^  The schools want your money.

The professors often don't know the practical stuff (why do you think they decided to teach?).

Teaching design is more subjective and more fun.  None of that boring code and engineering stuff.  Never forget that one of the attractions of being a college professor is the opportunity to extend your college good old days for the rest of your life.

Adding more years creates more of a professional aura to the major.

Finally, the students like the dreamy stuff more and so don't object.

When students like you are already seeing through it, you would think the message would get through to the powers that be, but no.

It's a dying profession.  Think long and hard about whether it's a good ship to book passage on.

you're learning how to design in studio.  while i think the life safety and systems stuff should be taken more serious in school, the point of studio is to learn about form and space and context and nice things like that.

learning how to design is an important part of architectural education, just as it is for a graphic design or art degree.  it's just for an architect, there is a lot of other stuff that needs to be added.

I know design is an important part of the education. It's just that 5 years of it seems like overkill. Also, it's not as if graduates will be responsible for design right out of school like in graphic design or art. We have to wait many years and will learn how design works in the real world.

Immediately drop and get a degree in civil engineering or construction management. Trust me the bullshit and nonsense does not end in school. Look around at your peers, do you think many of them could manage a business? Probably not but they will and you will be working for people like that making no money and struggling to find work. Don't waste anymore time, drop and get a degree that's actually useful. Architecture school was the biggest waste of time ever. I'm trying to switch to construction management right now with five years experience and basically the only realistic way I've found is go back to school or work nights helping a contractor for 6 months or so. Drop out man, it is worthless.

What Geez and Starchitect said, it all boils down to money money money, THEY WANT YOUR MONEY!

The purpose of Architecture school is to break your way of thinking.  It (hopefully) gets rid of all the preconceived notions you had about "architecture".  Once your broken, the rest of your time is spent learning how to craft space, how to represent that, and how to present the idea to others. The health, safety, and welfare things get thrown into the mix.  I am sure there are schools that aren't as good about including those items... but they're probably the ones promoting the design of buildings that look like a porcupine screwed a sea squirt and made a building-baby.  

And regarding 5 years... It takes some people longer than others.  You might be ready to get out in the world. Others... not so much.  In a similar way, the ADA is to make things more universally accessible.  Being universally accessible doesn't mean it works perfectly for every single person.  But, it does make it work well enough for the majority. 

NCARB and other third party accreditation organizations aim to make the path towards licensure as difficult as possible. This is specifically to limit the number of registered architects at any given time and increase the likelihood that licensed architects will receive gainful employment. Unlike other professions, the path to becoming an architect is about rite of passage not about individual talent. The lengthy school program is a product of this, as is the IDP program and the 7 exams you must take. Recently NCARB has been giving the appearance that it is making this path easier, however, it is just an illusion to appease those that oppose this ideology. For example, NCARB recently lowered the number of IDP hours that you need in order to get your license. This sounds like it has shortened the processes, but they have only removed the non-core requirement. Core IDP hours are difficult to fit into the specific requirements and as a result it will likely take you the same amount of time to meet the requirement (also some states like mine still require the 5500 hours). They are also doing away with the non-conventional ways of gaining IDP experience. All this aside, you must understand that architecture is a career of passion and if you are not specifically passionate about DESIGNING buildings, then there are other careers (many more financially rewarding) that may fit your interest. As StarchitectAlpha stated civil engineering or construction management might be a better route for you. There is a myriad of engineering specialties associated with constructing buildings that could be possible career paths for you. Define what your true interests are and pursue a career path that closely aligns with them. Becoming an architect is a daunting and exhausting task that you will not find rewarding if the interest in design is not there.

It's not that design isn't important.  But, schools over-emphasize it and give students the impression that it is the only thing really worth knowing.  Then they get out in the real world and are bored, bewildered and depressed at the bait-and-switch.   The principals do most of the design work and only want the fresh grads for the less glamorous stuff, which they don't have much qualification for.  So, the pay is shitty, the grad has all he can do to pay his student loans for the now-dubious education, and another frustrated soul is added to the profession.

If there is another profession that does as poor a job of educating its' newbies as this one, I'd like to know what it is.

Every architect i have ever worked for has stated multiple times or at least once that school was worthless. Think about that, the amount of time you spend in a 5 year program and you come out and in your own field are referred to as "worthless" really think about that

I wouldn't call my education worthless, but five years of heavy design emphasis was two years too many.  Due to some curriculum changes, we ended up not getting any instruction in office practice, site planning, real estate and construction law.  Structures was fairly well taught, but mechanical and electrical design got short shrift.  And of course we had to slog through the usual liberal arts prerequisites that didn't really add anything useful.  The worst part was the artiste mentality that took a long time for some of my friends to get over.

I do appreciate design and know it's importance in architecture but I feel that design in academia is not preparing me for any thing more than I've learnt already. I wish I didn't have to waste my time sitting through design studios but instead could take couses where I learn something. I do have a passion for design but quickly realized that design in school is nothing like designing in reality, which I prefer much more to school.

Ask for your diploma early, I wish I had. I'm sure they wouldn't grant it but it sends a message. Your last year is for looking for jobs anyways, don't worry about studio. Work on your resume and portfolio instead. 

I had the opposite problem: a 3.5 year M.Arch. program where the first year you don't touch software or design a building. Steep learning curve those last 2 years.
 

I came out of school knowing how to detail well enough to be left on my own with large, multi-storey projects. I had my license 3 years after graduating.

Kids just need to be taught by practicing architects and not just fluffy unicorn whisperer academics.

Just curious, where do you go and how far along are you?  

My first year was very theoretical, got more "real" over time, until the last year,  which was back to the crazy shit.

No one is stopping you from learning on your own either.

I go to a "Top 10" (how are these schools raked anyways) school and am in 4th year. It's the same as you mentioned shuellmi, and I've finished the "real" part and am back to the crazy shit again. When you have limited time since studio is supposed to waste / take up all you time, there's not much time left to learning on your own.

^ Then don't do "crazy shit". Make a real project out of your studio assignments and if your professors or peers complain, tell them you're looking for a real education.

School rankings are not related to how well students are trained for the real world anyways, so it matters little.

Get with the program

School: Don't you love your university?

Student: Yes, sir.

School: Then how about getting with the program? Why don't you jump on the team and come on in for the big win?

Student: Yes, sir.

School: Son, all we’ve ever asked of our students is that they obey our bullshit as they would the word of God. We are here to help the people, because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out. It's a hardball world, son. We've gotta keep our heads until this no-school craze blows over.

Student: Aye-aye, sir.

School: Good, now stand tall with the Man!

Assuming that you already know all there is about design is presumptuous at best. There is always opportunity to learn. Either find that opportunity in the current education you are pursuing or jump ship and pursue a different career. You don't have to be an architect to work on buildings. The problem with our profession is that there is a dichotomy between architectural education and architectural practice. You should only become a licensed architect if you plan on contributing new and innovate ideas to the profession. Otherwise you are jumping through a bunch of hoops to be a CAD monkey. As a word of advice, a design education does not end when you receive your diploma, every year in order to maintain your license you must accrue continuing education credits. It sounds like your interests more closely align with becoming a structural engineer. From that perspective you can bring an aesthetic eye to an overly conventional profession. You would be a much more valuable structural engineer with an eye for design than an architect with a less than enthusiastic opinion about design and the lifelong commitment to education that is associated with it.

It might just be that you're not in a program that aligns with your long-term goals. 

If you prefer a more technical education, I'm sure you could find a program for that. Some people (myself included) found a lot of value in the design aspect of architectural education and saw a great deal of overlap between the problems we solved in school and the problems we solve in the office. For me, it was worth every penny. 

You can't expect all programs to be the same, just like you can't expect all designers to be the same. Everyone has different interests and goals. 

And those that say architecture is dying profession, are showing their own shortsightedness to how the profession will continue to evolve as the economy around it changes. 

Just my two sense...

"You should only become a licensed architect if you plan on contributing new and innovate ideas to the profession."  

Strangely in 40 years of practice this has never once been part of needs scope of a single client.  Providing expert guidance using established and proven techniques adding to their continuing evolution, certainly.

There is no new ideas or innovation with respect to the AIA, NCARB, or the architectural education establishment that I can see. Charging an arm and a leg for graduate program tuition vs an undergraduate program might be looked on as financial innovation - for the schools. Do you think it might be due to the fact that graduate school federal loans are not capped? Nah, the glorious Ivys and ivy wanna-bees would never do that to their students. They are all about the students. Just like the NCAA is all about the "student-athletes".

bundy "continued evolution" sounds like innovation to me. I guess I should add that you may also want to become a licensed architect if you want to put your name on the design of buildings. "Providing expert guidance and using established and proven techniques" is a description that could be applied to any of the construction fields. What makes architecture different? Perhaps it is the "continuing evolution" part that challenges you to create a unique solution to each design problem.

^ not EVERY problem deserves a unique solution.

This is one of the main attitude problems I see from new graduates where they don't understand that not every part of the building/project needs a week long charrette and 15 new wheel designs.

By "design problem" I was referring to a building project as a whole.

To address your comment however, yes it is true that every little detail does not need to be a reinventing the wheel process, but I personally feel that the attitude of doing everything conventionally is what creates architects who are miserable. If you are going to sit around and copy details from previous jobs all day then you do not need a license and in my mind you are not creating architecture.

It really is unfortunate that people give up on trying to make unique contributions to the architectural field because they are constantly told to not reinvent the wheel. An architect can produce drawing sets for work that requires their participation by code and take home their paycheck, or they can strive to advance the profession and create the best design for every challenge they approach. That's just my philosophy.

Man you all are pessimist.  You miss the point of school.  It is all about training your thought processes. 

If you want to understand how a building goes together, the details, the materials, the techniques, etc…  Go to a trade school to draft or swing a hammer for a living.  It could be blissful to just focus on one little thing at a time and have others do most the thinking for you.  And before people light up on that, it’s like getting handed a paint-by-numbers print and painting it; you aren’t an artist because you brought it to life.  Someone else designed it.

If you want to train your brain to organize, compile, think abstractly, and understand how space, organization, function, etc. all plays into how people experience life and how they interact… architecture, urban planning, etc. are your route.  You are learning to think rapidly and coherently vastly complex systems that are inner-dependent on each other as a whole.  It’s big picture stuff. 

Offices want rapid well thought out solutions:  thinkers… they can teach you to draft, detail, etc.   It hard to train a person to take an absolute ton of information, limitations, boundaries, etc. and actually come up with a design that works and delights.

Take whatever project you are working on right now and think about all the thoughts you had that went into that design.  Would your design be even remotely as good a few short years ago under the same time constraints?  

"If you want to train your brain to organize, compile, think abstractly, and understand how space, organization, function, etc. all plays into how people experience life and how they interact… architecture, urban planning, etc. are your route.  You are learning to think rapidly and coherently vastly complex systems that are inner-dependent on each other as a whole.  It’s big picture stuff. "

I will agree that architecture school can hone you into becoming a problem solver, and an excellent  one at that. Sadly, 'seeing the big picture' is not seen as intrinsically valuable as may of us would like to think that pursue this field, or even desired in today's capitalistic society.

In all honesty, seeing the 'big picture' is that last thing that the oligarchs running the world and pulling the strings would want you to see. Once you zoom far enough out and see it from the right perspective you cant help but gasp.

All architecture is in need of is worker bees, not innovation.

Architecting my self of architecture has been one of the hardest and best ideas of my life.

I reget that I was so niave at 17 years of age, and all the precious time I wasted in school. When your thirty and you look back on it all you can do is facepalm, and realize that you better get your shit together, b/c 40 is right down the road...

after 3 semesters at a very technical school in Germany, where the studio project was a design with a construction set you could build off of, when I got back for my final 3 semesters all I thought about was very technical ways to make crazy shit happen......thats still pretty much my career......i did think my profs for the most part were clueless academics and I expressed that much, and I tried to get a double major at least for having 180 credit hours but in the end just a B.Arch........OP approach your stuff like its a real project - there is a hell of a lot more "design" when trying to make something real vs unreal.

I don't really understand why visionary architecture is synonymous with unreal architecture. Can't something be buildable and beautiful? The problem is people telling students that their ideas are crazy because they have not figured out yet how to make them buildable. Perhaps more people should encouraged these "dreamers" to prove that their ideas have merit in the real world rather than completely dismissing them as folly. 

Don't you think, if the main purpose of your job once you graduate is to draw buildings, you might want to understand how they are constructed? And what the drafting conventions are for drawing said buildings?

It was frustrating to hire graduates fresh from architecture school, because they think it's all about space and light and form, and I just need them to draft a freaking house or addition, but they have absolutely no clue how a building goes together or what a plan set should look like. I ended up spending a LOT of time teaching them the rudimentary basics, only to have them leave for greener pastures just as soon as they think they understand the process.

I had one interior design graduate (I know, I know, my options were limited and she was the daughter of a friend) who just could not grasp the idea that floor assemblies have thickness.... She didn't last long, fortunately. The worst were the ones who had received their MArch, a degree which apparently comes with an attitude. Yet I had to teach them how to hold and read a tape measure properly and the most basic of construction standards. 

The "teaching students how to think and solve problems" is fine if it actually works, and granted, the companies I worked for did not generally attract or retain top-notch talent (nor was the available pool of talent very large) but you would expect these kids to at least go home and research "how to frame a wall" or something but no, they just want to gripe that I got to do all the "fun" parts. (Yeah, one fun part, coming up with the scheme, and the rest is babysitting you losers.) and that "if only they knew what I wanted" (for you to draw what I sketched, using these previous projects as examples of how a building goes together and how I want it presented). Fortunately I'm on my own now and have a couple of drafters without architectural degrees but who actually know how to build something and how it should be presented. 

CLOCLO, don't give up now, just learn on your own. Working in the construction field for even a short time will give you a huge leg up on your peers and would be perceived as a benefit by many employers. Make it a point to learn building science, structural engineering, material science, lighting design, accoustics, how all the mechanical systems work and what their various rating numbers mean, and you will find steady work and possibly fulfillment. Oh, and you may still get the chance to try to convince clients to do something bold and unique, just like they taught you at school, but be ready for many clients to want something closer to the status quo.

Being visionary is dirt simple, any fool can do it and if you remove the slightest responsibility for realism, then what's the point if you're too far off to relate back to the real world where material physics, thickness, economic forces, etc all have far greater impact on a project than whimsical thoughts?

Did you investigate what type of work the school expected from their students before you enrolled?

Daniel Lear,

I think you may be living in a fantasy world.

"If you don't understand how it will be built or put together, then what business do you have designing it?"

Practice and Academia = our collective alcoholic, divorced parents. 

Sharky - Read my comment more closely. We are talking about students here. That is what they are suppose to be doing. Learning.

I also never said that we should be completely dismissing reality. I just said that it is foolish to pursue a career as a licensed architect if you have no interest in trying to create buildings that are interesting.

RickB-OR - I guess I have a slightly more optimistic outlook on the future of architectural design/education. Nobody mentioned sea urchin like buildings being an interesting design decision (there seems to be some kind of subliminal desire there), however it is worth noting that one of the most loved architectural designs of the past decade, The Seed Pavilion, looks quite like a sea urchin. Also a building with no real function but to inspire. Interesting indeed. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

 Also a building with no real function but to inspire

I had lots of clients looking for these.

^ you too geezer!? You can hardly swing a dead cat around here without hitting a client with loads of cash looking for a building that serves no function but to inspire. If only I were licensed (sigh) ...

Ok, lol… I’ll play.  Think historic buildings.  They are survivors.  How many still house the original function?  Are they the best functionally, structurally, acoustically, energy wise, etc.?  Nope… they survive because they have character; An emotional response.  

The modern building is the French Embassy in Washington, DC. The photo below it is the French Ambassadors residence in Washington. The Tudor residence was owned by three American industrialists before it was purchased by the French in 1936, so there is really nothing "French" about it yet it still has tons of character. So which would you like to go to a function in?

RickB-OR - That was a overly scientific response to a poetic concept. Its not about whether or not the building is optimal (in my mind this should be a given), it is about why we still find these buildings beautiful enough to preserve. It is the essence of architecture. Why do we love or hate the way a building looks or feels? Pondering this question is equally important to how a building performs. Engineers make buildings that perform. Architects make BEAUTIFUL buildings that perform. At least that is my interpretation of our profession.

You got it Daniel... You love this building or hate it.  That is how people experience them.  That is part of a architect's training and what we put out there.  There isn't much talk of 'emotion' in engineering or drafting or construction management.   It is not easily just picked up on the job either any more than taking a photoshop class is the equivalent of knowing how to use that skill to create something that effects people emotionally.  

Engineers and consultants assist us to realize our visions (which call upon all of our knowledge of the entire spectrum of construction and not just one focused discipline) utilizing their expertise in that particular field.  

Architects though are much broader in what we know and how we're trianed. Example; I can create a brick pattern, select the proper door closer,  find the route for a drain pipe snaking through the building, choose the structural & mechanical systems, and work with sun angles, comply with code, thousands of manufactures installation instructions,  .... etc.  Taking all this 'stuff' into account crossing multiple trades and organizing it in such a way that hundred of people can find what they need to build it..... And still deal with and understand the final end users who will occupy this structure so it's all tailored to their day in, day out experience for decades.  No other field crosses so many different disciplines and trades and has to see such a wide perception.  And don't get me started on contract law, business practices, proposals, graphic presentation, public speaking, etc.

Hence back to "school teaches us to organize our thoughts and think rapidly in very big picture complex environments".

because we have to take stupid electives that have no relevancy. electives always drop my gpa

Isn't the answer to simply make sure you know how stuff goes together and how to detail and produce construction drawings by the time you graduate?  Whether you learn it in a classroom or on your own is up to you and the school you chose.  

The students that have no interest in learning detailing and how stuff goes together, yet want to do design and make inspiring buildings have flawed logic and an unrealistic view of the world in general.  The more technical knowledge you have will almost surely allow you to create more interesting buildings than if you lacked that knowledge.  You have more pools to draw inspiration and design strategies from.  Design for the sake of design with no technical thought is baseless.

I was on the fence about going for my M.Arch for a few years but finally realized in the past year that if I make sure I know the technical side to ensure a job post-graduation and work my way up the likelihood I'll be doing design eventually is pretty good.