I’ve been dreading these exams—they’re 6 months (or at least that seems to be as fast as most people can get through them if they’re working at the same time) of social isolation, rote learning, and stress. Luckily I have a few friends who have finished or are about to finish, so I’m counting on them for advice, support, and commiseration. (Hello, friends!)

The step I took today was to download and print the seven* study guides/introductions from the NCARB site. I’m gonna have to beg, borrow, or steal (maybe even buy) a lot of other study material, but this hundred pages or so will at least help me sort out which test to take first, help me start to understand what I have to learn, and generally get me thinking testishly.

In addition to multiple-choice questions, the tests include ‘vignettes,’ which aren’t nearly as charming as they sound. They’re drawing tests, but using a fake made-up software program NCARB (National Council of Architectural Registration Boards) invented for the exams. And, of course, it won’t work on my Mac. So to practice I guess I either have to, again, beg, borrow, or steal a PC or spend weekends at work studying. Yay.

I’m going to have at it in the New Year. For now, I’m warming up my brain by studying Scrabble a bit—learning two- and three- letter words, high scoring words, and strategies, practicing against online robots, and getting weirdly addicted to this game, which is a pretty good Scrabble warm-up. It’s a more fun kind of studying that doesn’t feel like work, but hopefully will kick my languorous brain into at least first gear. Then watch out ARE, here I come.

. . .

(I apologize to friends and relations who may not hear much from me for the first half of 2010. Please continue to send updates on your more exciting lives, and if you don’t hear back from me by summer solstice, send a search & rescue team.)

* If you’re curious, the exams are Programming, Planning & Practice; Site Planning & Design; Building Design & Construction Systems; Schematic Design; Structural Systems; Building Systems; and Construction Documents & Services.

But in the mean time, I am Kirsten Hively, LEED GA (time to make business cards!). Yes, that is a lot of all-cappage. LEED = Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and GA = Green Associate. It’s basically the industry standard (and yes, there’s a LOT of industry in that standard) for sustainable building.  It’s full of acronyms and circular references, but it is, as I said, the industry standard, and that kind of consensus is worth a lot. When someone says a building is LEED Silver Certified, that has a very specific meaning that anyone who has dealt with LEED understands. So while it has some serious flaws, its value as a mode of communication is undeniable.

The system recently received a major overhaul that, to give the USGBC (that’s the US Green Building Council, who oversees the LEED system) credit, addressed a lot of the concerns voiced by critics, including giving greater weight to global warming issues. The downside of the upgrade, though, is that it meant an entirely new set of materials to study and a new system of accreditation (the splitting of the test into two parts that I mentioned). So if you are planning to take the test, do NOT look at any old materials.

OK, the rest of this is probably only of interest if you’re actually planning to take the test, or if you’re the kind of armchair test-taker who relishes the voyeuristic pleasures of hearing about other people’s test taking in detail.

First of all, if you’re planning to take the test, go here:

http://www.areforum.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=47

It’s a discussion forum largely devoted to the ARE (Architectural Registration Exams), but that section I just linked to discusses the LEED exams. It’s very informal and so take the posts with a grain of salt or two, but it was helpful for me to understand the scope of the test.

The next critical place to go is the USGBC website itself. They don’t run the test (they spun that off to GBCI, the Green Building Certification Institute—I told you this was confusing—with the recent upgrade) but they invented LEED and control its evolution and dissemination. I found their website somewhat less than crystal clear, but just poke around a bit and you’ll see what’s what.

I opted to skip the official classes and guides (you can buy them from the USGBC website if you feel differently), but the free handbook

http://www.gbci.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=3571

is MANDATORY. It is written in a way that makes it sound like BS, but it actually contains some very important information. In particular, pay attention to the list of primary references (I skipped the ancillary references so I don’t know if they matter much), they are key and all are available for free download, and to the ‘specifications’ section, which will give you a very good outline of what you need to learn. The small section of sample questions will also start to give you an idea what you’re in for. For me as an architect (you don’t necessarily have to be an architect to take the test—many engineers take it, as well as some developers, interior designers, etc.), I found the test a really odd mix of brute memorization and common sense. Sorting out which things I needed to memorize and which I just needed to understand took up a lot of my study time.

Next step:  register! The handbook describes the process—it’s basically 2 steps. First you get permission from the USGBC to take the test, then you schedule an appointment with a Prometric testing center (I ended up taking my exam in the same place I took my GREs lo these many years ago).

It’s $250: $50 to register and $200 for the test itself. There are additional fees for changing your exam date, for maintaining your accreditation, and just generally whatever they feel like they can get away with charging you for. If your job won’t pay for it, at least you can write it off on your taxes!

I gave myself about a month to study. I ended up being sick and unable to study for a solid week of that time, but then really studied as much as I could (pretty much work-study-sleep, repeat). I’m sure if you were somewhat familiar with the material and didn’t have a job you could learn it in a couple of weeks, maybe even one week if you crammed, but my old brain isn’t as fast as it used to be. If these topics are entirely new to you or you don’t have much free time, I’d leave a little more time.

Now your next step if you have deep pockets or work for a big company willing to lend you theirs would be to take a class. The formus I linked to above can recommend some for you—alas, my pockets are distressingly shallow, so I did not go that route.

I studied mainly with practice tests, reviewing the free material, and reading a handbook that came with my exams. The practice exams I timed, and I carefully studied not only the questions I got wrong, but also the ones I had guessed on so I could be more sure next time, and so I would have a handle on similar questions.

For me, the timing of the test was no problem. It’s 100 multiple choice questions (and, by the way, you get NO credit for multi answer questions (eg ‘which three strategies would be best for achieving…’) unless you get all the correct answers. No partial credit.). In the actual test, I reviewed my test 3 times and still finished with 45 minutes to go. The problem with so few questions, though, is that you could get unlucky and get stuck with a lot of questions from your weaker areas. There is also some secret weighting formula, so there’s no way to know how many questions you need to get right in order to pass.

The wording of the questions, however, was not so straightforward. There were several questions on the test that I knew the information cold, but still wasn’t sure what the correct answer was. So best to leave a buffer and overstudy at least a bit. But then, I’m a worrier.

The practice tests I used (set of 4) were from these guys: https://www.greenexamprep.com

The tests were online (which made it annoying to review missed questions, but I get they don’t want people stealing their content) and, as I said, came with a decent study guide. The study guide was bulked up with (to me) pointless case studies and had some small mistakes here and there, but was basically very helpful. I took the exams twice each. I also read good things about this site: http://www.everblueenergy.com/ on the forums, but did not use any of their material myself.

What I did do (as those of you who know me will expect) was make a ton of flash cards, color coded charts, and lists. Because, you know, that’s just my style.

So there you have it. General advice-wise I would say remembering the big picture—sustainable design is a good thing!—is important when you feel you’re getting gummed up with the corporate-speak and other mumbo-jumbo. It’s all for a good cause and it’s kind of a fun game if you can forget about the stress for a bit (which I obviously wasn’t the best at, hence the shingles). Good luck!

PS: I can’t give out very specific information about the test (the GBCI like NCARB is cracking down on people disseminating what they see as too much information), but if you have general questions, I will do my best to answer them.

Yes, the answer is yes. It’s been a while since I made flash cards, skimmed summaries, printed study guides, and readreadread. I’m having flashbacks to GRE studying, to grad school finals cramming, and all kinds of earlier info uploads to the old brain.

I’m studying for the LEED GA test, so I can put those LEED GA letters after my name (everybody likes letters, right?) and so people will, theoretically, believe I can design green buildings. And everybody likes green, right?

So, yes, I’ve been reading such fascinating texts as The Treatment by LEED of the Environmental Impact of HVAC Refrigerants (hopefully I will remember the differences between CFCs, HFCs, and HCFCs); I’ve been trying to sort out the differences between ANSI/ASTM E799-03 and ANSI/ASHRAE 52.2-1999; and I’ve been sorting through enough acronyms to choke a horse (if the USGBC is making a program called LEED, you can bet it will be chock full of acronyms).

I’m aiming to take the test shortly before Thanksgiving, so until then it’s all LEED all the time. Forgive me if I neglect other things (including this blog). I will, however, be making time to work on the NNYPC (more acronyms!)—we just got our next assignments. I will post here when they’re up on Flickr.

Oh, and maybe I’ll find time to write about our visit last weekend to Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. But until then, check out the Flickr pics.

I don’t know how interesting this is to anyone who isn’t an architect or looking to hire one, so feel free to tune out and move on. But if you’re interested, I will continue to occasionally update y’all on my progress to being able, finally, to legally call myself an architect. Right now I cannot. I am, techincally, an architectural intern, an intern architect, or (as my friend put on his business card) an architecturalist. But I won’t turn you in if you wanna go ahead and call me an architect.

In addition to naming privileges, once I’m licensed I will have the right to sign off on building designs as safe and sound with a fancy stamp and everything.

Anyway, the road to architecturaldom is rather a long one—in addition to four long years of graduate level professional school, I have to do about 3 years of interning, during which time I check off that I have spent a certain number of days (8 hours = 1 “unit”) in each of about 20 different categories covering everything from managing a construction site to basic design. 

In addition to the hours I have to pass 9 rather difficult exams (together comprising the Architectural Registration Examination, or ARE). At the end of all of that, I can apply for a license for New York Sate. Wshew!

It is of course possible to have a long and fruitfull career as an, ahem, architecturalist, without ever being licensed. But I decided that to further my dream of one day working in a very small, very cool office and maybe even some day in the distant future on my own, it makes sense to go through all this rigamarole. So here I am on the road to architecturedom. I paid my registration fee, and look forward to paying my annual fees, my test registration fee, my state registration fee, &etc. And I’m glossing over all the crazy forms (I can’t call it paperwork anymore since most of it is online) that make me want to tear out my hair. Hence the ‘annoyance’ in the title of this post, but I have a few friends slightly ahead of me in the process who have been helping and lending moral support, so I’m sure I’ll figure it out one way or another.

And some day, maybe within a year or two, I will be able to actually put ‘Architect’ on my business cards without fear of repercussions. On that day I will have a party, yes I will, and you are invited.