PASS and DONE

Interior Layout & Building Layout Vignettes

PASS and DONE

Postby yup1961 » Fri Feb 23, 2018 10:33 am

I recently passed Schematic Design, which concludes the ARE for me.


---SCHEMATIC DESIGN---
The test was pretty simple and I only took 2 weeks to study for it, but they were definitely the most involved vignettes. The Interior Layout vignette in particular was difficult because the time limit barely allows you time to revise anything, so you really have to get it right (guess) the first time. I found it easiest to lay out my rooms first (not aligned or anything, just as place markers) and then populate them with furniture as if I was unloading it off a moving truck in real life. Once the sizes are in front of you, you get a sense of how big the rooms should be and you can start moving stuff around.

I made a hug error and forgot a door. With 15 minutes to go I fixed it but kept having one piece of furniture left no matter what the configuration and started looking for a place I could get a minor error instead of a critical error. Lucked out and moved the desk right up to the door clearance area (weird, but it worked).

I finished the building layout an hour and a half early. Piece of cake if you do any of that stuff at work.

I practiced for 2 weeks. Did the BL one a couple times, and tried to make up different rules for myself on the IL one (like: what happens if I put the rooms in THIS order?).

---COMPLETING THE ARE---

I started 3 years ago almost to the day. I took a year between each of my first 3 tests ,and then hit the rest in about a year to make it before 4.0 retired. I did SS first, CDS next, and then PPP, SPD, BS, BDCS. As of now I have 5 years of experience and never failed one.

NOTES ON NON-STUDY GUIDE REFERENCES:
Aside from structures and the Shiff Hardin lectures on CDS, I'd say that a lot of the panic around here to use a library's worth of books is unwarranted. I started out using those peripheral sources, but towards the end I ended up just relying solely on the Ballast and Kaplan study guides. Anyone who cites IBC as study material can't be serious. Similarly, sources like AHPP are equally useless. It's a GIANT book with so much text to get through just to glean maybe a couple details that might show up, which is just not worth it. Get the concepts through the study guides, and google anything you don't understand. Don't read 500 pages of information you don't need. Don't study "history" because there's thousands of years of it and you won't get them right anyway. You'll just waste time you could have spent reading the study guides over again. Two or three mindful passes through the study guides (both of them) is all you need.

NOTES ON VIGNETTES:
This forum is incredible for Vignettes. I don't know what the setup is and who's paying who, but Coach, Sparky, and anyone else that regularly comments on posts are heroes and teachers, and I am indebted to them. I never posted my vignettes, but I poured over other peoples to see what their mistakes were and asked a lot of questions. These things (which won't be around much longer, thank god) have secret rules, and this forum is the only place you can find out what they are.

FINAL NOTES
These tests, while frustrating and long, are not hard. They are entirely within you grasp. Two months is the perfect amount of time to study for each, but take a short break between them so you don't burn yourself out. Schedule them ahead of time or you'll keep delaying. I'm so glad to be able to move on and have free time to myself without this dark cloud hovering over my head. Its a weird feeling not having to look ahead and plan for one of these things. Its like everything in your life has to take a backseat to it. Now I can finally concentrate on hobbies, read books, enjoy life, and plan my wedding with my beautiful fiance that stuck with me, respected my study schedule and habits, and pushed me to get these things done.

Good luck to everyone, and thank you ARE Coach.
yup1961
 
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