Getting My License Was A Team Sport
Anta Miranda
Licensed 2017

My journey started way before I ever knew what NCARB stands for, or what the licensing process in the US entails. In early 2011, I was working in London in an architectural practice, and, as far as I knew, London would be my home forever. It had been my adopted city for the past 5 years since I left my hometown Lisbon for a Masters Degree. However everything was not going according to plan, I was just made redundant for the second time.

The job market was better than the first time, roughly one year before in the peak of the financial crisis, and I found another position relatively fast. Then, everything changed.

In a surprising turn of events, I got a text message from my then boyfriend – “Let’s pack our bags, we are going to Washington DC!” He had just received the job offer he worked so hard for and our lives were about to change. I did not think twice about it, I just said yes on the spot, it is going to be one great adventure!

Fast forward to 2012, I am home in Washington DC, newlywed and expecting our first baby. I have no job and no network. It is not easy to start again in a new country. I received zero callbacks from my applications; the lack of US experience did not help. With not much to do, I started researching the Professional License. I had a Portuguese and a British one; surely there is a way to transfer… No, bad luck, I must start from scratch!

First I had to complete IDP (now called AXP). I thought what is this “6 month rule”? My seven years of experience were reduced to the meager four months I was able to document. Adding to this, I could not even get my paperwork in order for the EESA (Education Evaluation Services for Architects) evaluation and I was asked to pay a fortune just to translate my undergrad course descriptions. But there was hope! I finally got my break in an architectural practice as an hourly employee, just until my baby was due. I was so happy, I never thought I would miss work this much! It seemed like the license would have to wait, but at least I was getting IDP hours.

Moving on to 2015, I was juggling professional life and motherhood with a toddler and a second baby. I finally got my EESA paperwork in order, when the evaluation results arrived, I was missing 3 credits in Professional Practice. Not too bad, but I had to go back to college. I was hardly getting any sleep with work deadlines and the kids. My husband travelled frequently and I was left managing the home on my own, “I cannot do this, there is too little of me”.

That is when my mom came to the rescue. She said, she sacrificed too much to raise an architect for me to practice without a license in a foreign country. Then she flew from Lisbon to Washington and stayed with us to help me at home while I worked and studied in the evenings. I enrolled in the Professional Practice online course, I was dragged kicking and screaming to do it but it was invaluable to understand the framework of the profession in the US. When I was done in mid-2016, I was finally eligible to take the ARE.

The dreaded exams, what seems to be the tallest mountain to climb for licensing candidates, for me it was just the final step of an already arduous process. After all that I invested this far, I had to be as efficient as I could to reach the finish line. I already had a study routine in place from the PP course, and my mom was summoned again to help out. I joined the study group of my office at the time and started the process on version 4.0, eyeing to transition mid-way to 5.

I planned two months study for each exam and started with PPP, I worked extra hard, making sure I covered all the material in different formats, practicing multi-choice and those painful vignettes over and over again. I took the test, it was not as bad as expected and I felt confident. I got my first pass! I kept going with my plan, no time for pauses. I passed CDS and SD, first time again. I was ready to transition and face the hardest 5.0 exams, PDD and PPD.

I did my research on these two ARE beasts and the word on the street was study for both at the same time, no one knows where the border line is between these two exams’ scope. I looked at my calendar, and there were only 4 months until my summer break when I was going back home to Lisbon. That would have to be enough.

I did not understand most of the terms since I had studied for my undergrad in Portuguese, I had to use Google translate more times that I would like to admit. There was so much material to cover that it felt like I was running out of time, but I knew I had to take those exams. I booked them back to back, with four days between the two dates. First was PDD and it was the hardest of them all. I was not as confident anymore. It was a good thing I only had to wait one day for the results.

I could not sleep, I checked the NCARB page at 6 am and it was a pass, I was over the moon! Four days later I went back to the test center, and I felt a bit better walking out and back to my office. Another sleepless night and a 5 am NCARB check and I got my final pass.

In September 2017, I could call myself an Architect again, because that is who I am no matter the country I live in. I could not have done it without my mom’s and my husband’s support. Getting your license as a working mom is a team sport.

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