Doesn't sound like it. The kid from Australia was enrolled in some sort of architecture program of some sort and his intent was involving practice in Australia. 

This person is looking to enroll in Cal Poly. If I am successful at reading through his (not sure I have a right word that is politically correct) well.... posts, I believe he is in the Los Angeles area.  This quoted text of this person seems to point to that:

i bet none of the people who seem angry in this thread are even architects in la

This with California implies RTVSk... is in California. That is what it leads me to believe.

Quotes on Page 2, second post after Donna's Cat pic with the caption "I SHOULD BUILD A MOAT".

RTVSk....,

u expect someone to make great sketches for no client's purpose & to show u nitwits?

edit: this shit has got to stop and i'm going to be the one to stop it for once and for all

YEAH! YOU KNOW.... HOUSE PLANS. PEOPLE DO MAKE NEW HOUSE DESIGNS FOR SPECULATIVE DESIGN SOLUTIONS. YOU KNOW...... BE THE CLIENT. THINK LIKE THE CLIENT OR TO BE OCCUPANT OF THE TARGET MARKET. ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU WOULD ASK THEM. ROLE-PLAY A LITTLE BIT. 

THEN DEFINE THE PURPOSE AND COME UP WITH A SOLUTION OR ARE YOU TO DEAD IN THE HEAD TO COME UP WITH SUCH.

Your sketches aren't even close to the shittiest house plans I have EVER seen. You can't do this professionally in 5 minutes. You have to spend more than 5 minutes to do something worth a fuck. No one is going to pay you $20 for 5 minutes and what is probably 30 seconds to 60 seconds of scribble from a rather slow scribbler.

Try to spend more than 5 to 10 minutes doing something to show us. All of us on this forum (with possibly the exception of you) can scribble and do parti / diagrams / etc. 

You need more work. 

Design is an ongoing process from raw and really course conceptual through iterations of refinement until you can produce complete working set. 

You complained about not having a program. Here: 

Here's a sample project program for you that I am taking straight out of the NCBDC CPBD certification Candidate Handbook.

Project program:

Preliminary base information:

Problem Solving – Part B

This section of the exam will test the candidate’s ability to design a structure, with emphasis on the word design. This is not a working drawings test. The working drawings were provided with the application has established a candidate’s drafting ability. This section is intended to test design ability. The exam consists of a design project for a single-family dwelling. (Amended) You are provided a site description in the sample program below) in which you will prepare a site plan with topographic contour lines at 6" intervals on shallow terrain and 2' intervals and the 10' intervals. The line type used shall be differentiated enough from each other. You will be required to design the house to the provided recommended criteria. You will be required to design it to meet the International Residential Code (2012 edition). You will be asked to provide scaled drawings of: 

1. Site Plan

2. Preliminary Floor Plan(s)

3. Exterior Elevations (all sides)

4. A Typical Wall Section.

The work is to be done on 36" x 24" (1/4" grid) tracing paper (provided) in either pencil or ink. (NOTE: Exception: You can use CAD and produce a PDF instead on sheet size for 24 x 36 sheets in landscape format at 1/4" = 1'-0" for floor plans and elevations. Site plan shall be at 1"=20'-0" and sections shall be at: 3/8" = 1'-0")

Sample Program

1. The building lot is 75' wide and 150' deep. The site uniformly slopes 15% from the right front comer to the left rear corner. There are no trees, streams, or large rock outcroppings on the site. There is a view to the rear. The owner needs to have at least one off-street parking place in addition to a two-car garage and room for a pool.

2. The rooms should be as functional as possible. The architectural style should be Craftsman. When the floor plan is competed, indicate the living and accessory areas, such as garages, porches, patios, etc. Estimate the cost of construction by using $120 per square foot for living areas and $40 per square foot for accessory areas.

3. The dwelling should between 2800 and 3000 square feet. The dwelling should contain a living room, dining room, family room, kitchen, utility room (laundry, etc.) guest bedroom/den, two bedrooms, bathroom, powder room, master bedroom suite (bedroom, bathroom, dressing area, walk-in closets.)

(NOTE: The objective of this sample problem is to practice your ability to think through a design problem, solve it and present it all within the eight hour time frame. If you are a capable Professional Building Designer this should not be difficult for you to accomplish)

NOTE: I'm giving until 11:59pm April 3rd. Candidates who had taken the exam had to do this in 8 hours. You have significantly more than 8 hours to do this. Don't ask for sympathy.

curtkram,

I agree, a little proofreading. I had just got back in from being outside and it was a warm day and brain was a little baked and then headache of reading though dipshit's posts.

Forgive me.

I was wearing a coat expecting the outdoor temperature to be closer to 58 degrees versus 68 degrees. It was in the 50s last week. I didn't check what the temperature outside was at. 

Unlike 90% of America, I walk everywhere I need to go to unless I am heading out of town. In other words, if I am going more than 5 MILES, I tend to walk to the place. 

A little exhaustion after running around (by foot) and then reading RTVSk...'s posts.... and a headache from reading that... go figure. The biggest factor is probably the headache of reading through RTVSk's posts. If you read his posts, you can probably get a headache just reading it.

That's besides the point, why the hell am I debating this anyway. Not worth my time.

I'll join this challenge. It might as well be open book so to speak. No one is there to check if a person is or isn't.

2. The rooms should be as functional as possible. The architectural style should be Craftsman. When the floor plan is competed, indicate the living and accessory areas, such as garages, porches, patios, etc. Estimate the cost of construction by using $120 per square foot for living areas and $40 per square foot for accessory areas.

I'll amend this to: 

2. The rooms should be as functional as possible. The architectural style should be Craftsman. When the floor plan is competed, indicate the living and accessory areas, such as garages, porches, patios, etc.  Don't do a estimate of cost of construction. Without complete materials list, estimates would be bogus. There isn't enough time to prepare all the required information and thorough materials list to do a decent and remotely accurate cost estimate.

I'll do this  challenge by old school hand drafting so I am going to have to photograph the sheets with a cheap camera... hopefully it wouldn't be to bad.

I'll prove the sheets are 24x36 (within reasonable tolerances +/- 1/4") as certain photos copies will have a ruler to help indicate size.

On the fence,

You don't want me to follow through on this?

I'll ask you guys, should I proceed to do this challenge or let this one go and proceed on with more important things like working on stuff for NCBDC certification and other stuff ? 

Thanks. I agree, focus on building my career would be better spent use of energy and time than........... >.>         ................... you know.

I been in business of building design since 2005 and  less formal extent since 2001. Since 2005 at least. The recession hit hard for most a large stretch of 2008 to 2012/2013. It wasn't really until 2014 and 2015 that client demand for design services started to build up where I am at. Don't assume things in the rural areas are entirely in sync with what's happening in the big cities. There is a little lag there.

Architects hiring building designers.... that's kind of rare, you know. The few that I do know are in fact CPBDs. As for making contact with employers in architecture? Why would I apply to a job that's going to cost me $20-25 a day in commute costs and 4-5 hours of time on top of 8 to 12 hour work days. Sure, I could at some point rent a Portland Apartment but that's going to cost more a year than owning property and paying the taxes and all. In Portland, that would be about half my income as we know the rent is going to go up in the downtown core because the minimum wage going up. They compensate with minimum wage income. Minimum wage is going to catch up. Rent in downtown is going to go up to around $1700/mo. by like 2019 when Portland minimum wage would reach about $15/hr.  Do the math, that's $20,400. That IDP/AXP entry level job is still going to be $15/hr. as it has been since like 1975. $31.2K with total take home being maybe $24K a year after taking out for social security and other withholdings. That leaves me only $3600 a year to pay for utilities and food. How's that going to work? I would have to be earning $40K a year minimum take home in order to afford the cost that would be charged in Portland area. Since everything there would inflate much like it does in San Francisco except pay rate until you are minimum wage. Are you nuts?

REGARDING THE CERTIFICATION PROGRAM:

The NCBDC certification isn't a "you send them a check and they send you a certificate" mill. It's not that simple. There are currently some on-going changes, in part relating to ANSI accreditation, including changes involving the application process & procedures. There are changes involving moving the exam into a computer-based test and the processes involved in registering to take the different Sections of the NCBDC certification exams. Yes, they need to work on sorting out a few textual inconsistency.

The NCBDC is an independent council within AIBD. In other words, NCBDC has its own council independent of AIBD's.

You say that its a revenue raiser to pay the salaries of the administrators of the organization. You can say that about the licensing boards. They use the money from licensing fees, renewals, other fees and fines levied to finance its costs of operations. That is basically what you are talking about with other certifications.

First off, AIBD is the ONLY organization that represents building designers. You might ask, what about the Home builder associations. They represent builders, first and foremost. So in some peripheral extent, they represent design-build. However, the home builder association does not have a building design certification. You should also note that the home builders associations are to some degree 'allies' of AIBD/NCBDC. 

Many of AIBD members and NCBDC CPBD are also members of the home builder associations (NAHB, etc.) and are also credentialed or certified by a number of other associations. Therefore, both organizations are allies. Could there possibly be a merging of these organizations in the future? I don't know. 

AIBD is the only association in the United States that represents building designers. The NCBDC certification is the ONLY building design certification aside from state based architect licensing (a type of certification in its own right).

You seem to get the whole premise of an association someone skewed from a self-focused / self-benefit point of view. You seem to imply that an association or its certification is strictly about how the association benefits oneself. If people don't join or support the associations and certification programs offered by the associations and be active with the association and making it more known, how will the associations do much.

LEED and any of these other associations didn't just magically get to where they are now. Aside from them using political means to apply political force to drive their membership, you grow membership through grass root effort and build awareness of the association and its programs. 

AIBD like any association is only going to grow and strengthen through its members efforts in building awareness of the associations, there programs or where applicable, their certification programs. 

It's kind of like this paraphrase of John F. Kennedy's famous quote:

It's not what the Professional Association can do for you but what you can do for the Professional Association.

A professional association is like a country or family. 

AIA doesn't represent independent practicing building designers.

Oh yeah, I  forgot.......................... income tax that has to be taken out. That would be about 25% to 35% (between Federal and State) for this income bracket level. That would eat up the $3600 so I would still be $0 to pay for food and utilities.  That would likely mean I need closer to $45K to $48K minimum take-home in 2019 or so if rent in Portland, Oregon goes up to $1700 a month.

Otherwise, it isn't worth starving to death. The housing would have to be significantly less. 

A person can not reasonably afford to pay much more than 25% (30% tops) of take-home pay (or 25% base wage/monthly salary) if you have to pay utilities beyond the absolute minimum utilities.  It just doesn't work out.

5839,

Damn it architects, set up an actual architecture firm in Astoria area for crying out loud. I would apply in a heart beat. (metaphor)

You say future earnings would pay at when.... after 50 years? Rent in Portland is going to go up in lock step with minimum wage. I would have to have a starting wage of $45-$50K to pay rent. To correct myself, Portland minimum wage would be.... $14.75/hr by 2022. Maybe sooner but as the current legislation holds.

Basically $15/hr. in 2022. 

In July 2017, it's going to be $11.25. Rent would be up to $1250 a month. That's $15,000/yr. Take out withholding and money for paying income taxes to IRS and Oregon Dept. of Revenue, I'm looking at about 2/3 of the entry level pay of $31,200 a year entry level intern pay level. That's only $20,800. Take the $15,000 in rent and that's only $5,800 a year for food. Around $475-490 a month. $483.33333/mo. That's not really enough to live worth a damn. 

At 1250 a month, it better include all utilities, phone, high speed internet of at least 60 Mbps (in Portland area.. yeah) and some decent level basic to extended basic cable or equivalent level. Especially for a 300-450 sq.ft. one bedroom, 1 bathroom, and kitchenette with living room.....apartment.

I'm not interested in paying more than $1/sq.ft. for raw rent. Maybe $1.25 per sq.ft. with basic utilities. $1.50 per sq.ft. for some benefits. $2.00/sq.ft. if furnished and not just a oven and fridge. If just an oven and fridge, that would be in the $1.50-$1.75 per sq.ft. range depending on utilities coverage.... in all cases, landlords that does their job in maintenance and I'm not responsible for other tenants action. If I am working a full time job, I don't have time to babysit the other tenants.

I wouldn't want my pay rate increase to be just a minimum wage bump up because I know food and rent and everything else is going up with it. I would have to really be earning $40K-$45K from start. 

Honestly, I still would want to not be spending more than $1000/mo. in rent and utilities included. Honestly, I would need to have around $1200-$1250 a month to live on. That would give me about $40-50 a day for food, and other expenses and some even saving to build a livable life at $40K-$45K. I would expect reasonable pay climb. I don't necessarily pay rate increase aside from adjustments for inflation/minimum wage increase. I would expect additional 20-25% bump up in pay on top of cumulative inflation adjustments in like 5 years. In 5 years, I would expect base salary to be something like: ($40K or $45K + 20% to 25%) + %___ per year local inflation|minimum wage adjustments. If minimum wage increased by 3% a year and inflation increased by 3.5% then the greater of numbers be used per year like 3.5%

It would look like ($48K to $56.25K) + (3.5x5 or 17.5%) or (48K or 56.25K) + 17.5% or $56.4K to $66.1K. I would hope employment pay would be in that range after 5 years of full-time employment for base salary.

In 10 years. you can probably figure $75.6 K to $114K. In Portland, I would reason the numbers over 10 years might be $80K to $125K. I would expect that kind of pay. 

In Astoria area, I would expect $72K to $112.5K. Using a 0.9 coefficient adjustment from Portland.

The problem I see is pay plateaus and long periods without any step up in pay.

As a business, I have to do more to attract business and revenue. Without any online gallery and such being presented to clients, it is not much in the form of marketing.

I'm not using any portfolios to attract clients. I don't use school work for portfolio. As for developing a plans like pre-drawn house plans as the sort of eye candy to attract clients. In some level, its marketing tools to give clients some visual stuff. Some of my stuff is just too technical in nature and not that 'cute' or 'attractive'. 

As for an employer, what would you say an employer would be looking for in a portfolio?

5839,

I don't disclose all my client projects. My business is focused on custom building design and remodel/renovation/additions. I haven't got into the house plans market which would be a national to international market. Many projects are barely even worth my time. Then there is consultant work that is more research and documentation versus design. Astoria area has a general lack of new construction demand.

Lets look at that math part:

There is a difference between high rent / low pay and rent that leaves you to literally dying or going to prison because you can't pay the ~$10,000 of income tax you have to pay to IRS and state Department of revenue for earning $31,200. I'm looking at the amount between the cut of the pie to pay IRS & state income tax and that of the rent & utilities. What good is a roof over ones head when you die of starvation. Lets not forget the student loan payments as well. 

You be better off spending the few dollars you have left on some plywood, some 2x4s and build a coffin and dig out a hole in the ground to place a burial and design your own tombstone. Maybe that's melodramatic but still. I'm looking at an income level that is livable vs. guaranteed certain death. There is lot less expensive ways to die.

Now as for the last part of what you wrote:

An employer would be looking for evidence that you know how a building is put together, know how to detail, know drawing conventions, and have decent visual composition skills.

That's exactly what I would be working on for NCBDC certification. The application process requires submission of working set of drawings and specification including preliminary drawings.

It's part of the process for not just NCBDC certification. It's for business and portfolio work. I'm not into flashy use of templates that all these portfolios people post of ISSUU.

5839,

$350 a month is $11.6666666 a day of food. Remember, there is more to living that just grocery. That's why its more than food and all. The student loan is a loan. You pay back with interest. Why in the world would the government give me any break on income tax for paying back a loan. The idea is pay it off ON TOP of your normal due taxes. Lets say we don't count the student loans. Given the only meals I would get to eat in a day is probably. 

USDA calls for the month food budget for a family of 4 being around $850 a month being mid-point assuming the family only eats at home and even those figures as used in calculating food bank food allotment per person in a household is pretty shitty. In our profession, we don't get to eat at home much at all 5 days a week. So about 2 meals every day of the work week would likely be eating out. That's about $5-$10.00 a meal (you know.... McDs and Subway and all. We often don't have days off anyway. That's about $10-20 a day for one person. That's anywhere from $300-600. Okay. Oh yeah, lets not forget having a life and relationship where as a guy, you are expected to pay. Lets assume having a life, dating a woman architect or something. You know the woman is going to expect you the guy to pay for the lunch and dinner. Think about that for a moment.

Lets also remember there are expenses beyond just food. Oh fucking wait, there's probably all the misc. moving expenses getting stuff moved over. Oh wait, there's that bit of furnishing stuff that one has to through in to the place a little bit. Like I said, this all adds up a month. Basic rent (unfurnished and no utilities in downtown Portland is in the $1000/mo. even for the 1 person apartment. If I were to add another $200 / mo. on utilities. 

That's $1200 or so a month and that's expected to increase and the pay rate isn't increased annually. That leaves only around 700-900 or so a month to cover food and other expenses a month. Rent each year would go up by about $100-150 or so until 2022 with the increase of minimum wage. Food cost for food sold in Portland would also increase. Grocery stores and other food places adjust prices to local pay and income level of the area. With increasing minimum wage, they would maximize how much they can get out of people so the costs are going to go up. I can easily see a $1000/mo. rent today go up to $1,600 a month by 2022. That $31,200 salary isn't likely to increase one iota for after 5 years of employment before increase in pay.

Therefore, $1920/mo. with utilities increasing the same percentage. That is $23,040 a year. That would be about $30K with the $7000 or so tax figure you gave.

$1000 a year just isn't going to cut it. So even with $2500 reduction on taxes bringing that up to $3500. That's bring food and living expense to a maximum of $291.67 a month. Not much to live on.

$31,200 is scrawny living even today for interns. How far do you think that is going to go as rent and food costs keeps going up?

If I am busy working the typical 60+ hours a week for $31,200 a year salary, what time would I have to go around shopping at the grocery store and cooking at the apartment?

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/portland

Use 480 sq.ft. for an apartment for 1 person in the figure and that is fairly valid for $450 to 550 sq.ft.

It gets pretty close to reality. Lets not forget the misc. other cost of living. 

I am closer to statistical data of the area in reality and the general fact I would be spending a lot of time in the business district of Portland if I was working there and there just simply no time for cooking food at home, eating at home, and going to the grocery. It's not like we work only 40 hours a week for $31.2K a year in this profession. Don't you think there would be good justification for a better pay than $31.2K a year?

Josh, 

I hope so, too! If I use the NCBDC certification as a means to end.... a means of motivating my ass then its a good thing. 

I'll say simply, the cost of certifications/licenses/credentials programs are to cover the cost of the administration of those programs. ULTIMATELY, none of them means a damn thing unless you do something productive with it. 

natematt,

I've already spent 3 years of that at University of Oregon. It sucked and there still wasn't any saving of money. The amount I had to live on during the academic year per month was the same so it really does suck.

$31,200 income when you are paying $1200 in rent & utilities and other basic living. The only benefit I would have over UO would be cable TV and phone. Aside from that, it sucked living on nill. 

Don't you think pay should be better than $31,200 a year?

1. Raises in architecture. LOL. Ask for a raise, you get a pink slip by the end of the day. Good luck getting another job after being fired by one. 

2. What overtime pay? Working for an architect office is exempt from overtime. If you don't do what the employer wants even if they demand unpaid overtime, you'd get the pink slip.

Not commenting on #3.

Regarding #2. How do you manage to not get your ass fired for not working overtime? I suppose you are a step or two or more above the bottom rank. Remember, if you are at the bottom, you get 90% of the work that everyone above you doesn't want to do and you get the worst pay. This following image comes to mind:

At least that slave driving employer can buy me one of these:

and 

one of these: