[Denise Woolery]

I have taken Jerry Hastings expensive prep course twice in the past, and failed the section anyway. Now that the section is computerized, I think his course is obsolete.  

[Denise Woolery]

Thank you.  I have visited her website and when I can muster up the time and money to take the grading and drainage section yet again, I will contact her.

[Denise Woolery]

I have failed the old vignette style grading and drainage section E numerous times.  I should have been licensed years ago.  I have not attempted the new format.  I am really tired of spending so much money on this.  So far not being licensed has not stopped me from having plenty of work.  So, I am debating if I should continue.

[Denise Woolery]

Thank you so much Bob.  Life has been so busy lately that I can’t even find time to take the test.  Since I only have grading to pass, I really need to complete the process and get licensed, so some time soon I will try again.  I have taken the UCLA grading prep weekend course twice, and I still failed the darn thing.  Very upsetting, especially after spending all of that money.  Too bad they make it so hard!

Best,
Denise

[Denise Woolery]

Well the thing is, I’m self employed.  And I intend to keep it that way.  Not that I don’t really appreciate your comments, because I do, and you are right.  Commercial jobs do require a license, but residential does not. And I am definitely not interested in work where I have to be the lowest bidder to get the job.  I will not compromise my design aesthetic for a low budget. That is a different world than I am in.  I am in high end residential.  Different animal.  And a very lucrative one too.  So, I’m ok with not ever getting a commercial job.  

What I do love is this conversation, because it reminds us all that there are many options in the field  we have chosen. All are needed and good.

[Denise Woolery]

Thanks for your response.  I have been doing exactly what you suggest, and am know here in Santa Barbara as a darn good designer of high end residential projects. The last one I completed in March of this year was a 5 million dollar garden, with huge water works.  I designed every inch of 2 acres and then spent a year as project manager on the installation.  It was the client of a lifetime, and it is my best work to date.  I am independent so don’t have to answer to anyone, so I am quite happy with my current circumstance.  I just want to complete the long journey to licensure.  I think the LARE is a real racket, but need to get the license for some of the reasons others have mentioned in this thread. 

[Denise Woolery]

Thank you Mr Wainner!  I, too, am proficient at grading and drainage.  So it does irk me that the test has never been able to determine that.  some of the vignettes in the past required me to size underground pipe, determine soil coverage over pipe, protect view corridors, and build mounds all in the same vignette.  The likely hood of having to do this on any single job is slim to none, but I suppose it does test for skill.  They changed the test a few years ago and eliminated the pipe sizing (civils do this) but it still had a horribly low pass rate.

I will try again, because I want the completion and because I am a darn good designer who wants the credibility that comes along with licensure.  I will get in touch with Cheryl Corson.

Thanks again,

Denise J Woolery

[Denise Woolery]

Hi,

I have been a landscape designer for 20 + years.  I started taking the LARE in 2007.  I passed, over the course of 4 years, 4 out of the 5 sections.  The grading and drainage section I still have not passed, after 8 attempts.  This is not only humiliating, but expensive.  I consider myself to be an intelligent woman,and I do know how to do a grading and drainage plan, having worked for two important landscape architects, but it has been years since I was in school, and the grading and drainage section has had as low as a 20% pass rate in the past in California.  That is unconscionable.  And so the deck has been stacked against my passing that particular section.  Not to mention the fact that I have terrible test anxiety, which did not help.

When the economy tanked, I stopped trying for financial reasons, not to mention the fact that I was extremely disenchanted by the whole process.  And now, they have changed the format and I have no idea how to study for it.

Meanwhile, I continue to be successful in the field, and have discovered that the city and the county that I live in could care less whether I am licensed or not.  I just have to sign each sheet of my plan packet, not do any details or grading and drainage, (civil engineers do this anyway for most projects, but I always check the plans and add my two cents), and be careful to call any elevations or details ‘conceptual only’.  So, there is a way around licensure.  I do wish I could finally pass it, but it has not really stopped me from continuing to be successful in my career.

I would love to talk to someone who has attempted the new format.  Anyone out there?

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