Architecture Registration Exams Story: Dulce Mancinas-Arambula

Welcome to the Architectural Registration Exam (ARE) experience stories series! This series is to share experiences, timelines and advice of professionals that have completed their AREs. We know it can be a daunting task to get started and overwhelming on the number of resources out there. We hope you find this information helpful in organizing how you proceed through your exams. Good Luck!

This is the experience, timeline, and advice from:

Dulce Mancinas-Arambula, RA

Dulce Mancinas-Arambula was born and raised in the Salt River Valley. She is a Project Architect and Designer at Jones Studio Inc in Tempe, AZ. Her Bachelors in Architect comes from The University of Arizona and her Masters in Architecture is from UCLA. Dulce has had a range of experience in the field from being a façade consultant to now a project architect.

“If English is not your first language and your reading comprehension is not the best, I’m talking about myself here, the patience you need to have with yourself is so important.”

January 27, 2021	Virtual	PcM	PASS
February 22, 2021	Virtual	P&A	PASS

03/21 – Felt great! I was on a roll! So, naturally, I scheduled the next exam with a shorter turnover as I thought the subjects were similar…

March 21, 2021	Virtual	PjM	FAIL
April 23, 2021	Virtual	PPD	FAIL
June 18. 2021	Virtual	PjM	PASS
July 23, 2021	Virtual	C&E	FAIL

08/21 – Started teaching a studio while working full time and studying – too much on my plate to say the least.

November 12, 2021	Virtual	C&E	PASS
November 20, 2021	Virtual	PDD	FAIL
November 22, 2021	Virtual	PPD	FAIL

12/21 – Wrapped up teaching for the semester and decided to take a short break. Started dedicating even more time to studying.

March 11, 2022	Virtual	PPD	FAIL
April 5, 2022	Virtual	PDD	FAIL

04/22 – Finally realized that studying on my own as an English second language learner was not helping me understand the language in the questions. I found a virtual study group and started to really focus on it. When I wasn’t working, I was studying – 3-4 hours a night, 5-7 hours on weekends and meeting with folks online almost daily.

This is also around the time NCARB was transitioning to a new exam proctor and I felt I needed to let that establish and the kinks to get smoothed out. Around August when I was planning out the exam dates it was clear that the best option for exams moving forward with the new proctor would be to take them in-person due to the number of bugs. Also got married in here somewhere…

October 31, 2022	In Person	PPD	PASS
November 5, 2022	In Person	PDD	PASS

11/6/22 – PHEW WE DID IT!

I often get asked “why do I need to get licensed?”. Why did you decide that you wanted to be a licensed Architect?

As a young designer, I worked at various places, at different scales and with very different design ethos about licensure and practice. Having a license felt like a necessity to be able to establish and root myself to my experience and my knowledge. I found that it was an opportunity to prove to myself that I was ready to take on more responsibility.

It took me five years after graduating from undergrad to decide if I was even going to get licensed. I developed this sense of accountability for representing myself that I had not really had before and became proactive about it.

Turned out my licensure journey came with a lot of failures in between. It was a struggle to really keep going at times – all this money gone, all this time putting life on hold in these pockets – but it felt so good when it was done. I learned a lot about myself and my ability to persevere, and that was just as valuable as the license itself.

Often people don’t know where to start, do you have any advice for those looking to start their exams -or- how did you start?

Start small. Look at what NCARB has on their website, ask your peers questions, do some research, and build a plan for yourself on how you want to get started. This includes exam order, exam scheduling, maybe even a budget and a list of potential resources for exam cost assistance. The next thing would be to figure out what type of studying works best for you and using that to layout the groundwork for how you approach the materials.

What type of study materials did you use? Any particular ones that you’d recommend?

I used whatever I could get my hands on. The office I was working at while taking these exams had materials readily accessible to us and helped pay for any additional shareable materials, we found helpful to studying.

The most helpful one for me was finding a studying community. The ARE Boot Camp provides a guided studying period with access to a community of other ARE exam takers and study sessions every night of the week. Every member of the boot camp hosts at least two studying sessions throughout the camp, so workload is distributed, and we are all accountable for studying on the side. These groups were so helpful in understanding the language of the questions. Everyone in the virtual room has a different approach or way of seeing the bigger picture of the questions, and that was so helpful.

How did you fit study time into your schedule? Was there anything in particular that worked well for you?

When I first started taking exams, we were still fully remote due to covid. I was able to squeeze in time to study after work for an hour or so because I was not commuting and could just quickly transition. When our office went back to in-person work, I had to be more deliberate about making the time to study. My partner took up a lot of dinner prep. I would explain concepts I was learning to him during drives and free time. I used drives to Tucson while I was teaching and then, during the construction phase of a project, to listen to podcasts or recorded studying materials that were shared with me. Anywhere I could squeeze in some time, I was doing my best to get it done.

Do you have any other advice for someone studying for their exams?

Be patient with yourself as you re-learn how to study. If English is not your first language and your reading comprehension is not the best, I’m talking about myself here, the patience you need to have with yourself is so important. Give yourself some grace if you fail. You’re only human trying to balance a bunch of other things at once!

We hope that this information helps you through your ARE journey, setting goals, and giving you some insight on how to get started.

Thank you again to Dulce Mancinas-Arambula for sharing your story!

Edited by

Katelyn Rossier, AIA, NCARB, CSI, LSSBB