<p>So I started first year Arch Monday. So far I'm not sure what I think of it, I like some of the subjects (or whatever you call it). We get to start with our first project next week which is design a house for a painter. But I find most of the stuff that has to do with Urban Design to be boring (and to some extent I guess plans/maps). I wanted to know what your experiences were when you first started? Did you enjoy it all instantly or did it take some time? </p>
<p>Maybe I need to wait a little more to make a better conclusion, but I don't want to waste time. Because I really wanted something with a little more math/physics (I don't know how much of these you get in Arch).</p>
<p>Well, D2 is scared and worried after her first week as a BArch major. She spent 40 hours working in the studio her very first weekend at school and is thinking that she has to carry her entire project team of 20 kids for this whole semester. She also heard that the average grade for her studio course is a “C” and her comment to her mother was “Mom, I don’t do C’s.” At this point, I think she would lilke some “boring” stuff.</p>
<p>Give it more time. One week is not enough in any major to make up one’s mind. My son just started his soph year in BArch program. His first year, in Oct he talked about switching majors. He spent so much time without sleep in studio and no social life he was getting frustrated. He was a little worried about grades. We told him before he made any decision, think it through carefully, talk to the professors, talk to an architect, talk to his advisor. He did all that and decided to stick out the first semester. His grades turned out really good and he decided to stay in architecture. Second semester was much better than the first, gradewise and also enjoyment wise. I don’t think he regrets staying the course.</p>
<p>I just finished my first week of BArch studio (well second week, but we didn’t really do anything in terms of studio projects last week). I found the assignment to be very abstract, and the instructions vague, and everyone ended up spending about 7 hours per day in studio. Basically it was dropping darts on a grid as a generative model, then making a drawing and CAD out of that. My impression is that it can be fun, but tiring, but ultimately rewarding when you see what you have made.</p>
<p>I’ve gone almost two weeks. I don’t feel a week/two weeks is enough time at all to make a serious judgement call. I love it so far; it’s a lot of work but well worth it.</p>
<p>@QuietType: 40 hours? on just the weekend? as in 20 hours a day? WOW</p>
<p>btw, our first project at CMU took about 10 this weekend. It’s definitely going to get harder though. </p>
<p>ArchGuy - I’m sure that some hyperbole was involved, but she said 40 hours from Friday thru Monday morning. Her studio class meets in the afternoon and I guess she basically did not leave. They are doing some type of team project and most of her team members went off campus for the weekend, so she was left trying to coordinate/accomplish with just a couple other kids.</p>
<p>Oh my godness you guys are making me very nervous about pursuing architecture. I want to be able to enjoy what I am doing and I tend to stress out when I don’t get things done on time…</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies guys. I’ve decided to stick it out, see how it goes. We start with our first project next week and the next semester we’ll be getting mechanics. </p>
<p>Plus I figured if I want I can always do my masters in Civil Engineering, meh we’ll see.</p>
<p>It’s been my 3rd week in college as an architecture major at USC. It’s not that my instructors give us a lot of work, it’s that the work they give us takes a lot of time. Making a good model is so, extremely time consuming, and you can never stop thinking of ways to change your model. But yes I’ve spent a lot of time in studio while my friends with other majors had a lot more free time.</p>
<p>^ building on what einnob said, a lot of the stuff they’re doing here at usc right now is conceptual and not related to the basics. We had a triangulated surface assignment followed by a linear organization one so far.</p>
<p>I’m no longer an architecture major any more for various reasons, but if you feel really interested in architecture i would suggest you pursue it.</p>
<p>My son is a first year Architecture student at UB and I never realized how much time they spend in the studio. It seems like there is never any free time as an Architecture student. Can someone who knows about the program shed some light as to what is involved, why they spend so much time, is it project after project?It just seems like he is not getting any sleep. He has been sick already but could not take care of himself because he had to be in the studio. Is it like this the whole year or do they just try and see who can make it. He is not really complaining but has very little time for his other subjects and has absolutely no social life besides the studio. He was there this whole weekend from 2:00pm to 2:00am each day and again tonight. I don’t know how he is doing it!</p>
<p>pha516, it all boils down to how complex your son makes his projects, and how efficient he is with time management. I know kids who get their projects done within a few hours and leave studio quickly, but others stay there all night.
mistakes also eat away at your time, because correcting them is a lengthy process.</p>
<p>archie12 - long story short, i wasnt sure if this was what i wanted to be doing for 5 years because i did not want to focus on just architecture (i had planned on expanding into real estate development or maybe construction management). I was planning on going B.arch+MBA, but now i might get a business bachelors followed by an m.arch if i’m still interested in architecture. For now though, i’m going to try to major in Business Administration with a minor in Real Estate Development.</p>
<p>I think that it is the nature of the task that when you are working on a loosely defined problem with no clear right or wrong answer (a house for a blind artist…) there is a limitless amount of time one can spend refining and improving the solution. Then you combine this with the large amount of skills that have to be acquired by a new architecture students and you end up with huge amounts of time in the studio. Even now when I am probably at the peak of my abilities, there is always more time that can be spent making the project better.</p>
<p>The larger question is does the student find the creative process to be personally rewarding, or are the hours just a beating? Nothing I have found beats the satisfaction of creating something that I find beautiful out of my imagination and hard work. Other people want the satisfaction of knowing they have the ‘right’ answer, and they cannot stand the ambiguity of the design process. These folks are much happier in engineering.</p>
<p>My only caveat is that sometimes the demands of the creative process can be made almost intolerable by professors who feel it is their duty to drive out all that are not totally dedicated to their vision of the profession. Unfortunately a lot of this is often driven by their own personal unhappiness and lack of success as an architect. School is hard enough without having to put up with teachers like this.</p>
<p>Thanks Artic92 - my daughter is a HS senior this year and has the same reservations. She is competitive academically and her portfolio is shaping up nicely. She has wanted to pursue arch since she was in grammer school however the “cult-like” studio culture is turning her off as well as the prospects for employment upon graduation. She has spoken to a number of people in Barch programs and she has found that some use the studio as a center of their social life while others get in, focus, do their work and get out. As a parent, I am guiding her to pursue what she loves but I am concerned that if she doesn’t give it a try that she will regret it. She is now thinking a Business degree with a minor in design will give her more options in the short term and then she will look towards an MArch…she is considering two sets of schools…Barch and then Business…we will see how the year unfolds.</p>
<p>Hey, maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel! D2 just called because she’s nervous about her upcoming “crit.” During the conversation, she indicated that she’s worried about her grade, but that she is enjoying the work. The REAL nice thing that she said was that she noticed that it was only the first year students burning all the candles in the studio - none of the upper year kids were pulling all-nighters. Maybe architecture students do learn how to do projects and manage time.</p>
<p>rick12 - thank you so much for that informative answer. My son is definitely finding the process to be rewarding. He is devoting all of his time to his work and when his project is complete he will tell me that it is done and he feels it came out great. He is so proud of what he did and then comes the “critique”. The first one was good but the second one was demoralizing…after he put in I can’t tell you how many hours. The whole critigue was about line weight. And the teacher who wrote the critique I don’t think has ever taken an English class in their life. After this critique 20 kids left the class. My son is sticking with it. I know until they learn what the teachers are really looking for some of the critiques will be like that but I think it really discourages them from wanting to keep on going.And how do they know if they should keep on going?</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m a first year at PSU and basically just pulled 3 all nighters last week (And I wasnt the only one). The other nights I went home at 2. I think part of it is trying to weed out the undesirables, close to ten kids have dropped so far, and apparently more are thinking about it at the semester mark. My advice to anyone looking into it is to be completely sure that this is what you want before you even get your acceptance letter.</p>
<p>(sry in advance if there is grammer or spelling mistakes… as you can guess im somewhat tired.)</p>
<p>Speaking from experience, I spent many years as an undergraduate in an unaccredited B.S. Architectural Technology major. I flew through the curriculum. Then I transferred to Boston Architectural College. They don’t joke around. We are expected to hold employment in the architectural field during the day and do studios and classes at night. Leaving a few hours a few nights a week and the weekends to complete coursework and studio projects. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but if architecture interests you, the amount of constraints and limitations that obligations of school put on your life really begin to show you how much time people waste. It’s a compelling lesson in time management and efficiency of time usage.</p>
<p>Just found this and figured I could add my thoughts to the discussion…from my experiences in both B.Arch and M.Arch the need to spend all of your time in the studio to do well is not really the case. I personally was able to participate in high level college athletics, do well in B.Arch and then do even better in M.Arch (after athletic elig. was up). This studio/life balance was also something that employers saw as impressive coming out of school. </p>
<p>The best advice I can give is, if the design aspect of your Architecture studios does not come natural to you, focus on learning how buildings are built and really try to implement that into your design work. I say this because when in practice only a select few actually get to “design” the work (and most are sr. designers whos “style” is a reflection of the firms style). If you can show that you have a great understanding on how buildings are constructed and if you can clearly deliniate that in your design work your portfolio will really shine and you will be very useful to many, many firms. </p>
<p>Also, begin to research what the reality of working in a firm is. It is hardly like working in the Arch studio at school (some like that and some dont), as it is about %10 design work, %60 drafting on CAD or BIM, and the rest a mix of Construction Administration, and management. The other reality to consider is the payscale which you enter the field at. Myself, I have been out of M.Arch for about 4 years, have worked for 2 great firms, been laid off, have started my exams, and feel lucky to be earning in the low 40’s in a high cost of living city. For me this is somthing that has me considering a career change/shift as I can not fathom that I will be a registered architect come this summer and wont even be breaking the 45K mark. Im not trying to discourage anyone from Arch as a career but just something to consider as salaries continue to go down and tuition/student loans are going up. </p>
<p>All said, if things make it back to pre 2007 levels it can be a very rewarding career. Its truely amazing to see something that you designed, or even drafted, become a tangible object that people get to enjoy, inhabit, and use.</p>