Getting Excellent Training for the CCIE

This week I’m in class to prepare for the Routing and Switching CCIE.  Like many of you out there I’m sure, you have studied on your own for this big Kahuna of all certifications.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve prepared for the written only to have life get in the way and then slowly but surely have all of that freshly learned Cisco juice fade away.

This time I decided to take a not so different approach and attend instructor led training. Now, for getting good instructor led CCIE training, your choices are somewhat limited. Some of the more well known training companies I took into consideration were Global Knowledge,  BOSON and others. But the training provider I picked was CCBOOTCAMP.

Though I didn’t know anyone personally who had attended CCBOOTCAMP, I did hear a lot of good things on various Cisco forums.

The biggest attribute I looked for when shopping for a good a training company was, “Did they focus squarely on the CCIE?”  Many of the large training providers out there teach Cisco and the CCIE, but also train Microsoft, Novell, etc. I wanted the experts, I wanted CCIE’s teaching engineers CCIE level technologies. I found exactly that with CCBOOTCAMP. The classes at CCBOOTCAMP ARE taught by CCIE’s. The experience from all of the instructors I have talked to was impressive. Many are dual even triple CCIE’s.

Quick Factoid:

• Did you know that right now there is approximately 18,000 or so CCIE’s in the world today?
• Did you know that out of those 18,000 CCIE’s – 16,000 of them are Routing and Switching?
• Did you know that there are only about 800 Voice CCIE’s in the world? (ONLY 800!!) big hint here for you job hunters!!  The Voice track has got to be the most in demand certification there is.

So, this week I’m  attending the CCBOOTCAMP R&S Written class.  So far it is fantastic!  The facilities are top notch here in beautiful Las Vegas.  Our instructor Jean Nicolas was extremely knowledgeable, reassuring and confident that we all would be passing the CCIE written. This in itself really took some of the stress out of the situation. Every topic was explained extremely well and way beyond just the written test.

Everyone of the staff is super nice and they really go out of their way to ensure you are going to get the best training you can get.  The week that I am here we had an unexpected snag with the VUE testing center for our Friday certification tests. The center was closed for the entire day.  Checking online, all of the Las Vegas centers were completely booked!  Dawn Reis from CCBOOTCAMP got to work and somehow was able to find some seats available.  Like I said they really treat you great!

Follow-up: I passed the CCIE Written today – got an 86%!  I’m really stoked about it and will be going to CCBOOTCAMP for the advanced lab training to prepare for the CCIE Lab! FREAK!!