<p>What does a Masters in Architecture it do for you? Can you still take the exam with a BArch? Obviously the masters will give you more experience, but is it worth it?</p>
<p>This is a great question...but if you use the search engine you will find it's been discussed extensively.</p>
<p>A BS + MArch will give you the four years of college to broaden and deepen your education both in general and in your choice of major plus giving you many life experiences before committing to an MArch.
A BArch will instantly immerse you in arch at the price of bypassing those years of growing, maturing and learning.</p>
<p>Some will argue, that the Master of Architecture doesn't give you enough architectural experience, since you only have three years to cover what a B Arch typically does in five. There are plusses and minuses either way.</p>
<p>mathmom, I have read that argument before, actually here on CC. I understand it somewhat but not completely. In a BArch program, there are some liberal arts courses to get a degree and so not every course over five years is in Architecture. Someone who does a MArchI degree program, is no longer taking any liberal arts classes and has all classes concentrated in Architecture and in some cases, like my D's program she will enter at MIT, it is 3 1/2 years, not three. So, the 1 1/2 year difference with the BArch may be equivalent to the amount of liberal arts classes over a five year period that a BArch may have to take (that a BA plus MArch student has already done as an undergrad). Further, while it is not required that an entering MArch student has majored in pre-architecture as an undergrad, many have, including my own daughter and so she is entering a MArch program with some background....some studio classes, Arch history classes and so on. She has had two paid arch internships and in both, she is given real arch work to do. I think in sum, her four years of undergrad (majoring in Arch Studies) plus 3.5 years of Arch school, a summer arch intensive, arch program abroad, and arch internships, she will be as qualified or has covered as much as a BArch will have done. </p>
<p>I think, as you say, both paths are viable options and both have pros and cons. I do think that one pro of the BA plus MArch is the broader education that one can bring to their work as an architect.</p>
<p>It depends on what Masters you're talking about. There is a 5+ year MArch and a 3 year MArch. I like the idea of Arch studies plus 3 year MArch as discussed above. You can chose your electives wisely and knock out some classes in your MArch if your school allows it. Plus you can learn a foreign language with the Arch Studies that would be useful during your study abroad. The 5+ MArch and BArch are basically the same thing. One important thing to point out is that you will get 5 years design studio with those vs. only 3 with the other. So, are you in it for intense design or a well rounded education?</p>
<p>I'm not arguing one way or another. I did four years with a BA taking a lot of art, a lot of architectural history and a few design courses followed by a 4 year M Arch program at Columbia. I do think I may have gotten fewer architectural *studio *courses since there are only six semesters in a 3 year M Arch program. There were a couple of practical courses (like lighting) that I somehow managed to have missed and I have felt like I was playing catchup ever since. I have no regrets about the route I took. And as it happened I took German as an undergrad and then spent five years working as an architect in Germany.</p>
<p>After the first year in my M Arch program it was really not at all obvious who had studied architecture as an undergrad and who hadn't.</p>
<p>Quite a number of the MArch programs are now 3.5 years or 3 years plus a summer intensive. My D's program she is about to enter, at MIT, will be 3.5 years. </p>
<p>She is fluent in French which she chose to take throughout college (no foreign language requirements at her college). It came in handy as she applied to work at an arch studio in Paris last summer and got the job and could speak French and in fact, all the computer design programs she had to use were in French too.</p>
<p>Soozievt, the assumptions in your math are a little off. I certainly didn't have to take 1 1/2 years of "liberal arts" courses.</p>
<p>Re post #8, that was a **3 **year M Arch program. I don't think there are any four year programs!</p>
<p>larationalist....I am not sure if I was so clear but I didn't mean that a person in a BArch program would spend 1 1/2 years just taking liberal arts classes. What I meant was .....isn't about 30% of the coursework each semester outside of the BArch courses.....and more general education courses? Or at least the first few years? So, adding up all the gen. ed. or liberal arts classes required for the degree, they may total the equivalence of 1 1/2 year's worth of college courses. That is not a fair estimate of all the liberal arts credits to get the BArch degree? They do not add up to about 12 courses or so? If there are at least 12 courses required to get a BArch degree that are not in the arch department, then those 12 courses equal what is considered three semesters of full time BA education.</p>
<p>I understood you, and I'm saying your estimate is high. I took one outside/general education course per semester <em>max</em>. By my fifth year I was done with them and not taking any. I'm counting in my head, and I think I took 8 courses outside of architecture... 6 general education categories, 2 writing courses, though one of my general education categories was actually required by my major as well (they let Physics for Architects count for one of the science requirements), so really only 7. Definitely not a year and a half worth or classes.</p>
<p>Plus, a fairer comparison would be how many studio courses are taken. Time in studio is the main thing that makes you mature as a designer. A B.Arch usually requires 10 studios- an M.Arch I would require 7 in a 3.5 year program- you're not going to be taking multiple studios at once, your attention and time it too focused on each of them. There are some things you can cram into a shorter period of time, and some things that you can't. This is partially counteracted by the higher maturity level of graduate students (better able to take criticism, so their designs advance slightly faster), but I just don't think that maturity difference is 3 studios worth of difference. I'm not saying the M.Arch is worthless or anything, but the constant attempts to prove how much "better" it is than a B.Arch ring hollow. The 4+2 plan can be equivalent, depending on the undergrad program in question, but the 3-year M.Arch after an unrelated or barely related undergrad degree just isn't.</p>
<p>Larationalist...</p>
<p>Sorry, my estimation of about 12 courses over five years outside the BArch requirements in the major was not accurate and at your program, at least, only 8 courses were required. It may vary at other programs, I don't know for sure. </p>
<p>Let me assure you that i never stated, nor think, that a MArch is better than a BArch degree at all!! Likewise, I don't think a BArch is better than a MArch either. I only know that for MY daughter, the BA + MArch was the appropriate path for HER. By the way, it is not like she hasn't done architecture before entering the MArch program. She majored in Arch Studies in college. She also took some arch classes at RISD and did the summer intensive at Harvard (which includes design studio) and did a semester abroad through Syracuse's arch program and did studio there too. Before entering grad school, she will have done two summer internships (where she is given real arch work to do and not busy work), in Paris and NYC arch firms. True, she will not have 10 semesters of studio but will have 7 at her graduate school. </p>
<p>She wanted a liberal arts degree and feels that gives her a good background for her field. She was not ready to commit to a BArch program out of HS because she had not yet experienced arch enough to know for sure she would pursue it, even though she was leaning that way, had done some independent studies and an internship, etc. before college. She also did not want a degree program where the majority of her courses were in one field, as is the case in a BArch program. She likes to learn about many things and her BA degree allowed her to do that while also concentrating on architecture. She wanted more of the regular college experience and for example, was a varsity athlete, something she could not have done in a BArch program. But a BArch program is a very good fit for others, but wasn't for her. I have another daughter who is in a professional degree undergrad program that involves the same sort of prior commitment to a field as a BArch does before applying, and where the majority of the coursework is in that one field. That is a perfect fit for HER. One big difference is that she had been immersed in that field since preschool, and that was not the case with my older D who hadn't yet studied architecture in school prior to college. </p>
<p>I don't see the need to even compare a BArch with a MArch. Both lead to careers in this field. One path or the other is a good fit for what certain people want in their educational experience. My kid is very happy with the path she chose and it has been a perfect fit for her. She doesn't think it is a better path but merely a better path for herself. She is really happy with the liberal arts footing she had for four years. She wanted that. She also was involved in arch all four years. Now, she is ready to ONLY do architecture. I think she will come out real prepared to tackle a career, as much as anyone who did a BArch. Firms surely are hiring graduates of MArch programs and she'll be fine. The firm she is in now, in fact, has many architects from MArch programs, including programs she got into but turned down.</p>
<p>And that is a whole separate argument. I was just making sure people aren't trying to make things look equivalent, based on how much architecture vs. general education courses are taken, that aren't really.</p>
<p>What about the newish 5 year MArch? A trend I see at some undergrad schools. Is this just a re-labeling of the 5yr BArch degree?
Anyone?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Is this just a re-labeling of the 5yr BArch degree?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, that is exactly it.</p>
<p>csmith: M.Arch = more $</p>
<p>4trees: You say, "A BArch will instantly immerse you in arch at the price of bypassing those years of growing, maturing and learning."
Why so bitter?
After reading that, I had to go back and re-check your sons acceptance list:
4trees S: Cal Poly, CMU, UofO, RPI, RWU, WIT[FINAL].
Does this list not include 3 Barchs and only 2 BA/BSs, WIT of which is a 4+1, isn't it?
This very forum has allayed my fears that my son will miss out on life experiences by pursuing a Barch at 18. Plus, a first degree in your early 20s is not the be all, end all. Kids should know how many of us parent's are and are not practicing what we studied as undergrads. I, personally, got a degree in Journalism at Northwestern, wrote for a while in NYC, moved to Nashville and have been a nurse practitioner for 15 years. And, I never would have believed even at 22 that treating cancer patients could be a lot more fulfilling than writing about it. We all continue to figure it out as we go along.</p>
<p>4trees: You say, "A BArch will instantly immerse you in arch at the price of bypassing those years of growing, maturing and learning."
Why so bitter?
After reading that, I had to go back and re-check your sons acceptance list:
4trees S: Cal Poly, CMU, UofO, RPI, RWU, WIT[FINAL].
Does this list not include 3 Barchs and only 2 BA/BSs, WIT of which is a 4+1, isn't it?
This very forum has allayed my fears that my son will miss out on life experiences by pursuing a Barch at 18. Plus, a first degree in your early 20s is not the be all, end all. Kids should know how many of us parents are and are not practicing what we studied as undergrads. I, personally, got a degree in Journalism at Northwestern, wrote for a while in NYC, moved to Nashville and have been a nurse practitioner for 15 years. And, I never would have believed even at 22 that treating cancer patients could be a lot more fulfilling than writing about it. We all continue to figure it out as we go along.</p>