It is starting, just a little, to get easier for me to relate architecture to other artistic mediums, and I feel like my ideas of what is a good design and what is not a good design are slowly coming in line with the general ideas of my instructors. For example, I may create a design that I think is sufficient - good even. But it is usually inevitable that I will find one that I think is better - not because of any specific flaw in my design, but simply because the other one is better, more intriguing. I guess, ultimately, what I am saying is that I am beginning to, just barely, develop the beginnings of an educated taste in architecture, an understanding of what is easy and what is hard and what has been done and what speaks to my intuition...

Forget all that though. What I still don't understand is architecture school itself - not the specifics of what happens, but where one should go. Is there a book on this or something? I mean, I know there are rankings of architecture schools, but it seems to me that they vary so wildly that it is probably more important to find one that fits your own individual feelings about design. But still. I mean, is it worth it to go to a MArch II program like Harvard's and graduate $100,000 in debt rather than to go to a good state school and graduate $20,000 in debt? If I still want to attend architecture school after this program, but want to work for a year or two first, would it help me at all to work for an architecture firm, or would that not really make an impact on my future in the design profession? Could I even get a job at an architecture firm with no formal education? Probably not. Gahh! Graduation with a liberal arts degree is frustrating, frustrating, but ultimately worth it, in my opinion...