My Motivator
Andrew Thompson
Licensed 2005

I took the last written exam back in 1995 before NCARB switched over to computers. At that time, the entire exam was given once a year over a four-day period.

I did the whole 12-hour charrette with about 1,000 other folks on some pier in New York City. That was some stress! I ended passing only Site Design so the following year, I marched into the new era of doing the exam on the computers.

I was living in Brooklyn NY and took a course at the Institute of Design and Construction in downtown Brooklyn for my Structures parts and ended passing Lateral on the first shot and getting General on the second try. That was 1998. Then came the bad years where I couldn’t pass these exams for nothing. I took Materials and passed that on the first shot. That was 2000. Moving along, I hit the monster Pre-Design. I swear they made this exam to break me. I am not a test taker but I learned to overcome the hurdles and get through that. I’ll tell y’all later in this story when I finally passed that.

I went back to Brooklyn and took a course for the Mechanical part of the exam. We went through the 500-page MEP book in 7 weeks and I was good to go. I passed that on the second try. The year was now 2002. Finally I was up against the Graphic Divisions with the Pre-Design still on my back and I was trying not to think like a “real” architect so I could pass these exams. I finally had to haul my butt up to cold-ass Rochester NY, six hours away, to take a workshop with the late, and very great, Mr. Norman Dorf. He broke it down. By the time I was done, I was ready to wrap it up.

Oh and here is a good one to make you pass the exam: your boss threatens your position because you have not gotten your license yet. My title was my motivator; I had the experience but needed my papers. So I buckled down and tackled the Pre-Design monster. Then, I took the teachings of Norman Dorf and finally got through my remaining graphics exams. The year now was 2005.

TEN YEARS. Yeah, I know we have some in the pack that passed everything on their first try but I was not a good test taker. However, I knew I was going to pass the ARE. When someone threatened my livelihood that was also a wake-up call to get things done. The main thing I kept in mind is that it was a test. All tests are meant to be passed. If you think you are going to fail then you will. I always went in to every test session saying to myself that I was going to put this one behind me. Most of the time it worked. I am glad to hear that NCARB has a 5 year clock because personally I took too much time between exams. It took me ten years y’all. My advice is to gear yourself up to pass all parts in 6 months. If you can do that, you are ready for anything this world can throw at ya.

On a final note, a lot of praying between waiting for your results works well too.

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This story was first shared in 2008.
Connect with Andrew here.