I think it's the way of the future.

There are some really good community colleges out there. My students are PUSHED! Here's part of 1st year studio. This was the house one student analyzed. Note the bent wood cylinder spiral stair enclosure... That's technique.

His original work took a number of transformations and created some interested some interesting volumes and the sections worked to passively heat and naturally ventilate the spaces. I'll see if he photographed his model yet and scanned his drawings.

Well, that's definitely nice.

But UCF is essentially community college that acts like a community college that thinks it is a major Big 20 university.

Any time you criticize it, they have the rebuttal that they are still young and inexperienced. They frequently lie in their advertising about their national ranking, the performance of their students and their post-graduate successes.

This isn't even like 'accidental' lying ... like, reporting figures from three years ago ... or misrepresentation lying ... like, playing up key strengths.

No, these are flat out lies usually involving made of figures or pure deception-- they run the gamut:

from not allowing broadcasters and photographers to show images of sports games from certain angles to make the stands look full
to fictitious facts and figures from vague unidentifiable sources,
to covering up that most of their financial aid department employees were receiving kickbacks for predatory leading practices,
to the obvious plastic surgery the school's president had
to covering up the campus and area's rising rape and murder rates
to collaborating with aggressive student apartment development companies
to outlawing free speech on campus
to covering up racial discrimination and police brutality charges

This university is straight crooked.

Every single thing they do is image -- not necessarily prestiege-- and profit-oriented.

Why they would concieve a new program a day late and a dollar short is beyond me. Why they would shit can the possibly of an exciting new program to a satellite campus is even more bizarre.

Not to mention they've already had this same degree now offer 3 different times under three different colleges is even more bizarre. It's already failed twice! It was previous a building design degree under engineering technology and a architectural studies degree under the art department.

Florida is architecturally starved-- that's obvious. By why not just offer a b.arch if you're going to play the ITT Tech game?

We already have University of Miami and University of Florida-- two recognized architecture programs.

I just do not expect UCF to do anything stellar with this program -- I can gaurantee you they wont.

I can also gaurantee you now that this thread has been pushed to the front page of Google... Paul will get a cease-and-desist letter from UCF for publishing my "libel."

Unicorn,

Is it a public school?

I know nothing about it...

BWAHAHAH.

Yes, it is the University of Central Florida.

It's the third largest university in the US with an enrollment of 55,000 students and graduates 10,000 students a year.

But... outside of the State of Florida, it is a relatively unknown school unless you watch college football.

Did you attend?

Why are you so passionate about it?

I did attend for 7 years.

I'm passionate about it because the school basically ruined my adult life. Well partly. I do have to take a majority amount of responsibility for my actions and choices. Unfortunately, one of those choices was attending this university.

Perhaps my reaction is a bit of jealously mixed with a bit of rage.

My school chased trends and created 'opportunities' based on professional and economic fads. This seems to be nothing more than another economic fad and a nother source of unemployable CAD monkeys to feed local architectural offices.

I say that because Central Florida doesn't seem like much of an environment conducive to attracting new or fresh talent.

In the same sense that Silicon Valley has problems retaining employees because Silicon Valley really isn't a very exciting or fulfilling place outside of employment.

Perspective here is that this same school spent literally a $100 or so million developing a learning hospital-- a learning hospital that is not even or near campus and is part of a planned suburban development community leaning towards radicalized religious zealots.

It did this to boosts its reputation and give more opportunities to its former racket as a diploma mill for nurses, radiologists and so forth.

Except that it slashed all of those programs and didn't pursued accreditation.

So, now there's a $100 million dollar medical school in the middle of a semi-abandoned boomburg that can't even offer real medical degrees and had to give free tuition to its first batch of students to even attract anyone to it.



This is the same school that also was asking the State of Florida for $1 billion dollars last year because of "budget gaps," unethically loaned like $60 million to its own football team and now suddenly has the money to add a half-dozen new programs the following year?

Mind you, it threatened to cut transfer students if funding does not improve? If transfer students get cut, how will they guarantee transfer admission from the local community college?



Lastly, the AIA seems to be behind the new program, too.

with the exception of the quality of the program (which should hopefully increase over time) this new program is no different than the ones that have been in place with UF for many, many years... UF has always (or at least for as long as i know about) had "feeder programs" from a number of community colleges around the state... after 2 years at the CC the students would go through "pin-up" along with all of UF's 2nd year students... in my year this included about 100 students from UF and maybe 30-50 students combined amongst the community college students, all competing for around 60 slots in "upper division"... 2 years later, all of these students would then graduate with a bachelors of design and then go on to graduate school at either UF or another school for an additional 2 year M.Arch. professional degree...

anyways, only time will tell if it will develop into a respectable program or not... but at least give it a year or two before you start trashing it... as described above, it's not like they just pulled the 2+2+2 idea out of thin air...

also, i might add that some of the community college transfers that entered into the upper division program at UF when i was there were amongst some of the strongest students... the architectural education that they got during their 2 years at SOME of the community colleges (in my day hillsborough community college in tampa and miami-dade community college were probably the strongest) was not much different from the one that we got at UF...

If a UCF grad decided to go to another grad school besides UF, would they have to do a 3.5 yr M.Arch as opposed to the 2 yr M.Arch at UF?

seems like a negotiation in the right direction, but if I was one of the better community college students, I wouldn't bother applying there, unless UF undergrad rejected me.

maybe one day it will get better. Cooper Union was a 2 year gig when John Hejduk went there

let's not forget FAU also has a 5 year program, but who's heard of them, it's in boring broward

Well, fade... if you wanted to get a M.Arch from UF...

You could just got to Santa Fe Community up in Gainesville and do UF's 2 year AA transfer to UF's route.

Almost all AA graduates in the State of Florida are guaranteed transfer placement at one of Florida's SUS (FSU, UF, UCF, USF, UWF, UNF) schools.

If, however, you were applying straight from high school to undergrad... then it would be highly competitive to get into the Florida SUS school of choice.

That's what they're presumably offering is a bypass straight into a difficult educational program without going through the rigors of 'standard practice.'

If you stop and just get UCF's 'Bachelor's of Design,' well your degree is about as worthless as UCF's other wonderful unaccredited degrees.


To add to this conversation, UCF also just started offering a M.S.U.P. (unaccredited as far as I know) at the same exact time as the architecture program.

They have enough programs to cobble together a functional College of Architecture... you know, once they get any of these programs accredited.

i had a friend with one of those bachelor of arts in architecture degree.

some grad schools told him he had to do 3.5 years
others let him into the 2 yr m.arch

This isn't even a B.Arts or a B.Sciences.

It is a Bachelor of Design.

I don't even know if those are transferable or recognized.

THAT IS EXACTLY THE SAME DEGREE THAT YOU GET FROM UF AFTER 4 YEARS!!! IT IS THE SAME THING AS A B.A. OR B.S. JUST A DIFFERENT NAME.


"If a UCF grad decided to go to another grad school besides UF, would they have to do a 3.5 yr M.Arch as opposed to the 2 yr M.Arch at UF?"

This usually depends on the number of studios taken. Assuming that the UCF program has studios every semester for all 4 years (like they do at UF), then they would do the 2 year MArch.

The 5-year B.Arch., like it or not, is a dying breed. The unaccredited 4-year degree in architecture (BDes, BS, BA, etc) is considered by NAAB to be a "pre-professional degree," which then requires 2 years of additional study to receive a professional degree that allows you to get licensed (MArch).

THIS IS A STANDARD THING, NOT A UCF INVENTION.

nice, i figured the Bdes was a good thing, sounds better than a bachelor of arts in architecture.

I gotta say though, as a 5-year B.arch and M.Arch holder I feel really cool.