guff--duh about the camb/oxf thing. I guess to dumb yankees like me it's all the same on that island. I have read those profiles, though, with the publishing and AIDS medicine helicopter brigades, etc. Most of those kids get a whole hell of a lot of help with that. A buddy of mine (outstanding student) at Northwestern was approached his freshman year by a faculty member and asked if he would like to try for a Rhodes--they explained that they would guide him through the process of building an insane CV. Ever since then, I've been skeptical of the program. Thanks for the info about cinci grads. Perhaps nmore important than their opinion of their education, though, is did they seem intelligent, qualified and well-educated?
it seems like everyone here is going to the top schools. i wouldnt necessarily think it's easy to get in arch schools. is it just that the pool of students applying to arch schools is that much narrow?..
i think it's more likely that the students who post on this site are the students who are more involved with the whole architecture thing and thus the students who go to the best schools. there are probably hundreds and hundreds of architecture students who haven't heard of architect.
Five: re the cam/oxfd thing: I was going for the satirical pretentious tone-but yeah - that's hard to deliver in text format :) my whole view of schools, school reputations, etc has changed dramatically over the past few years and laugh at lot of posturing done in institutional comparisons. The benefit of not being a rhodies/marshall is that I was able to fully integrate with the non-american set at school.
Cinny grads: Well, the two I knew got engaged while on a mountain near Machu Picchu. The groom-to-be custom designed the engagement ring based upon both of their mother's/grandmother's rings. Not relevant to architecture but an indication that they were "solid, intelligent, well-educated people". Each subsequent year, the two have taken an 'adventure' vacation in the third world. Friendly and humble (from small Ohio towns) but incredibly savvy in business, the couple has gone on to lead "successful" (and lucrative) careers in architecture and development.
barbaric: yale?! wtf?! i thought you were nyc bound?
bloviate: after the experiences people have had with the administration of ucla, i've been pretty disappointed. add to that the huge blood-letting i hear their having with their faculty (which i only found out about earlier this week), and i'd be pretty worried about heading to ucla. it sounds like half of their faculty (subjectively, the better half) are all leaving/taking "sabbaticals"...
anybody heading to ucla know more about that situation? aren't you guys worried?
I finally decided on the GSD
but then I've been 2nd-guessing and leaning toward UCLA
(although the admissions admin / "bloodletting" is freaking me out)
and sometimes I think about just not going right now and reapplying someday... except I suspect I may never find the "perfect" school for me.
program: M.Arch 1
current locale: San Fran
undergrad: Penn, BA Arch / BAS Applied Science
i just read your other thread. sounds like a good fit. and I'll bet the finances are pretty easy to manage. too bad new jersey is a shit hole. good luck!
thanks..but its in hoboken, right across the hudson... and hoboken is like OTR 25 years in the future. We will most likely be living in Manhatten. My wife was already garaunteed a job in NYC
Thom Mayne said he's not going anywhere for a long time, UCLA is where he wants to be. Weinstein sidestepped the question of who might be leaving. All other faculty seemed to be 100% dedicated to UCLA, LA, and not anywhere else outside of Lynn.
hey five> have you ever been to NJ? It gets a bad rep but many places in NJ are actually quite beautiful. Don't know Hoboken, myself, but... anyway.
So... this is what I want to know. Is anyone, other than mjfairchild, planning to enroll at OSU/Knowlton this year? I would love to talk to some incoming 3+ers. I'm leaning that way over UC. Still haven't committed!
Also kind of surprised that OSU doesn't come up more often in these discussions. They got a great Scogin Elam building, have lots of well-known peeps like Jeff Kipnis, Jose Oubrerie, etc, and their lecture series is pretty nice, bringing in people like Mark Goulthourpe, Wolf Prix, Mark Burry, James Kunstler, etc. They've also had lots of big name archs as visiting/profs, like Mayne, Hadid, Eisenman, Prix, etc.
Seems like an ivy-league education without the pomp, circumstance, and debt. Any comments??
no offense, but I don't think there is much to follow your "etc.'s"
as far as i'm concerned, kipnis is kind of a lone wolf at that school... and how often is he even there?
quite a few architecture schools have recent buildings by famous architects... off the top of my head, minnesota, u. cincinnati, florida international (or whatever one tschumi did)
they do have a nice lecture series and seminars, i'll give you that. ivy league minus the faculty, reputation, strong student body, and yes, debt.
Well, maybe not so much with the faculty, although Michael Cadwell and Douglas Graf are considered some of the better permanent faculty at the school. Don't know how well known they are outside of the school, but I sat it on a Graf seminar and it was pretty interesting. About 80% of the faculty was educated at Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Penn, etc -- for whatever that's worth.
As far as the "etc" for visiting professors I can add Tschumi, Holl, Herzog, Van Berkel and Bos, Diller and Scofidio, and Scogin and Elam. Not too shabby.
The cool thing about the lecture series is that the students are treated to seminars with the lecturer as well. Maybe that's to be expected, but I thought that was a nice surprise.
Anyway, I think I'm just trying to convince myself here. I really like the school. And with what they've offered me I can almost get out of there with very little debt. I don't know what I'm waiting for. I think I'm just balking at giving up the coop at UC (and the company of all the DAAP archinecters!)
tiny> to be honest, I wasn't that impressed with UC on my second visit. I know they're ranked #6 in Design Intelligence and all, but I really don't think they've got their $#&% together.
The older students complained about being left out in the cold with the switch over to the M.Arch system, and the younger students (2nd year 4+ers) were complaining that professors weren't showing up for classes, showed up late for crits, etc.
The day I attended classes I experienced both -- a class I was planning to attend was either moved to an obscure location or cancelled completely, as it was nowhere to be found and the graduate office couldn't explain it. I also witnessed a group of students sitting on the floor for about 45 minutes, waiting for their profs to show up for the crit.
I witnessed a 6th-year crit with David Niland, who was in rough rough shape. He just had a second stroke and came to the crit with a walker. I really liked what he had to say, but one has to wonder if he's going to be around for 4 years.
Then there's the issue of space. They are already packed in pretty tight, and the graduate office basically admitted that they don't have any plans yet on how to accomodate an incoming class that is about double what it was last year. I should also mention that on Saturday it was raining INSIDE the building... pretty early for a building to be opening up to the elements, even if it is an Eisenman.
Furthermore, they have been saying for months that they are hiring 5-7 new professors, but where are they? They haven't hired anyone yet and could only assure me that they're looking at "really good people."
I was told by the graduate coordinator, however, that in this day and age, the professors have found that they have to "ratchet up the entertainment factor" in order to keep students interest. I witnessed this in a building construction class with a professor doing stage play and making corny jokes between slides. The kids were eating it up. Maybe I was being too serious, but frankly I don't think this reflects well on the student body if they need to be entertained with Simpsons references.
Several students I spoke with dismissed OSU out of hand, saying "well, we're ranked 6th." I don't particularly like that kind of attitude, and I think overall the student body was younger and less experienced.
I just think that UC is under pressure from the University to expand their program and they're not quite closing the gaps. I'm sure that there is an excellent education to be had there. I do not mean to slight any of you DAAPers... I wish that I could combine my favorite parts of UC and OSU. I love the coop and despite what I said previously, I met some really cool people. I had a blast with Five and his girlfriend on Friday night. The classes I did attend were interesting.
Alas, I've got to go with what fits me best, and right now it's looking like OSU. They're practically offering me a free education, and I was really impressed with the administration, faculty, and (most of the) students. Anyway, I'll post my final decision in a few days.
anyway, he's right about the administrative issues--they have no clue what they're doing over there--what they should have done was hired someone from a successful grad program to come in and shape their shit up--they have virtually no information resources (no website, no bulletin, no pamphlet, no literature at all, no open house and very few people who even know much about the grad program), and are terribly disorganized. I'm a little concerned that they're in over their head. They're really counting on this 4+ program to be the star of the school, and to justify the popularity they've gotten all of a sudden with this DI thing, but without any faculty with solid experience in dealing with this kind of student body or this kind of program, its going to be a gamble for students enrolling now. I've got my money (literally, I guess) on a bright future, but that doesn't keep me from being very nervous about the whole thing. There's always transfer, in case of emergency.
Well, I just accepted the offer at UC today, and I'm not nervous about it. I'm looking forward to it. We get to help shape the program and I think it will be a successful experience-it's all what you make of it. It's a school that is trying to prove itself, so they are going to make an effort and not sit on their laurels. And UC is not the only school with administration probelsm-almost every school I applied to had issues. I think its a common problem.
Sorry to see you go Marc-but best of luck to you!!
I am sure that you guys will have a great experience. I think the coop alone will probably make up for a few missed classes. Everyone I spoke to was simply ecstatic about their coop experiences. I heard a lot of stories about people getting to do real work on real projects.
That's really the only thing I will regret. But hopefully I will be able to carve out a nice internship here and there in my "summers off."
Seriously, we should stay in touch. As I mentioned to five, we should all do archinect blogs if they let us. It can't help but raise the awareness of our respective schools, and it'll be a good way to figure out if we made the right choices. :-)
Marc
P.S. Five> You've got buyer's remorse already! Don't sweat it. I bet you guys will help them see the error of their ways and will strengthen the program...
Grad School Final Decision...Where are you heading to?
guff--duh about the camb/oxf thing. I guess to dumb yankees like me it's all the same on that island. I have read those profiles, though, with the publishing and AIDS medicine helicopter brigades, etc. Most of those kids get a whole hell of a lot of help with that. A buddy of mine (outstanding student) at Northwestern was approached his freshman year by a faculty member and asked if he would like to try for a Rhodes--they explained that they would guide him through the process of building an insane CV. Ever since then, I've been skeptical of the program. Thanks for the info about cinci grads. Perhaps nmore important than their opinion of their education, though, is did they seem intelligent, qualified and well-educated?
school: univ cincy (daap)
program: march 2
current: cincinnati
under: cincy 4
having serious doubts.........
Mostly MArch I's on this site. Anyone going to Yale MArch II?
school: U of H
program: MArch 1
current:Abilene,TX...where?...West of Dallas
Undergrad: BBA Business Management & Architectural Design/Graphics
School: Rice
Program: MArch 2
Current Locale: Phoenix, AZ
Undergrad: Arizona State University
it seems like everyone here is going to the top schools. i wouldnt necessarily think it's easy to get in arch schools. is it just that the pool of students applying to arch schools is that much narrow?..
i think it's more likely that the students who post on this site are the students who are more involved with the whole architecture thing and thus the students who go to the best schools. there are probably hundreds and hundreds of architecture students who haven't heard of architect.
frank lloyd--
what doubts are you having about continuing at cinci?
five...
lack of organization on the administrations side.... i'm hoping it gets better once all the new heads get more settled in....
but a 6 month coop is looking mighty fine...!!
hear, hear! lack of organization on the administration's side! i agree. guerrettaz isn't doing such a great job, i hear.
All y'all need to give up already with the east coast faction-
Decided on UCLA.
West Coast the Best Coast!!!
5ive....
jerry did a much better job... *cough* .... talk about a paperless office....
in for the long haul now....
hi mpsyp - no news yet about fellowships. which track are you?
Five: re the cam/oxfd thing: I was going for the satirical pretentious tone-but yeah - that's hard to deliver in text format :) my whole view of schools, school reputations, etc has changed dramatically over the past few years and laugh at lot of posturing done in institutional comparisons. The benefit of not being a rhodies/marshall is that I was able to fully integrate with the non-american set at school.
Cinny grads: Well, the two I knew got engaged while on a mountain near Machu Picchu. The groom-to-be custom designed the engagement ring based upon both of their mother's/grandmother's rings. Not relevant to architecture but an indication that they were "solid, intelligent, well-educated people". Each subsequent year, the two have taken an 'adventure' vacation in the third world. Friendly and humble (from small Ohio towns) but incredibly savvy in business, the couple has gone on to lead "successful" (and lucrative) careers in architecture and development.
School: Yale
program: M.Arch II
current locale: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
undergrad: Cornell
barbaric: yale?! wtf?! i thought you were nyc bound?
bloviate: after the experiences people have had with the administration of ucla, i've been pretty disappointed. add to that the huge blood-letting i hear their having with their faculty (which i only found out about earlier this week), and i'd be pretty worried about heading to ucla. it sounds like half of their faculty (subjectively, the better half) are all leaving/taking "sabbaticals"...
anybody heading to ucla know more about that situation? aren't you guys worried?
someone from rice is heading back to UCLA. I forgot her name.
Well it seems that I am the first for this school on this thread.
School: Stevens Institure of Technology
Program: Product Architecture Lab
currentl locale: cincinnati
undergrad: U. of Cincinnati
excited and nervous...turned down some pretty fantastic offers for this.
barbaric:
You heard from Yale?
When did they get in touch with you?
Aww, no columbia?!?
I finally decided on the GSD
but then I've been 2nd-guessing and leaning toward UCLA
(although the admissions admin / "bloodletting" is freaking me out)
and sometimes I think about just not going right now and reapplying someday... except I suspect I may never find the "perfect" school for me.
program: M.Arch 1
current locale: San Fran
undergrad: Penn, BA Arch / BAS Applied Science
School: Toronto
Program: MArch1
Ugrad: BEng, UBC
"Harvard of the north" they tell me. I'll take that with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, I'm excited.
I gave up SCI_Arc. . . they offered me some significant cash, but Toronto's still way cheaper for me. . . a sad day. I'll miss you SCI_Arc!
On that note, I think I'll stay away from Archinect for a while. My girlfriend sez I'm obsessed. I'll miss you Archinect!
Whoa, monkeyboy. That's a strange choice. An M.Eng? I thought you were Ivy-bound.
i thought so too. maybe after i get the M.Eng degree.
i just read your other thread. sounds like a good fit. and I'll bet the finances are pretty easy to manage. too bad new jersey is a shit hole. good luck!
thanks..but its in hoboken, right across the hudson... and hoboken is like OTR 25 years in the future. We will most likely be living in Manhatten. My wife was already garaunteed a job in NYC
School: CCA
Current Locale: Sierra Nevada mountains
Undergrad: Miami, OH
to try and answer the UCLA concerns:
Thom Mayne said he's not going anywhere for a long time, UCLA is where he wants to be. Weinstein sidestepped the question of who might be leaving. All other faculty seemed to be 100% dedicated to UCLA, LA, and not anywhere else outside of Lynn.
This is info based on open house discussions.
hey five> have you ever been to NJ? It gets a bad rep but many places in NJ are actually quite beautiful. Don't know Hoboken, myself, but... anyway.
So... this is what I want to know. Is anyone, other than mjfairchild, planning to enroll at OSU/Knowlton this year? I would love to talk to some incoming 3+ers. I'm leaning that way over UC. Still haven't committed!
Marc
Also kind of surprised that OSU doesn't come up more often in these discussions. They got a great Scogin Elam building, have lots of well-known peeps like Jeff Kipnis, Jose Oubrerie, etc, and their lecture series is pretty nice, bringing in people like Mark Goulthourpe, Wolf Prix, Mark Burry, James Kunstler, etc. They've also had lots of big name archs as visiting/profs, like Mayne, Hadid, Eisenman, Prix, etc.
Seems like an ivy-league education without the pomp, circumstance, and debt. Any comments??
Marc
mpsyp>
no offense, but I don't think there is much to follow your "etc.'s"
as far as i'm concerned, kipnis is kind of a lone wolf at that school... and how often is he even there?
quite a few architecture schools have recent buildings by famous architects... off the top of my head, minnesota, u. cincinnati, florida international (or whatever one tschumi did)
they do have a nice lecture series and seminars, i'll give you that. ivy league minus the faculty, reputation, strong student body, and yes, debt.
Well, maybe not so much with the faculty, although Michael Cadwell and Douglas Graf are considered some of the better permanent faculty at the school. Don't know how well known they are outside of the school, but I sat it on a Graf seminar and it was pretty interesting. About 80% of the faculty was educated at Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Penn, etc -- for whatever that's worth.
As far as the "etc" for visiting professors I can add Tschumi, Holl, Herzog, Van Berkel and Bos, Diller and Scofidio, and Scogin and Elam. Not too shabby.
The cool thing about the lecture series is that the students are treated to seminars with the lecturer as well. Maybe that's to be expected, but I thought that was a nice surprise.
Anyway, I think I'm just trying to convince myself here. I really like the school. And with what they've offered me I can almost get out of there with very little debt. I don't know what I'm waiting for. I think I'm just balking at giving up the coop at UC (and the company of all the DAAP archinecters!)
:-)
Marc
Come join us at DAAP! You won't be disappointed!
tiny> to be honest, I wasn't that impressed with UC on my second visit. I know they're ranked #6 in Design Intelligence and all, but I really don't think they've got their $#&% together.
The older students complained about being left out in the cold with the switch over to the M.Arch system, and the younger students (2nd year 4+ers) were complaining that professors weren't showing up for classes, showed up late for crits, etc.
The day I attended classes I experienced both -- a class I was planning to attend was either moved to an obscure location or cancelled completely, as it was nowhere to be found and the graduate office couldn't explain it. I also witnessed a group of students sitting on the floor for about 45 minutes, waiting for their profs to show up for the crit.
I witnessed a 6th-year crit with David Niland, who was in rough rough shape. He just had a second stroke and came to the crit with a walker. I really liked what he had to say, but one has to wonder if he's going to be around for 4 years.
Then there's the issue of space. They are already packed in pretty tight, and the graduate office basically admitted that they don't have any plans yet on how to accomodate an incoming class that is about double what it was last year. I should also mention that on Saturday it was raining INSIDE the building... pretty early for a building to be opening up to the elements, even if it is an Eisenman.
Furthermore, they have been saying for months that they are hiring 5-7 new professors, but where are they? They haven't hired anyone yet and could only assure me that they're looking at "really good people."
I was told by the graduate coordinator, however, that in this day and age, the professors have found that they have to "ratchet up the entertainment factor" in order to keep students interest. I witnessed this in a building construction class with a professor doing stage play and making corny jokes between slides. The kids were eating it up. Maybe I was being too serious, but frankly I don't think this reflects well on the student body if they need to be entertained with Simpsons references.
Several students I spoke with dismissed OSU out of hand, saying "well, we're ranked 6th." I don't particularly like that kind of attitude, and I think overall the student body was younger and less experienced.
I just think that UC is under pressure from the University to expand their program and they're not quite closing the gaps. I'm sure that there is an excellent education to be had there. I do not mean to slight any of you DAAPers... I wish that I could combine my favorite parts of UC and OSU. I love the coop and despite what I said previously, I met some really cool people. I had a blast with Five and his girlfriend on Friday night. The classes I did attend were interesting.
Alas, I've got to go with what fits me best, and right now it's looking like OSU. They're practically offering me a free education, and I was really impressed with the administration, faculty, and (most of the) students. Anyway, I'll post my final decision in a few days.
Marc
not that any of you ivy-leaguers care about any of this midwestern hoopla... ;)
gosh, marc--now I don't want to go either. ;)
anyway, he's right about the administrative issues--they have no clue what they're doing over there--what they should have done was hired someone from a successful grad program to come in and shape their shit up--they have virtually no information resources (no website, no bulletin, no pamphlet, no literature at all, no open house and very few people who even know much about the grad program), and are terribly disorganized. I'm a little concerned that they're in over their head. They're really counting on this 4+ program to be the star of the school, and to justify the popularity they've gotten all of a sudden with this DI thing, but without any faculty with solid experience in dealing with this kind of student body or this kind of program, its going to be a gamble for students enrolling now. I've got my money (literally, I guess) on a bright future, but that doesn't keep me from being very nervous about the whole thing. There's always transfer, in case of emergency.
Well, I just accepted the offer at UC today, and I'm not nervous about it. I'm looking forward to it. We get to help shape the program and I think it will be a successful experience-it's all what you make of it. It's a school that is trying to prove itself, so they are going to make an effort and not sit on their laurels. And UC is not the only school with administration probelsm-almost every school I applied to had issues. I think its a common problem.
Sorry to see you go Marc-but best of luck to you!!
I am sure that you guys will have a great experience. I think the coop alone will probably make up for a few missed classes. Everyone I spoke to was simply ecstatic about their coop experiences. I heard a lot of stories about people getting to do real work on real projects.
That's really the only thing I will regret. But hopefully I will be able to carve out a nice internship here and there in my "summers off."
Seriously, we should stay in touch. As I mentioned to five, we should all do archinect blogs if they let us. It can't help but raise the awareness of our respective schools, and it'll be a good way to figure out if we made the right choices. :-)
Marc
P.S. Five> You've got buyer's remorse already! Don't sweat it. I bet you guys will help them see the error of their ways and will strengthen the program...
School: Arizona State University
Program: MArch 2
Undergrad: BS Arch, UTA
Current: Dallas
Anyone else heading that way?
program: University of Michigan
undergrad: Dartmouth College
Anyone have ANYthing to say about university of michigan?
What do you want to know?
School: Columbia University
Program: MS AUD
Undergrad: BS Arch University of the Philippines
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