The Feynman Technique

Since I started my journey to the CCIE certification I’ve constantly run in to the question “Do I know this good enough?”. This question is extremely difficult to answer because I have no real reference to compare myself to. This resulted in two trips to the exam center for the written exam. Luckily I passed on the second attempt, but it would have been nice to finish on the first attempt.

While many tools and techniques exist to help study and retain information it remains difficult to assess yourself.

Recently I’ve run into the Feynman technique (explained really well here: collegeinfogeek. The basis of this technique is that to be able to explain something in simple terms you have to have intricate knowledge of the subject.

In my past I have taught networking classes and I’ve always experienced that preparing for these classes was one of the most efficient ways to study for me. The class required me to be able to explain concepts, so I had to know these concepts and be able to explain them in more than one way. During my studies for the CCIE I have not done much explaining to other people of concepts, but the technique is interesting enough for me to give it a try. One of the most obvious ways to do this is to post those explanations here on this site.

Because writing elaborate explanations of all the technologies included in the CCIE blueprint will take a lot of time I will not publish all explanations online during my studies, but I will continue publishing after I have passed the lab exam.