<p>I'm a freshman in high school and was wondering what classes i should take to help prepare for a major in architecture. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Art. Lots of art classes. I got to senior year with no art classes and it was exactly what they were looking for in students’ portfolios…art work. Anyway, I ended up getting into all my schools anyway (Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, RPI, Syracuse, Penn State, UTK), but it was a lot of work to get together my portfolio with no art from school. Thankfully I had a lot of creative work from my own personal endeavors.</p>
<p>See it you can get yourself on a math track that will get you to at least pre-calc by the time you are a senior, calc if possible. Fit in physics somewhere. Art classes, like jaker said, are important if you not so good at it, but get that done by junior year so your portfolio will be ready by the beginning of senior year for applications. I’d also suggest you take anything, even EC’s that puts you in a leadership or performance position, you’re going to have to stand up and show the world your work, and defend it from the critics in arch school…</p>
<p>But most of all, do well in everything you do take.</p>
<p>OK, any other sages want to chime in?</p>
<p>definitely take art classes and even stat trying to develop your portfolio as soon as sophomore year. Try to take ap calc bc, ap physics c (of course you won’t take them as a freshmen, but get into a track that allows you to take them as a senior). Architecture is very competitive so make sure you keep your grads up and take several aps. In addition, you do not have to have 10+ ECs as long as you are very active and involved in a couple. </p>
<p>also if you can try to find and internship after junior year that may help. there is also something called the ACE Mentor Program which is a class after school for people interested in architecture. </p>
<p>good luck</p>
<p>My son also took art classes during the summer at an art school in addition to the art classes in high school. Some schools also have what is called “talent development program (TDP)” which my son was in. The school will place you in an internship in the field of your interest. My son in his junior year had an internship at an architecture firm as one of his classes for credit. My son also took architectural drawing. Our high school district (6 high schools) for architectural drawing has a district architecture competition in architecural drawing II. Each student, based on certain criteria, comes up with a floor plan. The students vote to select the top two. They form teams to finish the plans for the house using the top two floor plans. Two teams from each high school present and defend their final plans to a panel consisting of an architect, builder, real estate agent. The winning design actually as their house built by students in the constructions class. My son’s team won and his house was actually built (the architect made only minor changes). The school district buys the land for the house. The minimum bid for the house was $660,000. The district schools use AutoCad.</p>
<p>Art, loads of art. Dont worry so much about drafting, or architecture classes, but the portfolio is very important.</p>
<p>My advice is to go to the architecture website of Cornell, or Syracuse or RISD and find the portfolio requirements. Print them out and realize that you can put a lot of effort in over the next four years to make that perfect. </p>
<p>Other than that, a high GPA, AP classes in math, science and art really help. Basically, just be a great student. The only thing different about architecture app to the regular app is the portfolio.</p>