Becoming an Architect with Hyperfine | Ben Norkin

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Discover how we're revolutionizing architectural education so you can have a happy work-life balance while becoming a licensed architect. 

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Transcript

1:14

If you are getting ready to take your exams or currently taking your architecture exams, or you're thinking about maybe making a second career in architecture, this episode is for you. Let's get started Hey, everyone, welcome back to Design create inspired today I have on the show with me Ben norkin. Ben is an architect. He has an architecture firm Ben norkin architecture where he designs custom residential homes and more maybe famously, he is known to help people pass the architecture exams with his Aerie resources. hyperfine hyperfine is an incredible resources where he has kind of like homework assignments that helps you really retain and dive deep into the information. It's definitely a resource that I used while I was going through the exams and highly recommend I'll leave a link to all the different resources so you can check them out yourself. But today, Ben and I are talking all about his career in architecture, how it started, how it was actually his second career, and how he ended up pivoting into architecture, what that looks like, and then another pivot into airy resources. We talk about different tips to help you through the exams really are number one things to keep in mind as you're taking the exam as you were prepping for the exam, and all that good stuff. So I will keep this short so that we can hear more from Ben. Hey, Ben, thank you so much for finally joining me on design crate Inspire. We've been trying to plan this out for a while. So thanks for finally being here with me. You're welcome. I'm always I'm always impressed by you. podcasters how you like also turn on your radio voice and you speak flawlessly. Like if I'm doing a YouTube video. It took me 15 takes to like do what you just did. Yeah, I'll just let you know. I didn't do my voice warmups this morning. So I still have my morning breath. But or not breath. My morning voice. But yeah, you know, got to just turn it on. Well, how you doing? Pretty good. Yeah, it's, it's crazy how hard it is to find an hour to talk to someone you really want to meet with. I know, we're just talked before we both got kids on summer schedules and our own work and all kinds of different things. But I'm glad that we're able to finally get on this call. Yeah, me too. Because, you know, I have been following you for a long time since I was going through my exams and found you through all of your resources and stuff that you have for the exams, which we'll get into. So it's just a full circle moment to that we connected earlier this year. And so I'm excited to hear about your kind of architecture journey. I love to start it off with what got you into architecture, because everyone's path looks so different. Some people started, you know, knowing right out of the womb that they wanted to be an architect others didn't find out till they were late 20s. So what did that look like for you? Yeah, well, it's I'm definitely not one of those naturally born architects, I guess it's a second career for me. So I was out of college, I was commissioned officer in the Navy. So I did that for about six and a half years active duty Navy, I was on a couple ships, I deployed a bunch of times, and then I decided that wasn't the career for me, you know, I didn't wanna do that for my life. And so I was looking at what to do when I got out. And I was originally think about becoming a financial planner, because I was invest. I was interested in like, investing and finances and that type of thing, but seemed kind of boring, you know, seemed fun for me, but maybe not that I wanted to help other people with. And then I can remember how I started thinking about architecture, I was like, well, that'd be pretty cool to learn how to design houses. And that was all I knew, I mean, had like such a laypersons idea of what architecture was, but I was like, Yeah, I want to learn how to design houses and build houses and gets creative and technical, that could be fun. And so at that point, I was still active duty Navy, and I started looking for programs. And I had, you know, I had a sociology undergrad. So I was unrelated, you know, a bachelor's degree. So I was looking for the three year mark programs and need a portfolio and I'd never taken art classes or any of that stuff. So I like real quickly started to study for the GRE and started take like sketching classes and photography classes and painting classes at a community college, you know, on evenings and weekends when I could try to put together a portfolio and you know, somehow got into architecture school here in DC, where I, where I'm from originally. So Kyle, the Navy in 2010, went to grad school start in 2010. And that was like a three and a half year program. And now we're here. That's inspiring, because I feel like it can be intimidating to look at, okay, I have to go now for three more years to school. And I have to submit a portfolio without any you know, previous skills and whatnot. And if you don't mind me asking, Where were you at? Like, did you have your family at this time? How old were you? Let's see, I was dating my wife already. We've been together for about 11 months. Well, she was my wife then. But you know, she was my girlfriend then. And we've been long distance for about 11 months. I was 28 or 29. I guess. Like I said, I mean it was a second career. So and When I went to my Mr program at Catholic University, which is where I ended up going, a lot of people in my class were older as well. So I think it gave us a little bit of it was maybe less stressful in architecture, school is still tough. But coming out of the Navy, going to art school, it's, you know, it's a, it's a different stress, but it's really not that bad. And so a lot of my other classmates that were there in my class, were coming to this later in our career. So I was with a lot of people who were, you know, somewhere, lawyers, somewhere like real estate agents, there was one guy was like a city planner. So there was different people in later stages of their career. So in my cohort, we're sort of all a little bit the same, a little bit older. I think that's good for people to hear, because I've had people who are like, 20, to reach out and be like, I don't know, it's probably too late. You know, I've just finished undergrad and I don't know if I want to go start a whole new career path. It's like, not at all you're fresh, fresh meat, you have so much time. Yeah, I think when you're younger things seem more urgent than they are. I always kept in mind if, you know if I talked to my parents or other people of the generation beyond like, what was your job? But like, yeah, you know, I did this for like, a decade. Then I switched and I did something else. And so you can do I mean, I'm in my second career, so I don't know, I don't have another one planned after this. But maybe, you know, you never know what's gonna happen. Yeah. Where it's gonna take you. Yeah, definitely. Awesome. So, okay. Well, I just want to quickly ask about that with your family. Did you have any architects or anything in the family? Did anyone understand or relate what you were pursuing? No, no. And like I said, I didn't grow up playing with Legos. I still don't particularly like playing with Legos. Although my son now does. So I guess I have to instill some creativity in him. No, I mean, no, I don't have any architect. Now. I do. You know, now I have architecture friends. And my parents knew a couple. But no, it was it was really nothing that I all I really knew nothing about. It just seemed like I said, a creative and technical thing. And I was interested in construction. Yeah. Isn't that so funny? I mean, I kind of the same. And I at first, I would be embarrassed about the fact that I didn't really like Legos growing up, you know, I'm like, I don't want to tell anyone that because they're gonna think I'm going to be a bad architect. But honestly, I was kind of not that into it either. And same thing, my daughter loves Legos. Now I'm like, great, but I don't see her as being an architect. So it's just I feel like it's such a thing that people connect, but it's so doesn't really matter. Yeah. And you know, it may we'll get into this a little bit. But now that I've been helping people pass the ARV exams, I quickly learned that there's like, not even close to one size fits all, like every single person is coming into this career, or the exams or to school at a completely different angle, and with a different background. And so whatever you're doing whatever you got going on, it's it doesn't matter. Like there's no, you don't have to like fit any mold, because I'm certainly not it. Yeah, yeah. And I, and it's good for you to remember that too. If you're going through your exams, or even just finishing up school, if you maybe don't relate to other people around you, or some of your peers still doesn't mean that you, you know, won't do an amazing job in this field. So yeah, there's tons of different ways that an architect looks and I love this profession, too, because it's so multifaceted. I'll talk to other architects who do completely different work than I do. And so it's so interesting. You know, there's, I'll talk to people who I work just with residential, I'll talk to people who work on schools or public projects. And it's just like a totally different game. And it's good to remember that too. Because if you're not enjoying one side of architecture, you can always venture into another side. Yeah, I always think it's funny how we have the same degree of pass the same exams. And then like, you could not just swap any two Architects like someone who's doing baseball stadiums versus someone who's doing a house. It's crazy how wide ranging and diverse the projects and the things we can work on are with the same background and like the same path to get to that career totally. Well. So you touched on briefly that you help people pass their exams. So let's talk about that. Because you're probably like me, were when you were taking your exams, you probably never thought you'd want to stay in that world of the Ares. One. Tell us how you got into that? Yeah, definitely wasn't a plan. But I was taking my exams about three years after I finished, I guess, you know, I finished grad school in 2014 or so I was taking my exams in 2017. And at the time, I thought, that's just what you did. Like went to school, you worked, you took your exams. And like I said, now that I've been doing this, and seeing people are coming out from all different angles, and that's not the path, but that's what it was for me. So I will take my exams in 2017. And I happen to be a transition person in the exams were at the time when and carb switched from the 4.0 system to the 5.0 system. Right. So I was not an official early tester. But I did take these 5.0 exams in the first year they were out. And so there was not a lot of information about them. A lot of the study material was just repurposed, 4.0 material with a new cover on it, even though the exams sort of fundamentally changed. So I got all through my exams didn't fail any more, because I'm good at tests and studying then, like in architecture genius, but I was pretty active in the end carb forum. And so I had a cohort of people that was going through with me, it's same time. And then after I was done, I stuck around and did some post test reports and answered a bunch of questions. And so that's what was going on with me with the exams. And then in my real life, I was I finished my last exam in October of 2017, like literally two or three days before my second kid was born before my son was born. And so going into 2018, I was newly licensed and looking for stuff to do. And I was not like super happy at my job that I had been at. So quit my job took a new job, that Job didn't work out. So I quit that job and started working for myself. Now I'm getting like, I'm gonna get away from the Aries, but it's like all sort of connected. So. So that happened between like January and August. So by August, I'm self employed as a single family residential architect, which was not at all my goal going into 2018. And not at all my goal within like a year becoming licensed, it just sort of what had happened, but also 2018, I had read the books by Eric Reinhold, the architect entrepreneur, Volume One and volume two. And I think like a lot of us, there's a lot of moonlighting going on in our, you know, in our field. And so I would go to my job during the day, and then I would come home at night and do renderings and construction documents and other like, hourly work. And I was like, this is this is terrible. Like, I don't want to be doing this, like this is not how I want to spend two or three hours every evening. So I read these books by Eric Reinhold. And he talked about like websites and courses and all this stuff. Oh, that's the that's like a pretty good idea. Like, I'll do a Revit course because I'm teaching man, the story just keeps getting like so many. No, I love it. Yeah, I was also teaching at the time at grad school, I was teaching a BIM construction documents class. So I was like, Okay, let me just record that, you know, this next semester, I'll record all the lessons that I'm going to teach. And I'll turn that into a course and I'll sell that and then that'll be my side gig. And maybe I'll save up enough money over five years that I can quit my job. So the quitting the job thing happened, like in eight months, not five years, and I had started hyperfine, the website as a Revit training course. And I was starting to do tutorials and starting to like sell a couple courses. But more and more people because I was still active within a car for are asking me about ARV stuff like what did you study? Will you tutor me? Like what book should I read? And so I just started putting my answers to all these emails on my hyperfine website and start to build an audience for ARB stuff, which was then promoted at the time by micro SICA of young architect which really gave me a huge boost and really brought a lot bigger audience to my site for Ara stuff. And so to answer the questions of what should I study, and will you tutor me, I started writing some study course and study material, which I think you used. And now we're here. No, I know that you kept saying like, you know, it's segwaying. But that's how it happens. You know, like nothing is, oh, I decided I'm gonna do this and then go straight there. It's kind of like, you know, you go down a river and you're like, Okay, I'll go down this fork. Okay, wait, maybe this one's better. Oh, wait, let's go down this one. And I find so much similarity in my story to yours. I read Eric's books back then to love them. I love Eric, I used to follow him back in 2013, when he kind of he was like a Guest writer on house. And that's how I found him. And then segwayed into his YouTube, and he's just, he's great. So same thing. I've always been really curious about all that. I started out wanting to create courses for business for starting an architecture firm. And then I also taught at a college doing it like intro to architecture, same thing. I was like, Okay, well, here, I could I have all this work I've done I can turn these into like some courses. But people kept asking about the exams. And I'm like, Okay, I guess we're going down that path. So funny how it's like, you just never know where it's going to take you. And so I was taking my exams right around the same time you were, I started in 2017. Two took me a little bit longer to get through them. But that's why I think I found your worksheets for PDD and PPD, probably halfway through, because when did you come out with those? That was the first one I did, because those were the last two exams I took. And those were actually that was like August of 2018. Because my first day being self employed was August 2018. So I had already started to do the areas of before that sorry, my first date was August 11 2018, if I'm repeating myself, but that was also the same day that micro SICA had promoted my thing and so that day, like spike in traffic, and it was just kind of serendipitous, but also, you know, the entire thing was a little bit serendipitous that I was in the right place at the right time, but also a lot of hard work to make all this stuff and yeah, that was so the short answer is yeah was like August Yeah, I started I started doing that in like June or July August of 2018. Yeah, so I probably got like your first iteration because my first exam was in October or November of 2017. So really, I was getting into the crux of it in 2018. But I can imagine that I'm just thinking from like a business standpoint that you just come out with this and then it gets promoted in such a wide spread way. It probably came with a lot of like almost oh shit like customer service. Like all this stuff like not really like a slick Oh, getting to figure it out probably just three right in the deep end. Yeah, but it was still. I mean, I remember the first day when it started to really grow. And I didn't. I mean, I didn't know what the value of these things were I was selling, I was selling the entire thing for $8. I was like, Oh my gosh, I was like, you know, I've really worked hard on this, and I'm helping people pass exams, maybe I should make it $10. And then, like, I made it 11 and 12. And I was like, I felt a little bit bad. But then, you know, now I'm, like, five years into it. I'm like, Yeah, that's it's still too cheap the way it is. And now, you know, we're into like, the 60 to $65 range. But yeah, it was kind of crazy. Just getting to meet all those people. And it was fun. It didn't really feel like a job. It felt like I can't believe this is my job, like, I'm self employed, not to go to the office anymore. I can try to find clients, I can help all these people to Ares, like they had never once really felt like a chore. Yeah, they love that when I think I agree. I think there's something about helping people who are genuinely happy to have that support, where you know, there, there is some out there, but it's you never know what to trust. And so having just like real people there to support you and help you through the process, which you've always been like very just like genuine, which is really nice. For people who don't know, maybe this is their first introduction to you have no idea what we're talking about. Can you explain what your worksheets are like? A little bit? Yeah, I mean, I call them I call them study assignments. So at the time, like when in 4.0 exams, you could just buy like a Kaplan book or a balanced book and just read the book, and then take a practice test. And so you got 95. And then you were probably going to pass the exam, but then 5.0 A little bit different in that it, you had to sort of synthesize information more, you had to spend more time making what I say educated guesses on things you weren't entirely sure of. And so at the time, most of the study material was just practice tests and review books. But as I was going through it, I found it a lot more effective to read the actual documents that and carb wrote the exams for like building construction illustrated in you know, architectural graphic standards, the architecture handbook, professional practice these kinds of things. But these are like big 1000s of pages, books. And so the number one thing that people were stressed out about and talking about was like, how do I make sense of this? You know, what are the important topics? What am I supposed to do? So what I wrote is just a bunch of open ended research assignments, thought experiments, thought questions, that type of thing with answers. But I basically I suppose, you know, if the topic is to waste labs, or something, I pose three to four to five questions about different conditions and what you might have to think about, and then I say, Here's where you might find the answer. And then people go can research on their own. And whether that thing comes up on the exam or not, it sort of doesn't matter. Because once you've done the research, you've been exposed those concepts, you've seen the part of the sections of the books that I think they're probably drawing the exam from, and then people, you know, I found it effective for me. And so it's that same thing. It's been helping other people. Yeah, I'll never forget retaining wall question in your, your assignment that you had, and because I had to work through it and draw it out. And the difference that made your assignments so effective was, it wasn't just a multiple choice question where I'm figuring out the answer, then going and reading, okay, it's false because of this or not false. But you know, it's this answer. Because of this, it was like a homework assignment where you are having to actually write out the information, know it from a deeper understanding which the Aries really need. It's not a memorization, you need an understanding of why things are the way they are. So you kind of work it out, or how you feel the answer is, then look at it, you know the answer, see where you went wrong, and then go do the research. And there was that pen to paper aspect of it that I could form, my type of learning really retained the information in a totally different way. I'm glad it worked for you. I'm doing and it's worked for tons of people. So yeah, I'll leave a link in the show notes for anyone who wants to check them out. But if anyone is either in the throes of the exams right now, or planning it, what is your top advice for exam candidates, the number one thing I think that I tell most people is, is have a plan for your exam. And actually just started this week, I started this like seven day challenge, which maybe I can share a link to you for. But basically, when people don't do well on the exams, a lot of times, and that's common, because these are difficult exams. And a lot of qualified people don't do all of them. But I think one common thing that I see when people don't do on exams is they don't really have a plan for learning the things that they think they need to learn. So they'll get black spectacles, or amber book or hyperfine, or you know, whatever book and they'll just open the book and they'll say, Okay, I got to study for like four weeks, and I'll just read but not really have an end goal in mind, I really have a way to get from, you know, sort of like where they are now to get through pass the exam. So what I tell people is they need to spend some time researching the exam, figuring out what's on it, figuring out what other people are saying about it, figuring out the content, all the things that they think they need to learn to feel confident to pass the exam, and then make a plan to make that happen. So don't let Black spectacles tell you what's on the exam. You know, you take that as advice you you do other research and you figure out what you need to learn to, you know, for you to be stronger and then you make that happen. Yeah, that's good. and advice because, you know, again, it is a deeper level of knowing. And people coming into this exam have totally different backgrounds. And so some people may be used to working on, you know, construction administration, and they're on job site all the time. And so they have a really deep understanding of certain aspects. And so they need to do a deeper dive into some of the other things that are maybe done in a project management role or something, you know, totally depends, but yeah, everyone's level of experience is different. And even I feel like even the level not even just experience but understanding like to some people structures might not be a completely complicated concept where to other people, the financials of practice management might be like, oh, yeah, no problem. Like for you, financials probably weren't a huge deal, because you were already into it. Yeah, you know, I think that's, that's like such an important point to make is that, like, for us, for me, and you, people who do single family residential, the scale of projects on the ARV is not is completely out of scale with what we're actually doing. So every single person is going to the exam with their own strengths, their own weaknesses in their own backgrounds. So there's very few people there's, you know, I say, there's nobody who's like the perfect every candidate, everything you know, so don't let don't think wherever you're at, don't think that everyone else is ahead of you. But just understand what you have to study more, you know, for me, like, I like structure. So I studied structures, but I did it, it was pretty easy for me to study structures, whereas things like specifications or electrical plumbing are more complicated, because I don't really deal with that in the in the level that is required for the Aerie. So yeah, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. And the exam is sort of this distant thing out there. For all of us, we're all sort of equally distant levels of skill from the exam, regardless of what your background is. Yeah. And I think it's important to because I have heard a couple people say, or they've posted on a forum saying, like, I've talked to people who are licensed, and they don't even know, they don't even remember, you know, some of these questions and topics. And it's for that exact reason, because, you know, what I'm working in my day to day practice, maybe isn't dealing with, you know, tall structures or two way slabs, or, you know, certain things like that, where I do kind of, you know, I'm not fresh in my mind on certain concepts. So even if you're talking to someone who is licensed, and you're like, Oh, they're an idiot, they don't even know these things. It's like you, you get what you need to know, for the exams in order to get them get licensed, and then go into whatever niche of architecture that you're in. And then you really deepen your level in those areas, which may mean you kind of forget some of the other areas, but something that just didn't notice, well, you know, like, one of the things that that I think helped me personally was, was the mindset of, I'm doing this to learn stuff. And then it'd be nice if I happen to pass some exams. So I went into it, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna take the areas now I'm gonna become a licensed architect. And now I'm gonna learn all the things that I didn't learn in school, I'm gonna feel legit, like, I'm gonna learn about structures, and I'm gonna learn about the building code, and I'm gonna learn about plumbing, and mechanical and all these different things. I'm gonna learn about firm finances, like all these things you don't learn in architecture school, it's like, okay, if I learn all this stuff, I'll be pretty legit. And I'll feel good about calling myself an architect. And yeah, you can't learn it all. Like, you have to triage it. And I talk a lot about this on my site in different posts, like when you take the exam, you're allowed to miss a lot of questions, right, the passing score is not that high. And so you can't go into it thinking you're going to know 100% of every single topic, you're going to know a lot about half of it, and absolutely nothing about like a quarter of it. And you just got to make sure that you know, you do well on the things you know about and try to take some good guesses on the things you're less strong at. But you gotta you got to know that the world of architecture in the areas is too broad to know everything. So you just got to really focus on the things that you want to get better at. And hopefully that'll get you through the exams. Yeah. And remember that if the first three or five questions, you have no idea what they're asking for, you know, because I think that can really trip people up where maybe the first few questions, they don't know the answer. And it's like, oh, my gosh, I have no idea. I didn't study hard enough. And then they sabotage their whole exam. Because like you're saying, you can miss a lot. So just hone in on what you do know and take your best guess on everything else. Yeah, I think it's funny because I had that when I took PPD and PDD. I think I had the complete opposite experience. I don't remember which one was which. But one of them the first 10 questions were super easy. I was like, Oh, this is no problem. And then the whole rest of exam was impossible. This is going terrible. And then the other one was like the first 10 or 15 questions were impossible. I was like, I'm never gonna get through this. And then it evened out. And I you know, I figured it out more and got more into the rhythm. But you don't know. You know, first of all, you're allowed to miss a lot of questions. You don't actually know which ones you're missing. Some of them don't even count and you can't, you know, I mean, you can't you can't tell that on the exam. Like you got to give your best effort for every single question. But yeah, just like you said, I'm just repeating your exact words, but it's a marathon. So don't get too down if you're in a particularly rough stretch of questions, even if it happens to be the first 20 questions. Yeah, yeah, take it easy. Take a breath. It'll be okay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Such good advice. Where can people find you is the best spot for people to connect hyperfine architecture.com I don't have a contact form is just email. So Bennett hyperfine architecture.com. And I am in the process of moving all my Revit stuff into a new brand that's called Revit stuff.com. So you can check me out there as well. Perfect and Instagram. You've been more present on Instagram lately to Brian to learn. Yeah, I'm trying to Yeah, I'm on Instagram at hyperfine architecture perfect. Yeah, and for your Revit stuff. If anyone is still working in AutoCAD, stop, go take Revit courses. Seriously, best thing I ever did. And if you work for a firm that is still working in CAD, tell them hey, all learn Revit you just pay for my courses. All learn Revit I will accelerate this firm to the next level to this century, you know? So that's my Revit plug. Okay, I agree. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much. And I'll leave all the links below and go say hello to Ben on either Instagram or email, whatever you prefer. And get his assignments. They're amazing. And yeah, all right. Have a wonderful day. Thanks for having me.