Not real happy with Cisco official week long SWITCH class

Work buys a lot of Cisco so we rack up a lot of Cisco credits. Just got done with a week long SWITCH class that was paid-for by these credits.

I am disappointed in how Cisco structures the class. Granted this is opinion, but too much time was spent rehashing overview-topics from the CCNA level. Since we have to have a current CCNA R&S in order to take CCNP, we spent too much time on basics and touched little enough on the differences that matter for CCNP.

We shouldn't have to go over again what an access port or a trunk port is, or how "no switchport" sets a L3 switchport to routing instead of switching. Even topics like spanning-tree, that gather might be on an exam in abundance, felt like they were over-discussed in their basics, and under-discussed when it came to things like how a first-hop redundancy protocol might affect spanning-tree root.

It would good for them to revise the instructions so the presenter's slides don't have copyright 2014 on them, and so that they assume that students with valid CCNA R&S certs know the basics and they manage to move-on from there.

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Comments

Iristheangel

Which learning partner did you go thru? I suspect it's not Cisco directly teaching that class

TWX

the texts (student guide, lab guide) were cisco-DRM via learningspace.cisco.com and the labs were delivered from a cisco.com learning lab site with a 90 day window.

shortstop20

From my experience, this is largely dependent on the instructor and the experience of the class.

I have been in classes where most everyone is up to speed and basics are hardly discussed.

I've also been in classes where people are not up to speed or the instructor spends too much time covering the basics.

negru_tudor

shortstop20 wrote: »

From my experience, this is largely dependent on the instructor and the experience of the class.

I have been in classes where most everyone is up to speed and basics are hardly discussed.

I've also been in classes where people are not up to speed or the instructor spends too much time covering the basics.

Yeap - sometimes instructors take the "lowest denominator" in terms of class know-how and beat that horse to death. Kinda like in school

Chris.Mackenzie01

I did ICDN1/2 courses.
The ICDN1 instructor was useless. He fed us information that I thought sounded suspect and when i googled it he soon back tracked. It felt like some of the questions were answered with the 'confuse and win' moto.
However, this class will stick with me, as a guy at the back of the class fell asleep adn was snoring during one of the sections.

The ICDN2 course... The instructor was amazing. She was a multiple CCIE and clearly dedicated alot of her time to Cisco, any questions we fired at her she had a comprehensive explanation that made sense.. However, members of that class were really behind, some had not even sat the ICDN1 exam and she spent most of the time pulling them up to our level of knowledge nad then time was short for everything else.

networker050184

Chris.Mackenzie01 wrote: »

However, members of that class were really behind, some had not even sat the ICDN1 exam and she spent most of the time pulling them up to our level of knowledge nad then time was short for everything else.

That's been my experience with pretty much all instructor led training. So much time it spent trying to teach people the prerequisite knowledge they should've came with you barely get to scratch the surface of the actual material.

denfrombe

I had the same problem. I followed the SWITCH training week as well via an official partner and the instructor was awful. He was close to his retirement and simply didn't give a **** about what he was doing over there. He just spend the whole week reading slides and talking about shitty topics. It was very boring. I agree shortstop20 on the fact that it strongly depends on the instructor, because last year I followed another training for Nokia services routers and same story, I got screwed by another guy who just has no reasons to be instructor......

Legacy User

Sorry to hear that the class was structured like that. In my experience took 2 classes with global knowledge they made sure they kept it tight to the course outline or if it was something left out thats on the blueprint.

willieb

FWIT, I am fairly impressed with the Global Knowledge CCNP e-Camp (with Boson exams). I've been through most of the ROUTE and I'm starting on SWITCH in the next few days.

It's self paced with no instructor so it may not be for everyone, but it's perfect for me. It doesn't go through any of the basics that we should already know. The labs are the best part about it, and you can go through the content and labs as many times as needed until you have it down 100%.

We also use CLCs which makes it well worth it. You may want to consider GK next time.

Legacy User

ah so your taking the cisco self paced ccnp course offered from cisco learning network. It didnt look to bad for $750. The only downside is you can't ask questions.

J0nno

Hi guys, just completed CCNA with firebrand UK based provider down south, and wow it was a good journey. Long days from 8am-12pm but very worth it. I'm from NE UK and I've got a CCDA booked in November with them. Never done a GK course but have heard mixed reviews. Anyhow I'm on with the CCNP SW now, so any advice would be great.

Jon.