FAILURE!

Well I have taken three of the 7 ARE Exams and have passed 2 and just found out last week that I Failed my last exam (Site Planning and Design). It sucks to get a letter that says FAIL on it and you wonder what you could have done different, did you study enough, did you practice the vignette enough and many other thoughts and worries; but, it is not the end of the world and it is definitely not the end of your ambition to become an architect. It is only a design challenge to overcome, what is needed in order not to fail it again, I am not sure that you gain anything by dwelling on the issue just keep on going.

Maybe it would not be so bad if they would stop using the word "FAIL" in bold oversize font in the middle of the page and come up with something better like "Not so good" or "Oops, try again" or something like that it may be a little easier to take. I think I will white out the "FAIL" in my letter and fill it in with "Do Over" so that I feel a little better about it. Well, anyway I have two of the exams done and only have 5 more to go, and I will keep going until they are done.

One of the people in our study group emailed me back when I informed them that I failed and she said that if I got a fail letter she was for sure going to get the letter that said "ha, what you think you can become an architect?" and that made me laugh, but I bet she will pass and I will be very glad for her but either way we will get through this and we will be called ARCHITECTS soon. Almost as soon as I read the fail on my letter I went on line and scheduled my next exam, I am not going to let this get me down and I will keep going with he rest of the exams and when I am eligible to take Site Planning and Design again I will, and I will pass it this time (I hope!).

Time to study some more, and I will make it through this.

Structural Woes...

Do you know how to find the reactions of a beam? Do you know how to draw a shear diagram? Do you know how to size a steel beam? Do you know how much load reinforced concrete is capable of?

DPS is hosting another series of structural seminars to answer these questions and many more. Our first of this series will take place on Thursday, March 12, 2009 and will be presented by Francis and Eileen from our very own structural group, will attempt to demystify the magic that they do in making the buildings we design do what they need to do to stand and protect the occupants. They are gearing their seminars on the ARE 4.0 study material and have met with several interns and newly licensed architects about what is useful and what is fluff, so they have some idea of what may appear on the exam. For this session they will be covering Statics, Beams and Columns, Wood Construction, Steel Construction and Reinforced Concrete Construction.

If you have any questions or comments please respond to this post with them and we will see that they get the info. Also we can discuss how we are all working to prepare for this exam and for others, lets discuss and comment, and we will see you on the 12th for some very interesting structural stuff.

WELCOME to the DPS ARE BLOG...

The Intern Development Committee at DPS has decided to provide a tool for all the interns within the firm to share their experiences in preparing for the ARE and any other professional exam you may be required to take on our roads to licensure, certification or any sort of continuing education. Please abide by the Confidentiality Agreement (at side bar) when it comes to discussing any portion of the actual exam, for more information on what is considered "helping" and what is considered "cheating" see below:

"Helping” means:

• Sharing what study guides you used;
• Discussing concepts highlighted in study material;
• Reviewing graphic solutions to the NCARB Practice Program and noting obvious errors;
• Supporting each other and celebrating each other’s success.
  

“Cheating” means, quite simply, discussing with others anything that you saw on your exam. This includes:

• Identifying terms or concepts contained in exam questions;
• Sharing answers to questions you had on your exam;
• Referring others to “check out” information you saw on your exam;
• Identifying program elements including building names, building heights, setbacks, parking requirements, etc… and code requirements from your graphic vignettes;
• Asking others to repost content that has been removed from the ARE Forum, or any other web site.

For more on this issue go to http://www.ncarb.org/are/areletter.html and read up.

This BLOG will hopefully become a way for those who have taken all or some of the exams to share their experiences in preparing for the exams with those who may just be starting to take the exams.

Now lets get to work and get licenced...