When the going gets tough...

Chipsch

So I just passed my CCNP earlier this week after taking the TSHOOT and now it is off to the CCIE R&S. It is going to be a very tough trek due to being back in school currently so that I can finish my Comp Science degree, full time job, and an amazing wife and daughter (the second full time job, hehe). I say amazing because even with the neglect my wife has been receiving from me, she still surprised me today with the second edition of Routing in the Internet by Christian Huitema (which I hear is an awesome read) to help me with my studies towards the written.

Now with all of that craziness being said, I was wondering how those of you that are out there in a similar situation as I, managed to squeeze that valuable study time in. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Turgon

Chipsch wrote: »

So I just passed my CCNP earlier this week after taking the TSHOOT and now it is off to the CCIE R&S. It is going to be a very tough trek due to being back in school currently so that I can finish my Comp Science degree, full time job, and an amazing wife and daughter (the second full time job, hehe). I say amazing because even with the neglect my wife has been receiving from me, she still surprised me today with the second edition of Routing in the Internet by Christian Huitema (which I hear is an awesome read) to help me with my studies towards the written.

Now with all of that craziness being said, I was wondering how those of you that are out there in a similar situation as I, managed to squeeze that valuable study time in. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

As a contractor Im not paid my rates to study on my client's time so theres not a whole lot of studying going on 9 -5. Some evenings Im too tired (and preoccupied) with my work to get any studying done. Other nights Im busy spending time with my wife and son. Some other nights I simply need a complete break to refuel after a tough day with an even tougher one lying ahead and a lot to think about. So it's all rather difficult. I study for spells in the evening when the time opens up and my energy levels are sufficiently intact.

It's an ongoing thing. If I can get hooked up with an employer that is supportive I may get the game time to bring everything together in time for a lab attempt end of this year. I have covered the blueprint the last couple of years by clawing hours to study since my son was born but need substantial time to revise the topics so they are happy and shiney

Sirsamon

Over the last few years , 10

I have studied on and off, for the last 4 years on and off i have done Cisco
CCNA to CCNP.

I have found when i am in study mode, i make every effort to study if i am at work with 30mins or more then i am reading.

I normally clock around 40 50 hours a week after work.

With my CCIE attempt i should be better off and i only have one kid left at home and shes 17

I start the day at 6am with an hour on my exercise bike, then off to work, on my pleasure Suzuki Bandit 1250

work till around 4 - 5 pm , then home.

start study by no later than 6pm, sometimes if i get through the traffic early i will get any labs setup before dinner.

lab or read until around 10 pm 12 pm depending if i am sleepy.

the weekend i get the big hours in between Friday and Sunday night i might have done around 30 hours on and off.

I find now it part of life i don't fight it, sure there are some days i think ahhh i might have a few nights off. I would be lucky if i manage 1

I get bored then start thinking about parts i have to do or want to figure out.

Anyways i think it all boils down to what ever plans and strategy you set your self then STICK to it no matter what.

W ether you get there or not everyone needs to have a dream something to go for.

P.S

I did and always do ask my wife if its OK to disappear until its done, and if she will support me.

The wife and family come first. Good Luck and go for it

Ryan82

Read every free 5 minutes you get. That time on the toilet can be useful!

I try to make it a goal to learn something new every day, preferably from the exam blueprint. I have started going through the Cisco configuration guides and reading and labbing everything listed in the documentation for that topic.

SysAdmin4066

Studying for me is considered part of my job, and I've treated it that way since I started in IT, back in 2000. I am able to study a lot at my current job, so that helps. I usually am able to get at least 2 hours a day, counting lunch hour and about an hour early in the morning before the start of the day, you know coffee time etc.

I also wake up about an hour early on none gym days (I train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and if I woke up any earlier on those days, I would be useless come training time) and get about an hour in. Weekends are the best of course, and I'm off every Friday, so I have pretty long weekends. Fridays are usually all day, 8-10 hours of reading, labbing, etc. Then Saturday is a little lighter, but still involves about 3-5 hours.

Sundays I relax with the fam, no studying typically, maybe an hour either early or late. I work 10 hours a day everyday by the way, with multiple consulting side projects usually going on so it doesnt always work out that way. Hope that helps

Chipsch

Well have microeconomics and linear algebra ramping up, tons of projects at work, but my immediate supervisor is being awesome and allowing me to study at work. Have been getting up at 6:30 A.M. on days off and weekends to get that study time in, sometimes earlier depending on the time my daughter goes to bed. So far so good overall, pushing into the ip routing chapter of the v4 study guide. Have had time to do some labs also, q-in-q, STP, HSRP, WCCP, SNMP strings, stuff along those lines so far.

Work even has a few spare 2621xm's for me to bring home. That will put my lab at 2x3750, 1x2960 (all from work) 3x2621xm 3x2610xm and a 2520.
Hoping that is enough to get me through it all. Looking at purchasing the ine volume 1 workbooks also. Oh yeah, have i mentioned how amazing my wife has been about all of this also . Waiting to purchase routing tcp/ip volume 2 also since it looks like a new edition will hit May 28th (according to Amazon). Well its 8:15 P.M. here and the fam crashed early so hitting the books.

Chipsch

Well trying to get back into the groove here. No timelines, just smooth sailing until I decide I need that 18 month deadline. Just started over from the front cover of the R&S study guide (cisco press). School is getting more manageable now that my major math courses are out of the way. Work is still ramped up though but I manage to leave that there except nights like tonight. Have to be back 3 hours after I got off to rebuild the ACS server and do some ASA/ASDM upgrades. Figured I would sit here and study in the meantime.

The only downside is that we might be moving away from Cisco and into a Brocade network. We'll see though. Regardless this is a goal so I will continue to pursue it. Well I have 40 more minutes to delve into L2 technologies before this maintenance window starts.

Chipsch

Was able to get some good refreshers in this morning on the STP process and did a good review of BPDU's, Ethernet Frames, dot1q tags, and isl encapsulation. Got a good laugh out of the ccie lan switching book also.

Two ways to stop a STP broadcast storm:
1. Unplug cables like crazy.
2. The sun novas.

Chipsch

More STP this morning, finished off chapter 3 of Odom's cert guide, delved a little into Chapter 4, and finished chapter 6 of ccie lan switching. Was put to halt due to work, spent a nice 4 hours on a Juniper SG520m. Got a good 2 hours (drive time) in on Scott Morris audio about STP and ip routing. Chapter 7 tomorrow (Advanced STP) and should finish up Chapter 4 on Odom's cert guide.

Turgon

Chipsch wrote: »

Well trying to get back into the groove here. No timelines, just smooth sailing until I decide I need that 18 month deadline. Just started over from the front cover of the R&S study guide (cisco press). School is getting more manageable now that my major math courses are out of the way. Work is still ramped up though but I manage to leave that there except nights like tonight. Have to be back 3 hours after I got off to rebuild the ACS server and do some ASA/ASDM upgrades. Figured I would sit here and study in the meantime.

The only downside is that we might be moving away from Cisco and into a Brocade network. We'll see though. Regardless this is a goal so I will continue to pursue it. Well I have 40 more minutes to delve into L2 technologies before this maintenance window starts.

You had a seven month gap there in between post but the important thing is you are still at it during a busy time in your life. I see you are working your way through Odom which is good. Just pace yourself and you will be fine. Getting the written done is a milestone.

Chipsch

Unfortunately I had to step back and take care of some others thing first. My B.S. in computer science was taking up a ton of time and lots of effort, a new house to remodel, etc. All of that is finally under control though so I can now focus on my studies again.

Turgon

Chipsch wrote: »

Unfortunately I had to step back and take care of some others thing first. My B.S. in computer science was taking up a ton of time and lots of effort, a new house to remodel, etc. All of that is finally under control though so I can now focus on my studies again.

And that's fine. You have your priorities right, it happens to me all the time. Main thing is you didn't try and force the studies during a demanding period which could have burned you out. Keep blogging here and get through the written. If you are still at it by Christmas you have a shot. Little and often, each day if possible.

Chipsch

Finished up Chapter 7 on Advanced Spanning Tree in the LAN Switching text. Didn't have time to work on Chapter 4 in Odom's book. The wife guilted me into watching the Bachelor *shudders*.

Also, on a side not, when you all were preparing for your written, what was your strategy to keeping topics fresh? Obviously there is a fair amount of material to cover. A lot of I can stay somewhat refreshed on with the INE audio material for my 50 minute drive into work and 50 on the way home. Other than that, was just thinking notes and try to skim back over the notes every two weeks. Will probably read the cert guide twice also, back to back.

reaper81

I kept notes and used flash cards in Anki to repeat topics. I highly recommend developing your own flash cards. Makes you think and it's a nice way of keeping things in memory.

Chipsch

Will have to look into Anki. Thanks reaper.

Turgon

Chipsch wrote: »

Will have to look into Anki. Thanks reaper.

Or mnemosyne. Keep chugging along each day. If you have a busy job fully occupying you 9 - 5 then look at daily personal time on the studies for 12 months. The first year is the worst, survive that and you can go on and finish the CCIE.

Chipsch

Will look into that one also. Actually I work from 6:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. I am usually able to get in an hour of study at work though plus another two or three hours at home. Also my hours are so long because I get every Wendsday off. So I will usually be able to get in some good study time during that day. Take one night off during the weekdays to hang out with the wife after our daughter goes to bed. Get up early on the weekends to study since I have a lot of yard work with spring coming in strong.

Really looking foward to this upcoming core redisgn also where we will be implementing MPLS within the campus. Campus supports thousands of users so should be quite an exciting project. Will be great for hands on experience to relate to the lab and career progression.

Turgon

Chipsch wrote: »

Will look into that one also. Actually I work from 6:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. I am usually able to get in an hour of study at work though plus another two or three hours at home. Also my hours are so long because I get every Wendsday off. So I will usually be able to get in some good study time during that day. Take one night off during the weekdays to hang out with the wife after our daughter goes to bed. Get up early on the weekends to study since I have a lot of yard work with spring coming in strong.

Really looking foward to this upcoming core redisgn also where we will be implementing MPLS within the campus. Campus supports thousands of users so should be quite an exciting project. Will be great for hands on experience to relate to the lab and career progression.

Keep at it each day. It's a twelve month program!

Chipsch

Chapter 4 completed. Downloaded Mnemosyne and adding in questions. Will move foward on Chapter 5 tomorrow, ip services.

Chipsch

Chapter 5, ip services has been knocked out. Did some small lab stuff in gns3 with NAT and DHCP ( fell in line with Chapter 4). Got to implement SLA and EEM tonight as well at work. Fell in line perfectly with Chapter 5. Chapter 6 tomorrow, ip routing.

Chipsch

Started out Chapter 6, made it about half way through. Went back and downloaded a few pdfs from cisco's website to supplement some of the stuff from the R&S guide so far also. Should be a very productive study weekend this weekend also due to lots of down time. We'll see.

Chipsch

Finished up Chapter 6 on PfR, OER, and GRE tunnels. Going to jump ahead to Chapter 8 with OSPF. Will spend tonight and tomorrow night going over that and multipoint GRE tunnels. I am a reservist drilling this weekend and have been tasked with teaching operators some fundamentals and concepts of militay networking.

Great opportunity for me to really re-inforce some concepts. Going to hit vlan's really hard since that seems to be a tough concept for some of them. Then have to go into basic routing and dive into OSPF. From there DMVPN technolgoies. Have some gear that I have to give a general overview as well. Should be an interesting Sunday. I have been given a 9 hour block to drill this stuff in.

Also won a AAA cisco press book from networkworld, so I found out today. All in all a pretty good day.

Chipsch

Finished Chapter 8 on OSPF to include 3 1/2 hours of INE audio on the topic. Ended up not teaching the class due to other requirements, which also put me behind on studying.

Turgon

The daily studying you are doing is the way to go. Maybe put a study hour counter up there to keep the motivation going. You are doing well.

Chipsch

Just might have to do that Turgon, thanks.

Finished up OSPFv2 in Routing TCP/IP Volume 1. Moving back to Chapter 7 in the R&S guide, EIGRP. Had time to read about half of it this morning. Should finish it up tonight, listen to the audio on the way home, then move back to the Routing TCP/IP to polish off EIGRP for now.

Turgon

Chipsch wrote: »

Just might have to do that Turgon, thanks.

Finished up OSPFv2 in Routing TCP/IP Volume 1. Moving back to Chapter 7 in the R&S guide, EIGRP. Had time to read about half of it this morning. Should finish it up tonight, listen to the audio on the way home, then move back to the Routing TCP/IP to polish off EIGRP for now.

Odom followed by Doyle for the same topic is a good combo.

Chipsch

Finished up Chapter 7 (EIGRP) from Odom's book. Half way through EIGRP in Doyle's tome. Going to try and knock out some CBT's at lunch today, time permitting. Finish off my audio on EIGRP on the way home and move into Redistribution.

Turgon

Once you have felt the pain of the remaining 15 chapters in Odom's book do the following:

Put a whiteboard up on the wall in your house.
Buy some nice pens.

Draw a large table. In the left column you have the 22 chapters listed from top to bottom. On the right you will record your test scores.

Then each day do end of chapter questions for one topic only. Record the score on the whiteboard. Then do them again the same day open book. Record the score. You should then print out the Q and A and revise the ones you got wrong. All of that effort in one single day. It is hard.

Next day move on to the next chapter and repeat the above. After 22 days you are done.

Final exam prep:

Then do the final exam on Odom's CD. Record score. Then repeat open book. Record score. Then print out the Q+A you got wrong. Revise and test again. Then put Odom down..

Obtain the Boson test and do the same as above but this time two topics per day followed by the final exam at the end.

Then sit the written. Odom + Boson leaves gaps. If you fail reflect on what else you need to revise and what you need to reclarify that you thought you knew well. Do the final tests on Odom and Boson again. Then retake the written.

This whole process if done properly will take you 100 hours.

reaper81

You seem to be doing really well and I'm glad that we have a bunch of guys going strong for the CCIE. Hopefully some of us will make it to the finish line, it is a tough race.

Chipsch

Busy busy weekend so far. Have polished off the last bit of eigrp. Decided to go back over Doyle's OSPF case studies one more time before diving into redistribution. Going to be hitting Chapter 9 in Odoms' book hard tonight. Start another math class tomorrow, completely forgot about that durn thing. Discreete math as it applies to C.S., should be pretty neat. Anyways, that will kick my studies back from 6-7 nights a week to 4-5 probably. Not a major speed bump, will adjust as see fit.

Chipsch

Turned out to be a much more exhausting weekend than anticipated. Didn't end up getting much done on Sunday with the remodeling of the screened in porch to sun room.

Sat down last night and knocked out Chapter 9 on redistribution. Moving onto BGP today. Going to have to spend a good bit of time on it simply because I don't use it a whole lot. Look foward to diving back into it though because it has always been my favorite routing protocol due to the numerous techniques of manipulation that are available.