Hi!
I’m a HS senior and I have been accepted to both Penn State and Tulane for the Architecture programs, and in both cases, if I went I’d be doing the 5 year B.ARCH program. Besides the obvious price and location differences, I was wondering if anyone could give me information specific to the Architecture programs for each schools, as I like both of them, but I have not found much information comparing/contrasting them.
Well the different locations are going to have a significant impact on your project work. D2, who graduated from Penn State last year with her BArch, wound up traveling to New York City, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, as well as various locations around State College. I would expect that a lot of effort at Tulane would be focused on the New Orleans area, which should be a wealth of opportunities right at hand.
Penn State requires one semester to be spent in Rome during the fourth year, I believe it’s recommended but not required at Tulane. By the way, both Penn State and Tulane share the Rome studio facilities and apartments and so forth. I don’t think they actually shared common classes, but there is some commingling, especially at the apartment complex.
D2, who has a close friend living in New Orleans, tried to get a summer internship down there. She interviewed with several arch firms, but gathered the impression that they were really looking for Tulane students for those internships, since they also apparently included work activities through the school year, and not just in the summer.
One point of consideration would be where you might want to work after graduation. Most architectural schools have some regional impact that results in getting first jobs in the schools vicinity due to alumni presence and/or arch firms’ experience with the regional schools by participating in crits, internship programs, etc.
Congratulations on two good choices. What’s the difference in cost? Keep in mind that you may eventually go for an MArch.
I agree with @QuietType that you should think about where you might want to live and work after you have your degree. The internships and connections you make while in school will impact your hireability.
I would also note that Tulane requires a fifth year thesis, and I don’t believe Penn does.
Go where it’s the cheapest. B.Arch students have the least good job prospects of all majors.
Wherever you go, plan to be 100% right from the start - no partying on Wednesdays for instance.
@QuietType Thank you very much, I hadn’t thought of that! Just to clarify, would you say that if I went to Penn State, I’d most likely be working mostly around the northeast, and if I went to Tulane, I’d be working more around NOLA?
@MYOS1634 What do you mean by BARCH students having the least good job prospects of all majors? And yes I’m not much of a weekday partier. I’ve heard the stereotype that Arch students barely have a life and they’re working all the time, does it have any degree of truth?
@momrath Thank you, and yeah I probably will go for the MArch. Penn state has the 5+1 program where if you take the BArch in 5 years you can then complete the MArch in 1 year, but I’m pretty sure both require a 5th year thesis.
Tulane is 67k but I got a 10k per year scholarship which brings it down to a still-pretty-high 57k.
Penn state is 48k (I’m OOS, living in New York)
Can your parents afford these amounts out of pocket (income+ savings )?
I meant that in a postgrad survey of thousands of grads, architecture is the major least likely to lead to a good job for most, in other words the least likely to have a job related to their studies, lowest starting salary, highest odds of unemployment. …
That’s why you must absolutely minimize debt.
@lgoldfeld It’s just that architectural firms in the vicinity of a school are more familiar with that school’s reputation and graduates. Also, during your time at school you will have several crits (project design critiquing sessions) which are often judged by visiting architects, and obviously, it’s easier to get architects in closer proximity to the school to participate. That’s how my daughter got her job - one of her crit judges liked her work and asked her to interview with his firm in Washington DC. However, she also had interviews with firms in California and Chicago-land, so there’s no geographic limits on where you might go to work after graduation.
One thing I forgot to mention. Bear in mind that BArch programs have a pretty significant attrition rate. ~60% of D2’s class decided that architecture was not for them and switched to other majors. Consider the availability of alternate majors if you need to take a different direction. Would you choose either PSU or Tulane if you weren’t in the architecture program?
Architecture, like many fields is very cyclical. When my kid started school in 2010, the Great Recession had really hammered the profession and there weren’t all that many jobs available. By the time she graduated in 2015, pretty much all her classmates had jobs or were going to grad school. As another example, two years ago, the energy industry was hiring engineering graduates at a premium. Now, the energy firms are cutting way back. It happens.
Whether Tulane is worth an additional ~$50K really depends on your family’s financial situation. Right now the job market for BArchs and MArchs is pretty good – especially if you’re conscientious about securing internships while you’re in school – but entry level salaries are still on the low side compared to the cost of education.
After you get your BArch you might also want to try a different school for your MArch, which is another cost factor to consider.