I had lunch recently with a gifted young [architect] who was once a student of mine. I put “architect” in brackets because she was not quite one: she hadn’t heard the results of her California Supplemental Exam. But she was eager to tell me about the experience, the way you tell people about the car wreck you were in, over and over and over, struggling to purge the feelings of shame and terror.
Her account accorded almost exactly with my own Examination Day, although I flatter myself that mine was even more horrific. In the first place, it was at a hotel in Irvine, which added a super-supplemental test: finding the hotel among an undifferentiated landscape of glass boxes, some of which were offices, one of which was the city hall, and one of which was presumably my destination.
I did eventually find the hotel, and in plenty of time to enjoy the “architecture’’ of its lobby. I know it would be unrealistic to ask the Architects Board to schedule the exams in the DeYoung Museum or the Disney Concert Hall, but this was like taking your medical exams in a morgue.
And then, when I got to the room and sat down across the folding table from the three examiners (or was it four?—all I remember was noticing that the number of questions was one too many for each to ask an equal number, an asymmetry that troubled me more than it should have)—when I sat down opposite them, I saw directly behind the examiners a mirror, which allowed me to watch my own disintegration.
And it was my birthday.
I left there more certain than I had ever been of failure, which, blessedly, turned out not the case. My young friend also was absolutely certain she had failed, and for the same reason, the hallmark of the proceedings: “Let me repeat the question.” You think you’ve answered the question, and the examiner says, “Let me repeat the question.” Then, “Let me repeat the question.” And, “Let me repeat the question.” Water-boarding shmater-boarding, this is torture. You know they’ve concluded you’ve done something wrong, but you have no idea what. I’d rather face Detective Sipowicz in a bad mood.
And what is the point? What was once a wide-ranging discussion among peers has been progressively circumscribed, to the point that it is just another segment of the ARE, read aloud. It could be computer-administered. And if it cannot be machine-graded (which I bet it can, but I’m no expert), it would still take fewer people to grade than it now takes to haze the incoming generation.
What can the Supplemental Exam judge that a computer-administered test can’t? Well, it can judge whether you clean up nice, it can judge your hue, it can judge your gender. It can judge whether you sound intelligent (I, for example, am a hillbilly, and I sound kind of stupid—but I’ll sneak up on you). It can judge how well you handle pressure, which is perhaps relevant to architectural practice but is hardly a criterion for licensure.
In other words, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen, and it should be discontinued. Architecture school is hellish enough. We don’t need a belt line, too.
Originally published 4th quarter 2007 in arcCA 07.4, “preFABiana.”
