Architecture lacking diversity?

College Majors Architecture Major
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<p>Is this true? I recently read an article stating that there are about ~1700 African American licensed architects in the US, which takes up a measly 1.61% of the population of all architects in the US. There are 104,126 registered architects in the US.<a href="http://blackarch.uc.edu/publications/black_architects_by_state.pdf"&gt;http://blackarch.uc.edu/publications/black_architects_by_state.pdf&lt;/a> </p>

<p>Why is this? I am African American male (Senior this year) myself and find myself standing out among my peers mainly because I truely want to be an architect, but I had know idea how un-diverse the field was. I take architecture seriously, I have been to two summer programs, one at Texas Tech and one at Cornell, and have a strong portfolio so far. I just want to know if people like me, which seems to be very few, are in high demand at all schools of architecture? Mainly schools like Rice, Syracuse, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, UT, VT, and RISD.</p>

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<p>Grantl345, what I saw of students while visiting some of the different architecture programs with my son a couple years ago seemed to validate what you read. Although we saw some of the studio classes at only four programs, they were not what I would call diverse. Mostly white males, not too many women and not many people of color. </p>

<p>How much of a factor that would be in admissions to some of the more reputable arch programs I don’t know. I do know that at Virginia Tech they have implemented a program called CAUS (College of Architecture and Urban Studies) Ambassadors, in which ten students of under represented populations travel to schools to talk to kids and do other service oriented programs to highlight the profession. Maybe you could contact one of them with some of your questions. Here is the link:</p>

<p>[Prospective</a> Students | CAUS](<a href=“http://www.caus.vt.edu/students/prospective]Prospective”>http://www.caus.vt.edu/students/prospective)</p>

<p>Best of luck to you!</p>

3

<p>Grant, if you study architecture you will be a very rare commodity. You will have an advantage when applying to arch schools and finding professional positions. I think the greatest danger would be running into a glass ceiling later in your career that would keep you from advancing in an organization. </p>

<p>rick</p>

4

<p>LOL, now you mention it I have never seen a person of color or an International student in any of my classes</p>

<p>I never even thought about that, but I guess that why Architecture has such an elitist (and snobbish) reputation</p>

<p>there are a lot of Hispanic studying Civil Engineering though</p>

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<p>Freshman class this year at cornell has more girls (33/57) and plenty of non-white and non-american students. It’s a flawed system, but I feel like it’s making necessary baby steps.</p>

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<p>That’s one thing i noticed to. I plan on taking a career in architecture also, and while visiting 4 year university - and taking classes for my pre reqs - i hardly noticed other black students or any other minorities for that matter. Even my general art class only had 3 females, with 2 of them and myself being the only black students in that class. I try to not look to deep into it, i mean i know the career i want to go into an my friends know the path they want to take. An i actually don’t mind, although i would like the field to be diverse… the field of architecture is small to begin with.</p>