I just  came back  yesterday from my trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, where I was allowed to attend the CCDE Bootcamp offered by Malcolm Booden. He holds this 5-day course  2  times a year with  a very limited  amount of students (up to 6). I met Malcolm at Cisco Live Amsterdam 2024  and  we  had a very open talk .  After that, I decided to book one of the course seats for the May 2024 course. Lucky for me  my  company was very supportive about that. Concerns Before going there I had 2 main concerns: Will I be able to follow the course? It  is said  that Scottish is very hard for non-native  speakers Since  I´m  at the starting point of the CCDE track  it  might be  too  early to attend the Bootcamp  and  I might not be able to follow the  content Before I answer these 2 questions let me do a short wrap-up of the week. Week in a glance  The preparation and information...

I passed my CCIE Lab exam in January 2023 and since then I have taken some time to rest. I was not sure how to exactly proceed in my career, but after some time I recognized that the CCIE opened new opportunities for me.  My colleagues and customers treated me as an expert from now on and the focus of my work shifted more and more to design and presales tasks. So I decided that the CCDE certification track would be a great future goal and give me more confidence and knowledge in this field. I had a great discussion with my boss and team lead and both of them instantly supported the idea (as with my CCIE efforts). I am very grateful and I know that is not always the norm.  I was allowed to sign up for an in-person CCDE bootcamp in May with Malcolm Booden, whom I was able to meet at Cisco Live in Amsterdam earlier this year. So stay tuned  ....