By Any Means Necessary!
By Stephanie Harris
Licensed 2013
For Stephanie Harris, getting her license was a task that she felt that anyone who wanted to be an Architect must do. However, her path through the examination process was not always straight and not always easy. She has spent all of her professional career working in Atlanta, Georgia. When she started her exams, she was at a small firm without a lot of resources. They had a few Kaplan books but no formal program for those working through their exams. Stephanie took it upon herself to figure out how to make it through.
Stephanie considers herself savvy and resourceful. She had heard that for the space planning exam, your design did not have to be pretty, you just had to meet the program requirements. She decided to take this as her first exam. She practiced with the software and used the reviewers on (the now defunct) ARE Forum to get critiques. Studying was difficult because she lived in an apartment with noisy neighbors and city life. Her regimen was to study from 2am to 6am before work when it was quiet. After three weeks, she attempted the exam and passed. This gave Stephanie a huge confidence boost. She quickly went on to take Material and Methods thinking it would be easy and learned that it was not and failed.
Stephanie knew her rolling clock had started but her professional life took a turn. Almost everyone from her firm was laid-off because of the 2010 Recession. After taking a few months to regroup, she took Construction Documents in August and passed it. Next, she took on Schematic Design (SD) and failed. It was a difficult exam.
At this point, she realized that taking exams and failing would be an expensive task. She no longer had a full-time position, only contract jobs, and she had to figure out a smart path forward. She realized that she was the only one in control of her career, she did not want to be in a place where someone else dictated her path. When applying for new job postings, she felt she was in purgatory. Though she had completed the Intern Development Program, she was still technically an intern and at that time most firms wanted cheaper interns or licensed professionals which made it difficult to find a job in architecture.
She ended up finding a position at a small woman-owned interior design firm, where she had a seven-month contract. Her boss really supported and encouraged her. Even though the pay was peanuts she was able to get a whole new skillset. She moved from there to a three-month position at a top architecture firm in downtown Atlanta. It was there that she was back into exam mode, with some exam resources and being around several people sitting for the exam. This motivated her to get back into studying but she also had to build her funds back up to pay for the exams, as well as her confidence.
When she made the decision to get back in study mode, she realized she had to get materials. Many of her friends were not taking exams because they could not afford the materials, due to the recession. Stephanie and one of her closest friends decided to share study materials even though they were miles apart from each other. This was her primary source of study resources even though they were for the previous ARE 3.1 version and not version ARE 4.0 that she was taking. She felt she at least had something to start with despite how old the materials were. She also used the local library to check out materials. She occasionally borrowed books from colleagues and made copies of needed pages.
When Stephanie’s contract ended in October 2011, she set her mind to focus on studying. She studied five hours a day and focused on SD and Programming, Planning & Practice (PPP). She spent a month studying for each. Her community supported her though; Stephanie’s sister paid for her to take a three day Thaddeus course. Part of the course was taking notes with colored paper and colored pens. This helps with memorization of study material for examination, and she still uses this method in her work now. There she met a guy who would become her study partner throughout the last few exams and they both pushed each other, with long nights of quizzes, questions and made-up flashcards.
Stephanie finally sat for the next two exams, but did not want to open the results from her first exam before she got the email for the second exam. Seeing the email from “Ruth,” the person who sent the results out, gave her anxiety. One night she had a dream about telling an old friend that she passed an ARE exam. The next morning she opened up test result emails and realized she had PASSED them both. This was the final motivation she needed to keep going. Continuing the upswing, in January 2012 her old boss called her and offered her a position back at the firm.
After jumping back into work, she took a few months break from exams. She had two exams left. However, she knew she needed help to retake Materials and Method (MM) and to take Building Systems (BS). In June, she traveled to New Orleans to take Funkaar’s fast weekend course. During this time she also started studying for the two-part NCIDQ exam. She took the NCIDQ part one at the end of 2012. She took MM at the end of January 2013 and passed. She shifted back to NCIDQ to take the second part in April. In May, she started studying for BS. She took the exam in June and passed her final ARE exam. A week following she got her pass results for the NCIDQ exam, securing both licensure as a Registered Architect and as a Registered Interior Designer.
Stephanie closed the chapter by putting all her study material in a box and putting it out of sight. It had been a long three-year process, in which she always had the work ethic, but not being employed full-time gave her time to focus on the exams. Studying mostly on her own, with borrowed materials and using the local library, she was determined to get it done. Now when asked how to pass the ARE exams, she tells people to just study, “you are either going to do it or you ain’t.”
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