I’m now away at a training centre in Bedford, a long way from home.  I’m here to do my Cisco CCNP course, but not in the conventional manner.  I’m here on a boot camp style training course – 13 days solid training, 14 hours per day.  Usually the CCNP is done over four, one week courses.  There are four exams to pass, which here are built into the course structure, but usually are taken in your own time once you have completed your week and had time to revise.

I’m very much excited, but also quite anxious about underachieving.  I am fairly knowledgeable on the subject matter and work in a job that this is useful for, but I currently have little applied practical experience, mostly I deal in theoretical practicalities.

I completed the CCNA in April 2007 and managed that relatively comfortably (although had to re-take due to missing a whole chunk of questions on a multi-question page and failing my first attempt by 0.1%), and since then have had further exposure to different technologies, so I’m hopeful that I’m at a level where I won’t get left behind.

I’m doing the training through Firebrand and this course is based at Wyboston Lakes.  Although I’ve just arrived and haven’t really look around properly yet it would seem to be quite a nice place.  Let’s hope I still feel the same way in two weeks time when I’m finishing up…

Sadly I won’t have any real opportunity to update my blog or Twitter while I’m here as I think the 14 hours each day will take it out of me, and I’m going to need all the energy I can save to help me through the experience.  I’ll give an update though when I’m done, and give some feedback on the boot camp experience and the quality of the course so folks thinking of giving it a shot have an idea of what to expect.

See you in two weeks…..