Much Ado About Nothing

By the time you’re reading this, the Odyssey that is the Arki Board Exam of June 2004 is over, and all the noble Board crusaders are now anxiously waiting what good graces will be endowed to them by the High Tribunal of Arki Board Examiners. Starting one week from now, every Board taker (and maybe their families and friends, too) will trek to the nearest newsstand and check to see whether the names of these brave men and women have been fortunate enough to be recognized as worthy to be engraved in the Philippine Registry of Architects. For the more tech-savvy ones, they’ll go online and go to the Inquirer website to do just that. (Sorry for the commercial plugging, since it is the Inquirer website which I know who posts the earliest results.)

Till then, they’ll have all the time to lambast anyone and everyone, and vent their frustrations, starting with the PRC for such lousy regulation procedures; the Board Examiners for such absurd questions; the review centers for not leaking to them what is the design problem for the third day; their alma matter for not giving them the proper education and training that they need; the exam proctor for not allowing them to open their books; their study groupmates for not bringing enough snacks during their group study sessions; and the guy who invented Board Examinations in the first place for making professional life such an arduous journey to start with. Even Frodo maybe had had the easier task of returning the ring to Mordor.

If there’s one thing I can say now which can somehow lift one’s spirits up in these times of desolation, it is this: the Board Exam never was, is and ever will be a good barometer of how good an architect you can be. (Originally, I had intended to write it as “…how good an architect you WILL be”, but that is like assuming that all Board takers are going to be good architects, of which I doubt will happen, mainly because not all Board passers will ever practice architecture anymore.)

Do you honestly believe that one’s topping of the Board Exam is an omen for that person to design really great buildings in the future? And those that did pass but did not top will design less than great buildings? Do you honestly believe that those who flunk do not have what it takes to succeed in the profession? And those that passed have it?

I then remember a famous, albeit unconfirmed, anecdote that the instructors at the review centers tell from time to time, and that is Leandro Locsin, the National Artist for Architecture, the architect who designed the CCP, PICC and other great works of Philippine Architecture, took the Board Exam five times before he passed. (I still have yet to read some official confirmation of this interesting bit of trivia, so those who have some information about this, please share it to us, so it may serve as an inspiration to future board flunkers,… I mean, board takers.)

In the end, what matters more is what you do AFTER you passed the Board Exam that will mark your place in the annals of great architecture practitioners, and NOT the Board Exam itself.

It is they who have no significant buildings or projects to their name who will continuously brag that they were the topnotcher in the year xxxx, even if it is already 10 years past. If you are a lawyer, that would have been a glowing entry in your resume. But not as an architect. Have you heard Norman Foster, Santiago Calatrava, Nicholas Grimshaw, Renzo Piano or any other great architect brag that they have topped the Board Exam? Simply put, the Board Exam is just a bridge that every architect wanna-be will have to cross to obtain the thing that will make us official architects in the eyes of the world—a license.

So what if you flunked the Board Exam?

Is it the end of your fledging architectural career? Does it mean you’re a dumb designer? Will your boyfriend/girlfriend break up with you? Will your family disown you? (I guess for a family with a lineage of architects, the answer would be a ‘yes’ for the last question.)

If you flunked the Board Exam, it simply means that you just weren’t able to answer satisfactorily the questions asked by the High Tribunal of Architecture Board Examiners.

And if you flunked it for the second time, then it simply means that you just weren’t able to answer satisfactorily the questions asked by the High Tribunal of Architecture Board Examiners the second time around.

And if you flunked it for the third time, then it simply means that you just weren’t able to answer satisfactorily the questions asked by the High Tribunal of Architecture Board Examiners the third around. And that you have to take a hiatus from your Board Exam Escapades for one year and re-assess your career path as a professional architect.

One has to remember that life does not end when you flunk the Arki Board Exam. So don’t cry when you do. By now, you should realize that with the way the Board Exam is handled and with the kind of questions the Examiners give, it’s not worth our tears nor our worry to fret over flunking. Maybe if they had asked sensible questions that would really determine our competence as professional architects, then maybe we’d worry whether we really have what it takes to be one if we flunked. As it is, I’d worry more about my cellphone getting snatched, my wallet getting snatched, or the Lakers snatching homecourt advantage from the Pistons. (But, from the look of it, that chance seems getting slimmer and slimmer, especially now that the Pistons are up 3-1, and oozing with championship poise!)

And if it so happens that you pass, well, what can I say but congrats, and welcome officially to the world of the overworked and underpaid.

And if it so happens that you also get to be a topnotcher, well and good for you, because you also get to enjoy some cash prizes from your review center and Boysen.

But if it so happens that you do not pass, just reread the phrases that have been bold-en here. It’ll really make you feel a whole lot better. I hope...