huh? you can do this? oh, maybe if you had a professional undergrad degree, but then what would be the point? you'd have your licence and be out 'practicing'. why would you re-invest cash and time into more schooling...you'd want your practice to grow, or, you'd want better real life experience.

if you didn't have a practice i think it may be worth it depending on what you are trying to get out of it. but if i ever get to go to grad school again, i want to be able to concentrate while i am there and get the most out of it i can possibly get.

has anyone on here ever done this?

I have a 5-year degree. The reason I want to go to Grad school is to have an opportunity to spend time investigating a design problem, namely adaptive reuse. But I am not one to stand on theory. I have a strong motivation to relate ideas to reality. My thought is that with an expanded knowledge base about building, further academic study could be more directed at a real end product. Or perhaps it could be a hindrance, I'm not sure yet.

i guess you would have more time in school to focus on a certain aspects depending on the program you choose, same thing for using your skills to direct toward a real end product. you just have to pick the right school.

i want to go back so i can teach in the future, and for some further exploration of concepts and ideas i have.

i've got a 5 year degree. i will start taking the ARE this summer. After i'm done, i plan on applying to grad school (hopefully for the fall of 2006).

ether,
I am on a similar schedule, and I know this may draw a lengthy answer, but what do you hope to accomplish by going back to school? That is the question I have been asking myself a lot lately.

After graduating with a B Arch, I worked for about 8 years and got licensed along the way; at that point I made the decision to go back to grad school. Fo me, I knew at my fifth year of UG that I wanted more time to study particular concepts my thesis was involved with, but my motivations changed due to what I was learning in the profession, how my interests in design and architecture were developing, eventual teaching appointments, and also after assessing myself and my abilities. It was by no means a financial decision, but rather a personal one- similar to those I met in grad school with the same experience.

My M Arch II program was extremely flexible (only requirements for graduation was a thesis, and two seminars- one of which was an open choice from a single department), which enabled my to define what I wanted to focus my time and energy on; it also was only 3 semesters so my time there was short.

In the end, I didn't cover everything that I thought I wanted to go back to school for- but I left learning (in general) about what I really enjoyed about the profession and what my strengths were, how to make them happen, and expansion of my design sensibilities. I've been back to work for about 4 years now, and I find that my design work and espeically HOW to make it happen is much further along than others with similar years of experience (w/o grad school).

Advantages I found in grad school:
- you know for the most part how building go together, thus enters a degree of reality into the work. While this could be limiting to some, I found it liberating because I could concentrate more intensely on material and formal expressions.
- you end up relating to instructors on a different level; you (should) know the basics of programing and concept development, so the emphasis becomes on development, process, materiality, and other studies.
- after graduation, you end up competing for work on a different track thus avoiding the usual influx of recent grads into the market place.
- depending on the quality of firms you've worked with prior, grad school gets you up to work at better firms because a) you can tap into the school's alumni/ work networks, and 2) you have experience. Of course, this is not a gimmie as you still have to work hard to tailor your portfolio, skills, etc.
- you have more money to pay back the loans if you take them out since you will likely in a different income bracket. Yes, you incurred debt but you can pay it off quicker should you choose to do so.

I came out of undergrad in '91 and went straight to work. After several years of practice and lots of built projects I went back to school for a few reasons:

1. I have always intended to mix practice and teaching, keeping my professional work vital through teaching exposure and keeping my teaching work grounded through continued practice. A graduate degree is the minimum threshold to teaching these days.

2. After over a decade of working I had begun to realize that I had some recurring preoccupations and that I wanted some focused time to look at them more comprehensively.

3. Those preoccupations included urban design issues - an area in which I never felt that I had gotten a solid foundation. I was able to craft my graduate studies so that I could concentrate on urban design.

4. There is so much to learn about sustainable construction and development that I knew I would never even get a foot in the door as long as I was pounding out memos and reviewing pay requests. I was able to spend some time learning techniques, materials, and different thinking about what is useful when approaching 'sustainability'. (Also what a difficult word it is to define and defend.)

5. I'm a sucker for architecture theory courses and I needed a fix. It reinvigorated me just to be in the environment of pure ideas again.

i just want some time and a constructive environment to do my own thing for a couple of years. accomplishments would be retrospective on whether or not i was successful. i started some stuff during my undergrad thesis that i would like to explore further. i'm currently trying to get married, start a family, practice architecture, enjoy life and play as much halo as i can. i don't really feel ready for grad school and i'm 29 - hell almost 30. i thought that 3 years after i finished undergrad i would be ready to go back. i'm going on 4 years and am still trying to figure things out. this waiting probably has more to do with how i process my life and the future. i will go to grad school, i just don't know when. if i have 3 kids, a mortgage and am 45 and decide it's time, i'll figure out a way to make it happen. but in the meantime i’ll get registered and play.