General Structures (aka "the horror…! THE HORROR!")

This was, by far, the WORST experience I have had with these exams. I thought ME was bad… GS is the mother of them all. Unless, of course, you are a structural engineer or actually good at this material. I even tried to offer NCARB the name and number for a really good structural engineer I know in lieu of my taking this one, but they wouldn't go for it. I never was good at GS, and have always been equation phobic. I wish I would have paid more attention in Mrs. Schwager's class in high school, but doing well in my acting classes and hanging out at the Greek place on 46th & 6th were much more important… not to mention the "extracurricular activities" many of us were involved in while going to HS in the early-mid 70's. Then there was my absolutely horrid experience in architecture school with a certain structures professor who made life miserable if you happened to have breasts and a uterus. Old, Turkish, misogynist who believed women had no place in this business, and a miserable mo fo to boot. To add to that pain, I had him for studio one semester as well. Thankfully, he left before my last semester of structures and the guy that took his place was incredible. It was too late for me by then, but it helped a little tiny bit (thanks, Ralph).

The long and short of this exam experience - no freaking way will I pass this one. Yes, I know I've said that with all of them, but this time I really mean it. I mean it to the extent that I even upped the ante with my lovely husband to $100 for this exam if I pass. Never say never I suppose, but I believe that there is only a 1% chance of my passing GS. My husband has faith, and so do a lot of others who have more faith in me than I do (and you know who you all are), and they all keep telling me that like all the other exams I will get that PASS in the mail in a couple of weeks.

Here's the story. I have been studying my ass off the past two months. I used Kaplan, which was painful. It took me two weeks just to get through the first chapter. It was very calculation heavy and, as is normal with Kaplan, very convoluted and confusing in the explanations. Archiflash was very useful, as it has been all along. I also did Marc Mitalski's "On-line Anytime" seminar. Well worth it, as he makes sense of everything that Kaplan confused me with. But I don't think any of it helped, because I blanked. I just don't get how NCARB thinks that it is reasonable to answer 85 questions, many of which are intense calculations, in 150 minutes. That's about 1.76 minutes per question… Just one WTF question can eat up 5 minutes!

I began the exam, remembering what others had mentioned about the first few questions were probably going to be intimidating and to mark them for review. So I began marking, and marking, and marking… It was as if all the questions had nothing to do with any of the material I studied. I think I only had about 20 that I felt sure about. At about the 30 minutes left mark, I still had at least 30 unanswered questions! Don't hold me to that number, but it was about that many. I really just started guessing at that point (an a here, a c there, oh haven't had a d in a while). The reference material had the basic stuff, but NOTHING that I thought I needed (like A=3V/2Fv). I wish I could remember the questions that I got stuck on, but I can't even remember my name when I walk out of there. On top of the general agony of testing, they had the heat cranked. It was at least 95 degrees in there ("Sorry," they said, "we don't control it, the building does). To add to that, the same girl was working there as last time - she nattered on in Spanish the ENTIRE time. LOUDLY. I mean, I had ear plugs and I could STILL hear her. Like last time, when I asked her to zip it, she looked annoyed and ignored me. I suppose at least this time she wasn't using the speaker phone to continually dial a busy number. I complained to Prometric again, but obviously that is useless.

So I left the test center in tears… a girl thing, sue me. I sulked for a day, and today I start on LF. I signed up again for Marc's seminar, obviously LF this time around. I've got Kaplan and Archiflash sitting there waiting, and will print out FEMA 454 (chapters 2, 4, 5, & 8) for a little bath tub reading. I'm taking LF on December 2, so I really have to get it together quickly. From what I'm told, LF is a piece of cake compared to GS. But it's all relative and depends on who you ask.

You know what is really ridiculous when I think about it? When I started out in March, all I wanted to do was get everything done by June '09 before the transition (gee thanks, NCARB). I totally expected that I was going to fail them all at least once... But then I started passing them, and after 5 for 5 and then the 6th, the thought of actually getting licensed by the end of this year got stuck in my head. Wow, how cool would it be if I got my stamp before my 50th birthday in December? That's a present! Now it will just kill me if I don't get it by then... If I did tank on GS, it's a loooooong 6 month wait (thanks again, NCARB). I just have to figure out a way to re-program my head back to June of '09.

I need many margaritas... many, many, many margaritas…

The Exam That Ate My Brain...

General Structures.... need I say more?

Another One Bites the Dust!

BP - PASS!!!!!!!!! Two-thirds of the way there. I'm starting to get used to this... I'd love to relax and revel in getting this far, but preparing for GS and LF will not allow that.

Prep for GS began with Kaplan a couple of weeks ago. After slogging my way through the first chapter and feeling totally confused and miserable, I signed up for Marc Mitalski's PrepARE on-line any-time seminar. After only a few hours into it and with a lot of help from folks on the forum, I already feel a bit more comfortable. So back to the grind.

The Finish Line is Finally in Site!

I just got the results for Site Planning - PASS! Pass Pass Pass Pass! I got a bit wigged out at first because NY State Ed for some reason sent two letters. But I passed! Wow. More than half way there. I never thought I would get this far (yes, my husband knew I would).

So now I've passed ME, MM, CD, SP, and BT. I am still waiting for results on BP (taken 8/25). Since I'm taking GS and LF on the same day and then only PD after that, I should only have to make two more trips to that dungeon called Prometric (a truly horrid place).

Wish I could relax, but there is still so much work to do... like preparing for GS/LF. Not a stress-free subject.

For Those Taking ARE 4.0

While the content of these test versions (3.1 vs. 4.0) is essentially the same, the different format may require a slightly different strategy for how/when to take each division. Since I am on the "git 'er done in 3.1" track, I would suggest that those taking 4.0 read the suggestions on the ARE Forum, and also pay close attention to architect54's blog. I think architect54 has a pretty sane strategy for tackling the order of the divisions of 4.0. Well, at least he's sane for now...

Oops - I Did It Again!

My husband was right, and I have to go and get him a crispy $50 bill...

I did it, despite myself. I got my PASS letter yesterday for BT. Woo Hoo! I am so relieved that I don't have to revisit this one. Actually, I'm relieved that I don't have to re-take any of them so far. So now I can say I'm 4/9th an Architect. It's a lovely little fraction. So the count now is 4 passed, 5 taken, 4 to go. I took SP this past Friday, and will know my fate in about four weeks (seems to be the graphics division turn-around time in NY).

One think I can say with certainty about studying for the graphics divisions is that Dorf and the ARE Forum are MUSTS. You have to practice practice practice, post your vignettes on the Forum, and treat Dorf's "Solutions" as gospel. There is absolutely no way I could have passed this using the Kaplan materials. Quite frankly, they are useless... at least for me.

If you don't know about the late Prof. Dorf's material, go the website: http://www.nalsa.com

On to BP!

The First Loooooong Wait

BT aka Six Hours of Agony (sorry to those who have heard this saga ad nauseum). Why do we have to wait 8 weeks for graphics results, when MC sections only take 2 weeks? Don't get me started...

Actually, it wasn't as horrific as I thought (as usual). At one point, I even dared to think I was enjoying it. Of course, that feeling didn't last long...

I think I did okay on the section and stairs. I will probably get dinged for the ramp (one too many landings), mechanical/lights because I overlit a couple of rooms (but the two were an art exhibit room and a studio), structure (too many columns), and the roof (screwed up the high roof). I met all the criteria, and made sure my clearances were correct, so who knows?

I saved the structural for last on the first half, and by the time I got there I just blanked. Then I went back and notice my ramp didn't work because of the clearances... So I redrew that. On the second half, mechanical was okay and stair was okay (had a big, long landing on the upper floor) but feel that these could pass. I had an hour and some to do the roof - and just wigged out. In retrospect, it was a very simple solution. For whatever reason, I thought that one edge of the upper roof had to be at 9'-6" like the lower roof! Wow, talk about a complicated upper roof! I made it work, but will get slammed for that I'm sure because it didn't exactly follow the program. It met all the criteria, but just stupid stupid stupid...

I don't know what all the fatal errors are, but hopefully none of my mistakes were that bad and I will pass. I doubt it, though (what else is new).

On to SP and the joys of grading!