple check all configurations. Also noted tasks, that i found suspicious of hidden elements, that i could not see first time looking at.
And it worked out. The technique was very important for me, cause i got more and more self confident while proceeding the lab tasks.
This all is a long story. I did not believe i would get that far.
I started my first attempt in Jan 2007, were i got the best score. But i wasn’t really ready, but still got quite close. But i was just to nervous. And could also not sleep the night before. I wanted to waste some money and asked for a reread after the lab, but with only very little success. They gave me some more points. I think for 250$ they can do this ;-), but i think i did not really had a chance.
Then the second attempt, i tried to time the lab just some days before the estimated birthday of my sun, but that has not been of any interest to him. He decided to came one week to early, and so he was born in April 2008 one week before my lab date, where i think i didn’t got much sleep again.
And now, after i got myself motivated again, and i know this can be hard, rearranged my own life a lot in this new situation, 10 months on my third attempt i did it. This is such a relief guys, i can tell you.
During this time a learned a lot on Cisco, IOS, employers and learning partners. How to learn and how to manage time while also working. Also for me, it was very important doing sports or other kinds of recovery activities. It’s also very helpful if you have an employer, who supports you and grants you time for learning. Even, if it’s only two weeks.
Had this sentence in my had from the beginning:
„Stick to it.“
Do not let you get discouraged. Look at those things you might not be that good and concentrate on them. I know it’s hard to motivate yourself sometimes. And to get on the learning path again and again. But you know what’s it for.
I used InternetworkExpert and IPExpert for preparation. Cisco ASET Labs have been also a great help.
Graded labs are very valuable for preparation. Since you see directly what you did wrong and can then directly focus on topics which need improvement. So you can start learning what you don’t know and not what you know already. Big topic for me. 🙂
Thank you guys. Thanks for reading. Keep up. Stick to it.
Thanks to my wife for her support and letting me do this and my son for motivation.
CCIE 23664 🙂
