Throughout their careers, many licensure candidates choose to connect with peers or experienced architects to guide them through earning their architecture license and achieving their professional goals. These can include architect licensing advisors—volunteer students, licensure candidates, architects, and educators who help provide personalized, local support to emerging professionals—as well as professional mentors.
As part of NCARB and NOMA’s ongoing Building on Belonging effort, NCARB recently conducted a brief survey exploring licensure candidates’ access to and experiences with licensing advisors* and mentors. The survey’s findings highlight key gaps when it comes to guidance and mentorship on the path to licensure—with most respondents indicating their advisor or mentor did not help them become licensed.
Advisor and Mentor Findings
The survey findings demonstrate three issues related to candidates’ experience with licensing advisors and mentors:
Connect With a Licensing Advisor
If you’re looking for a mentor during your path to licensure, an architect licensing advisor can be your best resource. Advisors offer advice and answer questions about the education, experience, and exam requirements for licensure in your jurisdiction.
- Only one in every five candidates connected with a licensing advisor while working toward earning a license. Of those candidates, many indicated their licensing advisor did not provide significant support—with common issues related to a lack of advisors’ knowledge of resources or responsibilities and scheduling conflicts.
- Candidates were more likely to receive support from their mentors and were more likely to find their mentors to be knowledgeable about the licensure process. Despite this, most said their advisor or mentor did not help them become licensed.
- Women and candidates of color may face greater difficulties connecting with a licensing advisor and/or mentor, especially one who is knowledgeable and supportive.
Next Steps
Over the next several years, our expert volunteers will explore how best to measure and assess competency on the path to licensure—including opportunities to improve how candidates earn experience and make the current core licensure requirements more flexible. The findings from this survey will help inform their work, guide NCARB’s efforts to strengthen the Architect Licensing Advisors Community, and assist in the development of new resources to support licensing advisors and mentors in understanding their responsibilities to guide candidates successfully as they become licensed architects.
Learn more about NCARB’s and NOMA’s research and read their profession-wide Action Plan.
*Note: Based on open-text responses, many survey participants were not specifically referring to an architect licensing advisor when responding to survey questions about “licensing advisors.”
