Opportunities of a lifetime don’t come every day of the week.
Interview : Jared Scrivener
Jared Scrivener
CCSI #30878, CCIE3 #16983 (R&S, SP, Security)
www.MicronicsTraining.com
Sr. Technical Instructor
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From Jared Scrivener:
Opportunities of a lifetime don’t come every day of the week. Well mine did. I had started my sabbatical to complete the CCIE Voice track when I received an invitation to work with Narbik Kocharians – the foremost CCIE level ‘master instructor’ in the world. Suffice to say I jumped at the opportunity to work with ‘the best’ and ‘most respected’ provider in our field.
My personal objective in joining Narbik and the Micronics Training team is to help cement Micronics Training as ‘the’ premier global training provider of Cisco related training at both CCIE and Professional levels in all tracks. We are well on the way to achieving that objective in the CCIE R&S space, and with Narbik’s keen understanding of the customer’s needs and our commitment to meeting them coupled with the finest instructors in this field we will achieve that outcome universally. With the help of Eman and the CCIE Flyer I think this is going to be a great adventure.
As most of the professionals in this field know, it is not how big you ‘appear’ to the customer, or how impressive you think your website looks, it’s the quality of the training that separates a pretty average offering from a ‘master class’.
Q: Jared you seem very excited about joining up with Narbik at Micronics. How did this come about? Have you known Narbik long?
A: I’m not sure if I believe in destiny, but the opportunity to work with Narbik was initially flagged to me by a mutual friend of us all, Arden Packeer. Arden informed me that Narbik was looking for instructors to teach in Australia, where I’m from, and that it might be worth giving him a call. I’ve known Narbik in an online capacity through Groupstudy for a few years now and was also aware of his very effective training style, so I contacted him and after a very warm, mutually beneficial conversation, agreed to join Micronics to initially teach the CCIE Security and Service Provider courses, as well as any other courses that Narbik requires as we expand.
Q: You were once with IPexpert as an instructor. How different is the environment for you now?
A: There are two main differences for me. The first is location. Working with Narbik will allow me to base myself in Australia and work around the world, rather than reside and live in the USA. This will make it easier to stay close with friends and family which is an important part of my quality of life.
The second difference is flexibility. Everything about Narbik’s approach to our relationship has been flexible. This work program we have agreed will allow me to focus on advancing Narbik’s vision for the company and my 2010 goal of attaining my CCIE Voice.
Q: What made you decide to pursue your first CCIE certification?
A: I was working at the Commonwealth Games in 2006 and a few of us senior CCNP’s were throwing around the idea of getting a CCIE. Eight months later I attained mine – and on my first attempt. From a personal perspective, my first CCIE, the R&S one, was the greatest achievement of my life and doing it was the best decision I ever made.
Q: Did you have a mentor as you worked through your hurdles?
A: I wish. I didn’t know anyone else in Australia with an R&S CCIE when I went for mine so I was very much on my own. I think this helped me in one regard as I had to be my own teacher and mentor, and this has probably been why I have been successful at passing all of my CCIE’s on my first attempt. The one thing I would recommend to anyone else who is self-taught is a boot camp to tie together all the information. That said, if any of your readers who have a Voice CCIE would be interested in mentoring me, I’d be more than happy to discuss it.
Q: What are your goals as an instructor?
A: I have two goals with any course I teach that I announce at the start of the first day. Firstly I want my students to understand the content that is delivered so that they can apply it effectively to their exam. Secondly I want the course to be fun: boring courses don’t stimulate thinking and aren’t enjoyable to sit through.
Q: Have you made any judgements about the difficulty in passing the new R&S lab?
A: That’s a tough question, Eman. The number of students that are failing is shockingly high compared to the old blueprint and I don’t think that it’s due to the new methods to weed out cheating, but rather that the exams are too difficult for the standard candidate. It’s worth noting with the new blueprint that no material was removed from the scope but rather a lot of additional material from the service provider and security tracks was added into R&S. From a training perspective, it is almost impossible to cover all of the different permutations of technologies to the required depth in a single week of training, hence, as instructors we have to focus on the more difficult topics, assuming the students have learned the basics. What this means is that students will need to purchase additional learning materials, such as blended self-paced products as pre-requisites to their courses, whereas before it was a recommendation but not a need.
Q: When is your first Micronics boot camp?
A: Narbik and I are putting together a pretty aggressive Security and Service Provider schedule as I write this, so your readers should be able to retrieve it from the Micronics Training website by the time this article goes to press. We plan on offering classes in Australia, Asia, Europe and the USA so there’s sure to be a class for everyone.
Q: What would you like people to know about you and your training philosophy?
A: My training philosophy has always been to teach students to think of things from different perspectives until we find the particular perspective that unlocks understanding for each individual student. In my classes, in addition to my normal presentation media (yes, I still use slides unlike Narbik), labs and whiteboard, I actively engage my students in demonstrations of their knowledge by interactively participating in discussions and whiteboarding sessions.
About me personally, the only thing that your readers and my students need to know is that I always go the distance with them to help them pass. It’s quite common for me to give out my personal phone number to students and I’m glad to sit down on a Skype call to help my students polish up and to calm their nerves before their exam. I like to think it’s these little things that have helped me make so many friends (and CCIE’s) over the past two years.
Q: Do you read the CCIE Flyer?
A: Yes, when someone nudges me to let me know of an interesting article or interview. A few of my friends, Larry Hadrava, Arden Packeer and Vik Malhi are contributors so I try to check it out from time to time when they write in particular.
Q: Do you like it?
A: It’s a really good job that you and your team do in trying to keep track of the CCIE space, particularly news that affects CCIE’s as a group. I must admit I did appreciate the interview you did with Narbik in your December 2009 interview in particular: it provided a good opportunity for others to gain some insight into the remarkable individual I’ll be working alongside.