<p>Is anyone here an Architecture major or know someone who is? I'm just trying to get some more input on the current program. I've already searched the forum for architecture and read the few posts that were found.</p>
<p>I didn’t even know Columbia has an architecture program for undergraduates.</p>
<p>Yup, well it is a combined program with Barnard. The classes are on Barnard, however CU students can get a B.A. in Arch degree.</p>
<p>::removes cobwebs::</p>
<p>So many a year ago I was an aspiring architecture major at Columbia. My knowledge may be dated, so keep that in mind.</p>
<p>Columbia and Barnard have a joint undergraduate architecture department. It’s not a barnard department that columbia students can take classes in (like the undergraduate dance and theatre programs, I think), but we’re getting into semantics and the deeper metaphysics of the columbia-barnard relationship, which is never a good idea.</p>
<p>The department really benefited from the construction of Barnard’s new student center a few years ago, as they got their own dedicated purpose-built digs in there. In my day we had a studio space in barnard hall, and in the basement of Columbia’s old biological sciences building. It was cramped.</p>
<p>This is not a 5 year professional B.Arch program, like at Cooper Union, or Pratt, or even Cornell. The department is not associated with the Graduate School of Architecture Preservation and Planning, either (as far as I remember). You’ll graduate with a BA, and whatever skills you make the effort to pick up during your time here (e.g. when I was there, CAD skills weren’t taught, but some students would organize sessions in the computer lab to learn themselves. That may have changed.)</p>
<p>If becoming a licensed architect is your goal, the program definitely prepares you to go on to a professional degree program (i.e. a M.Arch program) at an architecture grad school. People from the program get into top graduate programs. People also get jobs working for architects and design shops right out of college too as computer draftsmen etc.</p>
<p>The upside to studying architecture in the context of a traditional 4 year college is that a) you can indulge your other academic interests (assuming you have time. lol.) and b) you can change your mind.</p>
<p>After a full year of design studios my sophomore year, I decided I wanted to do something else. If nothing else, I developed a much greater appreciation of urban landscapes the attention paid design elements in the environment around me.</p>
<p>Here’s the department/program website: <a href=“Barnard Architecture”>Barnard Architecture;
<p>Thanks for the info Nemesis:</p>
<p>I’ve already talked to the department and will be going to visit in Feb. I never thought of the software training so that is something I will bring up. I’ve heard many pros and cons to the program, however the bottom line seems to continue to be that the program is great and the students who do well are able to get into great MArch programs.</p>
<p>I’m more than a few years removed from my time there, but I remember the head of the department always made time to chat if you reached out.</p>
<p>There are definitely pros and cons. The introductory studios pretty much hit on my weakest areas (abstract creativity) and convinced me that spending another 2-5 years doing this stuff would kill me. (I wanted to be a preservationist. Ironically, one of my studio-mates is working in preservation now without having gone to grad school.)</p>
<p>Two notes about college life and the architecture program. First, you’re going to find it difficult to have one. It’s not impossible, but you will disappear off the face of the earth for lengths of time. Archies are notorious for holing up in the studio. It wasn’t uncommon to hear “oh yeah, my roommate is an architecture major. I never see him/her…” It’s a very time intensive major. I mean, any major can be time intensive if you take them seriously, but I think the difference with Arch is that you don’t have a choice (like say in the history department. I can get away with saying that. I graduated with a major in history.) Second, the camaraderie you develop with your studio mates is great. Spend long hours late into the night trapped in a small space with people, and you get to know them well. You won’t love everyone, but the shared trauma leaves a mark. Even though I dropped out of the program, I still keep in touch with some folks, and asked one of my studio critics (i.e. professor) to write a graduate school recommendation for me. I kinda miss that solidarity sometimes. But only sometimes.</p>
<p>I still have my “Architects go all night…” t-shirt somewhere. (This is what passes for archie humor. “Where were you?” “I was up all night doing a model.”)</p>
<p>Hahaha that is hilarious. I took 3 years of Arch in HS so I would say I got a ‘taste’ of it, spending time after school or every study hall in our studio never got old. My best friends in HS were actually the guys in my arch classes, still my best friends 4 years later. I’m looking forward to get back into that camaraderie. The only thing I plan on doing is playing lacrosse and that is just a club team. </p>
<p>But yea it feels daunting to think that I’d only have a B.A. so I would have to go to graduate school, so I have to do well. Which I will find out in my first class, abstract… blah.</p>
<p>I am anticipating the all-nighter haha</p>