Should you have a Study Partner for the CCIE? It’s an interesting question when you consider it. I mean, really, the CCIE is mostly a personal pursuit and people progress at different paces. Still I’ve seen that question pop up from time to time. I don’t think I ever had a personal, individual study partner, but I think I look at it from a slightly different angle. I consider the lists and the blogs to be my study partner.
Twitter as a Study Partner
All things considered twitter could be considered a study partner. You follow people with similar interests and they follow you. You have a study related question and you post it. I cant tell you how many times this has helped me through an issue I was having.
If you are working on CCIE Voice or CCIE Security you can follow me on twitter and I’ll follow you back. If you haven’t gotten into twitter yet here is a word of advice: Use a desktop client like tweetdeck or Nambu. They make it easy to group people.
Facebook as a Study Partner
Some may also consider Facebook as a study partner. There are a number of CCIE related groups as well as individuals that are studying for or have the CCIE digits already. Facebook makes it easy to add people to a list.
In my facebook account I have a list for Networking that I add people to that specifically post about Cisco and CCIE related topics. Then I can filter out the personal stuff, the work stuff and get right down to the nitty-gritty. I’m not sure if I personally like the way the new Public Profiles are done, but still its another source of good information.
Online Study Lists and Forums as a Study Partner
Many find a great deal of use in the OSL managed my IPexpert. There is also the IEOC and Groupstudy. I use the OSL mostly. I was active on IEOC for a while but couldnt figure out how to get it to just email me for everything. All I got working was email notificatioins for replies so I would miss the initial question. It didn’t help me much but I know it has helped others. As far as groupstudy goes, I found it to be less of a study partner and more of a list designed for CCIE study filled with mostly off-topic posts. So many that I unsubscribed. One last forum that deserves mention is the CLN. I follow the CCIE Security and CCNA Wireless forums there. I simply subscribed to the forums RSS feed. This way I can see when people ask questions and then go help out, or I can post a question and see when people reply without access the actual site.
A Single Person as a Study Partner
When it comes to having a single person as a study partner I think you may be limiting yourself a bit. With the online tools that are available today I think you could safely say that you already have a study partner, in fact, you have many study partners. If you have a friend that is in the same place with their study as you and you are able to bounce questions off them it can’t hurt, but dont discount the abundance of online tools.
RSS feeds and Blogs as a Study Partner
There are a number of blogs that can prove to be excellent study partners. Its here that I have found write ups on technologies that I was having trouble understanding. If you haven’t discovered the list on netvibes yet you have to check it out. Its probably the most complete listing I’ve seen based on CCIE track. You can also check out the directory at CCIEBlog.com. If you dont have a blog of your own yet why not sign up for one of their free ones?
Of course I couldn’t possibly cover all of the tools that you might consider a "Study Partner." Did I miss your favorite one? Why not tell us about it so we can join in the fun?
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