Last exam = Pass!

Guess what arrived this weekend while we were at the car show???

 The passing score for the last of 7 exams!!!

You can see it took about a year and a half to get through them all. That's because I had to retake SD. I took it in March and failed, and there's a mandatory 6 month waiting period to retake an exam.

The rest of it was slow going because I got laid off right after I took my first exam. There was a mixture of depression from losing my job, and the pay reduction (unemployment is a joke, really) that made it take so long to take the others.

But I'm finally done! Now I have to wait for the Missouri State Board of Architecture to receive all my information from the national organization, but I should be a licensed architect before Thanksgiving! (Maybe even before Halloween?)

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Schematic Design exam

If you've ever wondered what is on these blasted 7 exams I have to take to get a license to practice architecture, here's some info about the last one I have to take, Schematic Design.

This is the only one of the 7 that doesn't have any multiple choice on it; it is only 2 drawings. One is an interior layout, which requires arranging rooms and furniture. The other is a building layout, requiring specific adjacencies between rooms, door and window placement.

 Here's the interior layout. Luckily, there is a forum where you can post your solution and then others who are taking/have taken the exam will critique your solution. For the interior layout, you get a program, which is a list of rooms and the furniture required in each room. Certain rooms require windows, or access to other rooms. There must be a 5' diameter circle for a wheelchair to make a complete turn around in each room. There must be 3' of clearance between furniture and between furniture and walls. That's what all the green circles are.

 The building layout always has two floors. The programs gives a list of rooms, their square footages, if they require windows, which rooms are supposed to be adjacent, which rooms require direct access, and which rooms require visual control. In this floor plan, LD is supposed to have visual control of CR, W and L, that's what the green lines represent.

You're probably looking at this wondering what the big deal is. Part of the problem is that most of us taking the exams work with AutoCAD everyday. The program that the test uses is really dumbed down. Imagine the difference between Paint and Adobe Photoshop. Now imagine you're supposed to edit a photo in Paint, when you would typically use Photoshop. It can be done, but it's slow going.
For the interior layout, you are allotted 1 hour and for the building layout, 4 hours.

After several emails and phone calls, I am finally able to register to re-take this last exam. Now I need to double check my work schedule and cough up the $210 for the exam. (My work pays for the first attempt to take each exam, but not retakes. Although, I'll still get paid for my time off to take the exam.)

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Onions and anxiety

Today I ordered my onions from Dixondale Farms. I was going to get around to it, but earlier this week I got a reminder email from the Owner (well, probably his secretary, in an automated email) that I hadn't ordered my onions yet and this is the time I ordered them last year. I felt a little whipped into shape after that email, and also appreciative that they would take time to email a reminder like that. So I ordered a bunch of lancelot leeks (I was only going to order half a bunch, but a full bunch was only $2 more), and a mixed bunch of intermediate day onions. I was going to order some of their special onion fertilizer - it's all nitrogen and no P-K. But I decided instead to use up some of the fertilizer in the garage. I think it's the Lowe's version of Miracle Grow. Not the best stuff, but I'd rather use it than throw it away. It has a pretty high nitrogen content if I remember correctly.

I'm getting really anxious about my sixth exam on Tuesday. Mostly because this will probably be the hardest exam for me. If I fail any of them, this will be the one. I've been reading the material for several months now, but still not scoring very high on the sample exams. However, it's been my experience that the practice exams for the other sections were a lot harder than the real exam and I passed the five I've taken on the first try. The other reason I'm anxious is because it may snow again early next week and I'd hate to have to reschedule it. The Hubs said he'll take me to the testing center if need be, if I can't get there in the car. I should probably read up on their snow cancellation policy, too, though.

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