Ashley Thompson is a member of DubBot’s Support team, serving as our newest Support Engineer. The following post is the fifth and final post of a blog series documenting her experiences as she prepared for the CPACC exam. The fourth blog entry about Ashley's experience is available here.
Yesterday, I received an email from the IAAP congratulating me on passing the CPACC exam. The email came much sooner than expected, so opening that was a total surprise! I sat for my exam on August 15 in an empty room at Gwinnett Tech's Alpharetta, Georgia, campus. I finished in roughly 50 minutes of the two allotted hours, at which point my anxiety set in. Did I rush? Did I skip something by accident? I spent an additional 40 minutes double and triple checking every question and answer until I convinced myself that I had done everything possible to prepare, answered to the best of my knowledge, and that sitting here any longer wouldn't change any of that.
Later that week, I received an email stating that I could expect my results in an email in 4 to 6 weeks. Cool. There was plenty of time to steep in my uncertainty. However, the email did come after only two weeks, thankfully, and although they don't divulge any details of one's score, I could see that I scored "Above Standard" in each of the three domains. Imposter syndrome is my constant companion, and I definitely needed that little validation. But, honestly, even passing this exam is no small feat. It's HARD, with good reason.
I have already started logging hours for the continuing education requirements to maintain my certification and have begun studying for the next certification from the IAAP: the Web Accessibility Specialist.
I fully believe what Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, do better," so I intend to keep learning everything I can in the field of digital accessibility!
