I disagree. I think IDP is very beneficial, ensuring that architectural interns don't end up doing bathroom details for 3 years, but instead get exposed to multiple aspects of design and construction. What I dislike about IDP and NCARB are all the fees for registration and maintenance.

shuellmi - there's a kernal of truth in your outline and the topic's certainly been discussed to death on the forum here. and, honestly, there's quite a few employers don't like the idea that they have so much responsibility for educating young architects. it's a deeply flawed system at best.

so, what are the actual alternatives? if the goal is to give the intern more control, then you have to devise a performance based IDP system that, yes, can require experience but which ultimately isn't based on the 'ass in class' model. meaning, there's a test. upon graduation, you can pass all of it (like now in some states) but once you pass it, you're licensed. no 3 year mandatory work experience. 

if the goal is to truly standardize the experiences (to the degree possible) and conform to a kind of prescriptive model, you have to go the route similar to that of a teaching hospital. which.... as a corollary, would mean there's a limited number of people who can get licensed each year, since there's a limited number of openings. you do 2-3 years at a 'teaching firm', get all the IDP done, pass a test at the end (however that's structured - it wouldn't have to be like the current exam at all, since the teaching firm, presumably, has built-in mastery of the concepts into the experiences gained. otherwise, you get booted out). the pay won't be great - it's about 1/3 what the average is for a private practice doctor while they're doing their internship. but, ideally, it prepares one to have a higher level of mastery at the end. it won't solve how to win clients, run a firm, etc. but it should provide a grounding in the mechanics (and that's not too different from medical internships - they learn little to nothing about managing a practice).

in either case, you're shifting the responsibility for learning away from a pure dependence on the private sector, which is problematic even in more flush times. it's going to take someone suing their state to be allowed to take the test, without the requisite experience, and be granted a license to change the status quo (which, honestly, shouldn't be that hard - almost every other professional license outside medicine has no firm time requirement attached to taking the test). 

I'd prefer to see less formal education and much stronger internship requirements including actual construction experience. There is waaaaay too much psuedophilosophical bullshit in architectural education.

Theorists make bad architects. 

Young people are threatening the establishment.

Architecture is at the crossroads. The practice will change dramatically in few years. Certain institutions like schools and their faculty, professional organizations, established corporate firms, currently employed senior people, firm owners, associates, people who owe student loans, financial institutions, political parties, current market systems, manufacturers of construction materials, people who have already families to feed. The list can go on, until it reaches and impacts everyone in society.

These types above are holding on to their survival like crazy and instinctively so. They need to highly control the entrance, not only architecture but everything else.

Young people will eventually change this profession and with it, architecture and built environment will change too. There is more of them everyday. It just needs few more years to reach to that mass gravity and numbers. Hopefully, it will be a socially based and truly collective profession with big brothers eliminated and replaced with co-operators, creative excitement other than creating objects, streamed production and installation. What happens to architecture is not any different than what happens-happening to communications, education, financial systems, production, consumption, delivery, resources, science, what is happening to technology in general.. Change.. You get the picture. 

I know few fellow architects, who can't afford to renew their registration. What does that tell you? If it goes like this little longer, which seems it will, then there will be breach of many things, collapses and from them will born different system of a new profession. It might still be called architecture. 

So IDP? it will have no meaning in its current format and model of producing architecture. 

I am older, registered and believe in young people who will change everything about this profession. I am on their side, because my own generation failed pretty badly and became really selfish, ruthless and greedy. Believe if you share some of the sentiments above, they don't like you. NCARB is the enforcer, the archipentagon. You have three choices:

Revolt now

Wait few years and in the mean time, organize your dissent and grass roots with like minded colleagues (start in school) 

Do nothing and pay your fees and say yessir to an establishment who knows it is dying but refusing to change and listen.

"IDP in Immoral"

LOL... And you people have Master's degrees?

With the amount of comma splices and inability to correctly render colloquialisms, it's probably better if they increase IDP requirements.

Technically, it should be Masters' degrees when talking in plural by my Chicago style manual gives me little clues about the proper way to state such things.

IDP in immoral

Toast to that and applet's post.  Cheers.

"Who can afford to work for $15 an hour? I sure can't".

Wow, clearly we come from very different social backgrounds. I'm not sure if that's a slap in the face to people like my next door neighbor, who raises a child on $800 (translated to US dollars) a month. That's about what you get for running for a convenience store around here.

Maybe if you didn't grab a $7 cup of coffee everyday, you'd be fine, but hey...

You mean people sometimes need to suffer to make a living? That's just insane!

"IDP in Immoral"

Damn, that's embarrassing.  If only Hitler had made a similar mistake in his manifesto....

At applet:

I find what your saying interesting, but I have my doubts.  There's a lot at stake, and it's naive to think that anything would upset the status quo.  I just graduated and I see a lot of things that are happening because of the economy.  Students are becoming restless.  They want to learn how to actually design and build things.  A lot of times the schools aren't interested in giving students those skills.  They want to focus on design research and conceptual design.  Those skills are important too, but architectural education just seems out of balance with an over emphasis on conceptual design.  More technical aspects of the process are still relevant and can bring a greater sense of depth to student design work.

Organizations like Freedom By Design are very active despite no financial support from their respective architecture programs and the recession making it near impossible to get donations from local businesses. If all architecture students were able to take a project from design, through construction documents, permit review, construction and client relations then they would be much better off in the real world. Our school raised thousands of dollars for lumber and spend countless hours working to make these projects a reality in a matter of months.  (All while completing the rest of our academic work and working part time jobs to pay the bills.)  At the end of it, the chair of our Architecture program has a nice little video to show prospective students.

Recent graduates are weighing their options.  The traditional architectural path is looking less palatable (if it's even an option.)  I know people thinking about starting their own CNC milling and laser cutting business. Others are moving into energy efficiency analysis firms that are still gaining customer base.  Most are just kind of floating on multiple part-time jobs in the hospitality industry.  I'm not sure where the future of architecture  is going.  I see a lot of talented people moving elsewhere though. 

IDP isn't the problem.  It's the complete lack of work, the low wages and the repeated layoffs that are turning people away.  I'm not sure if people will re-make architecture, or just move elsewhere and carry their architectural methods with them.