Marquis Johnson, CCIE #49852

I finally made it!!!! After months of reading, videos, attending bootcamps and practice, practice, practice, I passed the CCIE R/S !!! Brian's videos and Dave Smith's bootcamp materials are invaluable in preparation. Having watched all the CCIE route switching videos and done 80% of the workbook task, I attended Dave Smith's bootcamp in April. It is definitely intense and lives up to a true bootcamp. It isn't a college course where you have the semester to absorb all the information, it is indeed a bootcamp where there is an expectation and warning that you should be at a certain level as most of the discussions are around complex ideas, caveats and corner cases that require a true level of expertise. I took the CCIE in June and failed mostly because of nerves, I made mistakes that I didn't normally make and panicked amplifying those mistakes. Needless to say, I got a Pass Pass Pass but failed to make cutscore. My second attempt I was magnificent and very confident in my TS section and Config section; however, I got confused in the Diag and began over-analyzing several of the incidents and got a paralysis of analysis which lead to me failing the diag section. My 3rd attempt I was very confident and got my results and my number and immediately began the celebration!!! TO THE GOOD TIMES!!!