Reference: http://www.netmasterclass.com/CCIE/Cisco-360-Learning-Program-Products-and-S ervices/Advanced-Workshops/Former-Student-Reviews/
Since it was founded in 2001 by Val Pavlichenko and Bruce Caslow, two internationally recognized authors in Cisco CCIE education, NetMasterClass has offered are a range of products and services in the network education space.
Now NetMasterClass is proud to offer an authorized Cisco 360 Learning Program for CCIE Routing and Switching.
The new Cisco 360 Learning Program uses the same methodology and much of the same content including graded assessment labs (CHECKiT labs) that many NetMasterClass students have used to achieve their CCIE number.
Quote by Darby in 2006:
The NMC.NET result of attending NMC-1 for me has been that it broke my confidence and humbled my expectations quite a bit about where I thought I was in my preparations for the Lab. I found areas that needed dramatic improvement and found that the team at NMC gave me a remarkably easy to use set of tools in the form of the DoIT, CheckIT, ReadIT, GraphIT, and ShowIT technologies... The expertise that is exuded by the all three instructors is inspiring. Frankly, I have heard many people say that it might be better just to sit the lab 3-4 times rather than pay for instruction such as NMC, and I think if those same people came to NMC, they might save themselves some heart-ache, frustration, and cash. I think it is the single most, best investment I have made in my quest for the CCIE. I highly recommend it to anyone serious about getting his/her own CCIE.
The NMC.NET result of attending NMC-2 has given me the confidence to know that I do have the endurance to easily sit the 8 hours for the CCIE Lab, they have helped me to ensure that I have the confidence to work in a structured manner to attain mastery over all domains in each technology, and have helped me quantitatively identify at areas that I need improvement using the CHECKiT and SHOWiT tools. I would recommend not only 1 but both classes to anyone who is serious about getting over their own barriers to obtaining his/her own CCIE. I can't speak enough about having 3 instructors available and the ability to get one-on-one feedback on a per technology basis. I want you to know I questioned why I might want to attend NMC-2 versus just taking the same labs remotely... The NMC.NET answer to the question is... "The feedback and one-on-one personal attention you receive at NMC-2 simply helped me to get over the hump"
Darby Weaver
Review and Update in 2009:
Let's analyze my first impression of a boot camp versus my current impression of what a boot camp should be:
1. The NMC.NET result of attending NMC-1 for me has been that it broke my confidence and humbled my expectations quite a bit about where I thought I was in my preparations for the Lab.
- This is true. I found out that a candidate needs a lot more prep even before attending a bootcamp. That's pretty much any bootcamp.
- The fact is if a student is humbled and finds out first hand that the confidence is not there or is having trouble with "encap failed" and didn't know what a transit area is or even how to configure frame relay pretty much easily, I'd have to say a class like this one is going to move much to fast for that candidate.
- The net result of this is a very humbling experience. And if you still feel this way after the repeat of the class (may or may not still be offered, I'm not sure) then you probably should take my advice after I complete this review of my own testimonial.
2. I found areas that needed dramatic improvement and found that the team at NMC gave me a remarkably easy to use set of tools in the form of the DoIT, CheckIT, ReadIT, GraphIT, and ShowIT technologies...
- True, I still love the CheckIt Graded Labs and the grading engine and in particular the scripts as they helped me form a troubleshooting methodology over time. Ideally, I'd have come to class with some of those methodologies - again one must prep for class as no boot camp will prepare you for what comes in the lab 100%. Mr. Caslow and Mr. Sinclair were very forthcoming on this matter. All in all the tools are pretty cool and can be purchased a la carte before coming to class. Sadly there are no videos on the lab for future review. Take good notes.
3. The expertise that is exuded by the all three instructors is inspiring.
- No doubt there. Bruce Caslow or Bob Sinclair instructing or helping out and Val Pavlichenko working one-on-one's is pretty hard to beat on any day of the week.
4. Frankly, I have heard many people say that it might be better just to sit the lab 3-4 times rather than pay for instruction such as NMC, and I think if those same people came to NMC, they might save themselves some heart-ache, frustration, and cash.
- I still agree somewhat with this statement. Let's clarify it a little. Before sitting a CCIE Lab, a class is highly useful and a class of mock labs is incredibly useful - both before the deadline date of 3 months before a lab. Let's face it you'll need time to close the gaps. You probably are not going to close 10-20 or in my case 23-25 points in a month. Not usually, at least it did not happen that way for me. So consider this before attending anyone's class, please. It's sincere advice and probably my best advice.
- Hindsight being 20/20 let me clarify this a bit further in another article maybe for this issue, since I've got a lot to say and I'll need to temper it with some other great instructors and where I think they fit in the mold. I do have a lot to say on this matter as a basis of my own opinion. I've been to a lot of instructors by now and do have something of an opinion on each - usually quite favorable.
5. I think it is the single most, best investment I have made in my quest for the CCIE. I highly recommend it to anyone serious about getting his/her own CCIE.
- I can't say this anymore. The program has a limited license versus an unlimted license from other vendors. A limited repeat policy compared to other vendors. It's typically a little more costly ($$$). There's just not as much bang for the buck. The support forum was not really supported that well - answers to questions were typically "read the answer key" or something similar. The instructors pretty much did not support their forum after the classes and the quality was lesss. Not kewl.
- I can't recommend it as my first or even second choice for anyone seeling their own CCIE. Actually, I recall that I printed out the Answer Keys (about 50 pages per lab x 25 labs) and meant to read it before doing the labs and ultimately realizing I was just not ready for it yet. I never really came back to it. I tried some of the labs here and there and to be honest I lacked a proper knowledge in a lot of areas and seriously lacked troubleshooting skills required to complete even the most modest of these labs entirely even after 3 Weeks in class with NetMasterClass NMC-1 (x2) and NMC-2. It would be about a year later after my first lab attempt and even after my third lab attempt (Don't ask I just kept scheduling a date, not backing down and going) before I could reasonably complete most tasks. Yes, I did persue the Technical Library and I did work on some technologies using a COD to some degree and a lot of other materials from InternetworkExpert.com mostly.
6. The NMC.NET result of attending NMC-2 has given me the confidence to know that I do have the endurance to easily sit the 8 hours for the CCIE Lab, they have helped me to ensure that I have the confidence to work in a structured manner to attain mastery over all domains in each technology, and have helped me quantitatively identify at areas that I need improvement using the CHECKiT and SHOWiT tools.
- I wish my words were true after 5 lab attempts. Sadly they are not. Humilty does not come easy to me. I suppose it does not or will not come easy to you either.
- I do have endurance, this was mentioned in class, and I can easily sit for 8-12 hours and do labs at a time. In class we did that for sure.
- I had confidence to jump off a bridge but I never really mastered all of the diagrams that were included in the Tech Library. You can buy this item a la carte. It is a good tool for knowing your options and will likely be referred to in either class offered. They are nice tools.
- Identifying areas for improvement and improving those areas is two different things. Truth be told while I enjoyed the class experience, it would have been a lot cheaper to buy the CheckIT Labs (same as the NMC-2 and NMC-1 full labs) and identified these issues without spending a lot of travel and expenses. I have to admit the time away was healthy for studies but it was very $$$. I spent about $9500.00 for class and workbooks and about $7500 in travel over 3 trips. My other advice get a cheaper hotel if you are on your own dime.
7. I would recommend not only 1 but both classes to anyone who is serious about getting over their own barriers to obtaining his/her own CCIE.
- Again this is 3 years later and a lot of water under the bridge... I think you need to read my next article for my opinion after being to war, taking severe casualties, and returning to tell the tale.
8. I can't speak enough about having 3 instructors available and the ability to get one-on-one feedback on a per technology basis.
- Hmm... I'm trying to figure out what I meant here. The classes covered very specific technologies during the lecture and examples prior to the labs. However, I'm not sure if I wrote this today I would use these words.
9. I want you to know I questioned why I might want to attend NMC-2 versus just taking the same labs remotely... The NMC.NET answer to the question is.... "The feedback and one-on-one personal attention you receive at NMC-2 simply helped me to get over the hump"
- I honestly cannot say this any longer. I can say the CheckIT's are very good and everyone should take at least one. I never took one remotely so I'm not sure what kind of personal feedback you would experience if you did so.
- In NMC-2, each lab is covered approximately for about 2 hours or so each morning. At the time, I'd never seen anyone cover any explantions of labs and so I thought this was fantastic. I learned about debug too. So that was a plus. Today we see a lot of feedback on blogs everywhere and we have stuff live COD/VOD from InternetworkExpert or IPExpert. Kinda nice to rewind and repeat. But this was not offered then and 3 years later is still not offered to my knowledge.
- 3 Instructors - Well really it is one at a time lecturing and a lot of referential citations. Val is always available for one-on-ones and this really helps advanced students. Bob Sinclair was in the class lecturing and providing assistance for at least 3 of the 5 days as I recall.
Ok that wraps up my testimonial then versus now and brings it up to date from 2006 to 2009.
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