I almost hit the lottery, but I didn't...

[curious_jenn]

I was in Panera this morning, early, to get my coffee and my study on.  I tripped over one of their floor tiles while trying to carry my ARE studying guide and notebook and coffee and purse to a booth.  I didn't trip, as in fall-flat-on-my-ass but just lost my footing, gracefully regained it and embarrassingly sat down, cowering in my booth

Comments

[crickalou]

I've actually talked to Molly about it. She and Jenn took them together, sounds like they did 1 a month until they were done. She's waiting to retake two of them (I think it's so dumb that you have to wait 6 months to retest!). I am not sure about Jenn, but I did talk back and forth with her on twitter this week, so maybe I will ask her about her experience.

I actually am taking them with the state of MS. Hawaii doesn't allow you to do anything before finishing IDP, and I am 30 units shy of finishing, and it's ALL CA hours. We basically have no projects under construction in my office. We seem to have a habit of designing buildings that lose their funding... :/

I'm guessing I will just have to study a lot longer than most. Like, at least a couple months on each one. I ordered the big PPI book and the PPI supplement for the CD exam. I also have the Dorf Solutions book for the graphic vignettes and the ArchiFlash cards. Do you use the areforum site? I can't believe all the study material people say that they use. Like, if I bought all that, it would set me back 2 grand before I even paid a single exam fee. NOT doing that. Just those 4 books I mentioned above cost me almost $500 bucks.

If you want I can mail you the Archiflash cards for the Bld. Sys. exam and you can just bring them back with you when you come to Hawaii. I'm not going to be using them between now and then.

I know that Molly said that her office bought the Kaplan Books, and Jenn's office bought the PPI books, so they had access to both. I think they shared the Dorf Solutions book too. My office doesn't even pay for exams, so I am totally on my own to buy books. And I hear that the MEEB and the Architect's Handbook for Prof. Practice is useful too, but I just can't shell out the cash for that right now. Perhaps when the time comes I'll go read those at the library or something.

[curious_jenn]

yeah, i learned every single archiflash card and took all the kaplan practice exams for materials and mehtods with no luck. i have archiflash for 3.1 are yours for 4.0? i believe the material is prob the same though. thanks for offering to mail them. GA bought the kaplan course. and i have been buying the ppi ones, reading ARE forum, and have my own copy of graphic standards, and the dorf solutions book, too. whew. now to buy a wheelbarrow! LOL

i have been reading in the ARE forum for building systems and it seems most people are happiest with the ppi material and MEEB. but i love the format of archiflash. but they let me down on the last exam :(

how does ANYONE ever pass?? lol

[crickalou]

Yeah, I have 4.0 cards. But they probably are the same.

Molly told me that one one of the ones she didn't pass that her exam had 11 calculation problems, and her friend that took it in the same time frame got an exam with only one. It's totally bogus.

It seems very similar to LEED - you just have to memorize EVERYTHING and hope for the best. Stupid!

Well when you are done with your study material, I will totally buy it off you. :) I'm going to try to take like 2 exams in this 'off' time between Hawaii and San Diego. CD's first, maybe Structures or something like that next, something that I just need to re-learn and study my ass off for (and make use of the engineer that I'm married to!).