The Architectural Registration Exam is the gateway to licensure for thousands of aspiring architects across the country. Six divisions, hours of studying, years of schooling, and practice. It's an undertaking both exhilarating and debilitating, but at the same time, in its achievement, rewarding. For many candidates, however, preparation and study aren't the hurdle, but instead, it's the inescapable emotional obstacles that hold us back: the anxieties, distractions, and uncertainties surrounding the exam. We think of failing and try to fight off the fear that follows. "Everyone will think I don't have what it takes. I'll look like a fool," we might imagine. Why do things like this, and so many others cripple us? And how can we think about it in a new way?

We learn in our failures 

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

- Maya Angelou

Like every aspiring architect, Alissa Bozza dove into the exams with optimism, poise, and determination. But, she could have never anticipated the whirlwind of obstacles that would stand between her and her goal of becoming a licensed architect. "While I was taking the exams, I had moved between three different cities and was working crazy hours at my job," she shared with me. She was diligently and methodically tackling the exams, regularly studying and gaining experience in her job — she was doing all of the right things. But, as the transition to 5.0 approached, and while juggling the complexities of life, Alissa went from only needing one more exam to needing two. They were the big ones: Project Planning & Design (PPD) and Project Development & Documentation (PDD), both four-hour behemoths. 

To work so hard and make so much progress only to then take a step backward is extraordinarily frustrating, but Alissa didn't give up, she buckled down, got to work, and continued forward to achieve her goal. After multiple attempts on both exams, the aspiring professional kept missing the mark. "I was really starting to get discouraged, and I definitely thought about quitting the profession multiple times," Alissa expressed. She thought to herself, "if these exams are what makes a person an architect, then maybe I should not be one." After all, she had tried and tried again, and while she had success early on, these two exams would not relent. What other conclusion was there?

After everything, and what ended up being three years since the first exam, Alissa kept going.

Many in this position would "put the exams on hold," but Alissa still kept at it. Except this time she tried something different. "I decided to look for some one-on-one help," she reminisced. She landed with Eric Corey Freed over at Architect Exam Prep. With some mentorship, Alissa was able to refine her approach to the tests, identify her mistakes, and understand some of the deeper ideas within these two complex exams. After everything, and what ended up being three years since the first exam, Alissa kept going. On her second try, she passed PPD, and she triumphed over PDD on the third try. I was curious about where Alissa’s unceasing determination came from, especially in the midst of such a rigorous job, and the previous setbacks in her exam process. 

"I honestly don't know," she told me. "I knew I didn't want to go my whole life and not be licensed, and even though it was difficult, I knew it would be worse later. So, I sacrificed my 20s so that I would have more freedom in my 30s and 40s," she continued. Well, today, Alissa is enjoying the fruits of that sacrifice. She is a licensed architect in Chicago and is an encouraging example of what determination can accomplish. Not only did she relentlessly pursue her goal, but when things weren't working, she changed her approach. The easy path would have been to put off the exams, but when is anything worth doing ever easy?

The need to please 

“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.”

- Richard Feynman

Part of the pressure in a fear of failing an exam lies in our anticipation of what others will think of us. We become engrossed with how we will be viewed by our colleagues if we don't pass. Their perceived thoughts overwhelm us, and soon we are taking our exams to prove to them that we have what it takes to be an architect instead of for our personal growth and achievement. Since when do we have to get everything right the first time? And since when is failing at something such a bad thing?

Failing does not have to be permanent. If we fail an exam, we can study harder and retake it. Who's stopping you? In 5 years, you aren't going to care how you feel today, so why put so much weight on the thoughts of these other people? The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu had a brilliant saying: Care about people's approval, and you will always be their prisoner, he said. Our concern for others' opinions holds us captive and depletes the mental power we've allotted to tackling our goals.

A flawed mentality 

One factor that helped Alissa make it over that last hump of her journey was one-on-one mentorship. I was interested in learning more about the insights that her mentor, Eric Corey Freed, might have from his experience in helping candidates navigate the ARE exams. Together with David Doucette, the pair have coached thousands of aspiring architects through their journey to licensure. Through that experience, they've learned some interesting things, mainly that it doesn't tend to be the technical information that test-takers need help with, but rather, the mental obstacles. "Many will fail a division, and internalize that fail so deeply that they take a year or more away from the tests. They take these setbacks personally, which is a very different response over other exams, such as the LEED AP exam," said Freed. 

On a surface level, we all know that falling means that we need to pick ourselves back up.

Abandoning the test-taking process is an issue of mentality. Why do we get so bogged down in the failure and throw away the whole idea of licensure or contemplate putting it off until years later? It's a multi-dimensional issue and different for each person. On a surface level, we all know that falling means that we need to pick ourselves back up. But when it comes to the ARE exams, Freed brings up a good point: "this is their chosen profession and something to which they have dedicated their lives, so it's natural for a minor setback like failing a division to hit them in their pride, ego, and self-identity," he explained.

When profession equals identity

“Know first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.”

- Epictetus

Self-identity? Freed touches on an important idea, one that speaks directly to the current zeitgeist, especially in the west where we are defined by what we do. Wow! She's a surgeon, and I work at Walmart. She is greater and I am lesser. We measure individuals by their profession, and what they do, both positively and negatively, it's what gives us status and meaning. We are constantly judging.

When we've attached our identity to becoming an architect we have other things coupled to that achievement: our existence will be justified, our purpose solidified, our status materialized, and when the path we expect doesn't go as planned we take it to heart — something has happened to our inherent sense of identity and worth. Or, more dangerously, we think of people like Charlie Klecha who pass all of their exams on the first try, and if we don't achieve the same results, then we "didn't measure up." 

In every case, our journey is unique; we should embrace that. In every instance, we are who we are, license, or no license.

We have to be okay with who we are as individuals apart from the majority. If my colleague's path to licensure is six months and mine is three years, then so be it; it's okay. Maybe they are more skilled, okay, I need to work a little harder. Maybe they are a better test taker, okay, perhaps I need to improve my test-taking skills. Even still, they may have more experience than I do, fine, I need to gain more experience. I might have a family to take care of, and they live at home with mom and dad; cool, good for them, I need to be more organized. In every case, our journey is unique; we should embrace that. In every instance, we are who we are, license, or no license. Alissa Bozza is a perfect example; she is a person who will do what it takes to achieve her goal. She was always that person, even before she became an architect.

Don’t sabotage the test day

During my conversation with Eric, he shared six common phenomena his students experience that tend to negatively influence their test-taking:

1. Adding Extra Pressure

"Candidates will often add pressure if it's their last test, if the rolling clock is running out, or if they failed their last exam. These are all mental constructs that increase their anxiety and reduce their ability to answer," Eric explained. And the biggest pressure of all? The assumption that one has to pass all exams on the first try.

2. Too Much Bias

"Many tend to frame every question through their own experience. For example, if they've only worked on healthcare projects, they imagine every question on the exam as a hospital," he expressed and went on to articulate how this flawed expectation ends up clouding a test-takers' judgment and objectivity.

3. Easily Distracted

Eric shared with me how his students will tell him that they got distracted by the temperature of the testing center, or someone typing on their keyboard, and even by other people breathing in the room. "In reality, this is a rationale to justify to themselves why they (might have) failed," he explained.

4. Overthinking

Candidates begin to think of hypothetical possibilities within questions on the test, according to Eric. He elaborated: "Let's say they get a question about a school. They wonder, 'wait, what kind of school is it? Elementary? College?' instead of trusting that the question has given them all of the information they need to answer it."

5. Too Experienced

"Every week, a candidate will call me and say, 'I'm the code expert in my firm, and I failed the code section on the exam! How?' This is because they assumed their personal experience makes up for studying, and so they didn't really study for that portion of the exam," Eric shared.

6. The Dreaded Question

Eric's sixth point touched on the fear that almost every candidate has of seeing a particular kind of question on an exam. For instance, someone might not want to get a moment diagram on the structural portion of the test. He helps his students with this by telling them to go in expecting their worst fear, "Set a realistic expectation. Go in saying to yourself, 'I hope I get less than ten of this type of question,' and your confidence will be a lot better during the exam," he explained.

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The Architectural Registration Exam is a rigorous undertaking, and the long journey to gaining that license can be emotional, frustrating, and also exhilarating. Try to embrace your path, forget about the expectations of others, and keep at it. If it gets hard, remember Alissa's story. If you stay diligent, you will achieve what you've set out to accomplish.