and just like no one cares what you made on your SAT, it's your knowledge of AP Calculus that impresses the client every day, right?

db, I understand where you are coming from - that IDP blows, just make the test harder to weed out the losers.
I agree IDP blows, you don't NEED to do it though. Wisconsin, for instance does not require it. Get licensed in WI, then after a while you can get licensed anywhere through reciprocity in a few years after that. I still think you need signatures from employers though. And if you think some employer will not sign the thing, you'd be supprised.
BUT, this was my point to begin with, I have 7 years of experience and only now do I feel comfortable with my knowledge level to become licensed. Not to take the test, but enough so that I would be comfortable and confident in hiring myself for professional services. I would not be confident hiring a 25 year old licensed architect to design my building. If there are any. That's just me though.

"the group responsible for teaching interns and students about making real buildings is not the AIA, nor the universities (although systems and construction should be taught, schools should primarily teach design skills, or how to think and solve problems), but the practicing architects" -- cynic

so I must ask why do we have such a thing as a "professional" degree? there is a good amount of accreditation that goes into such programs and they should not be dismissed from this discussion as cynic has suggested.

IF we believe that accredited schools of archtecture are involved in training future architects then shouldn't we actually allow and expect them to do so?

you suggest that "real" training happens only after graduation, but to put "real" training on the profession once students graduate seems inauthentic and wrong if schools are offering a "professional" degree.

why indeed should a "professional" degree be less than what is necessary to become a professional?

this has been a great dialogue........but my original question still has not been answered:

why would one NOT want to be registered, and why does a large segment of our educational force profess such notions?

I would like to hear what some of the Archinect staff believes.....Paul, Javier, Cameron, Israel......what are your opinions on this?

surely you cannot believe that you learn all you need to know to be an architect in school (no matter how accreditededed it is). school is just part of the process. you're focusing too closely on sematics. professional degree does not equal professional license, right? can we at least agree on that? nor should it.

again, you can't gain all the experience you need to competently perform the job of architecture in school--even if you went to a 30 year program (+2, of course). it hurts the profession if potential clients thought that any ol' licensed architect might never have set foot on a job site.

I think everyone would like to be registered.
I also think that eveyone would like the boundaries to that milestone be reduced.
Again: let us take the damn exam!
Pass/Fail, let us at least have the option without the hoops that so many firms and the profession put up there.

db

you caught me while i was typing...

how many people do you know who, upon graduation, could design and construct a real building? There are architects who have been working for years who still have questions and make mistakes when making buildings. why is this, do you ask?.....it's because architecture cannot be fully learned in 5 years, and must be learned by doing, not just by reading.
the term professional degree does not mean that you graduate and then *poof* you're a professional. it is called a professional degree because it is the degree that is required to become a licenesed professional.......much like a JD, MD, DDS, etc.

i understand your complaints about the system, no it is not quite there yet, and yes, i agree that the system needs to evolve to a point where it produces competent architects that can also design. but as i said above, my original question has not been answered: why NOT be registered. so far, you have only given comments that criticize the system which are not reasons to reject registreation, only reasons to dislike the process.

please, when do business graduate be IBM top man in one day out school door. bad think. business structure take care that.

may i ask once more, db, then i'll let it go: how does letting you take the exam without gaining any actual experience help the profession? it can only hurt it, as you would be reprahsentin' that you can perform all the duties required to getting a building built, when you've might have never seen a set of structural drawings or carried out a punch list. we'd have a bunch of (relative) idiots running around with professional licenses.

we're ruining your thread aren't we, cyn? sorry about that.

st. --

I think the issue for me is that education change to reflect practice (and I can't believe I'm saying this!)

But a professional dsegree shuld mean that you've been trained to enter the profession. If there is an internship period so be it, but the distribution of ADP is unreasonable for someone whose completed a Masters degree.

Why not let people take the exam at will and increase the dificulty to account for the discrepency.

as you say, there is no replacement for experience, and the ARE should reflect that. Either you know the exprienced-based things asked or you go back to the firm to get it.

But knowing things ahead of the IDP curve shouldn't be a detriment - it should be celebrated. And folks who choose to move ahead that way should be applauded not admonished.

As with the WTC, we have reached a lowest common demoniator in terms of education and practice.

we should do better (and allow for better)

but, hey, are we not good enough for you that you have to call out the archinect staff to respond? c'mon...i mean, db, pollen, and i have been pouring out our hearts for you and this is how we're treated???

like javier arbona is such a big shot any way (the javlog?! please.)

and petrunia? (what's that guy do all day)

and sinclair? (yeah, i built my dog a new house when a tree fell on his old one--THAT'S humanity). and how do you know i'm not one of these guys in disguise. i might be sinclair--he's not the only one that can fake an accent.

OK --- SO ---

registration: why and why not?

I think basically it comes down to time and effort.

Students who have completed a professional degree resent the process of registration because the ARE breeds mediocrity and looks for the "common" answer to any design problem.

I know too many talented and award-winning designers who have failed the design section of the ARE to give it any credit.

Design depends on clients, context, and constraints -- how can an exam in isolation gauge such a thing?

Competence cannot be measured by an exam. NCARB and the AIA should invest and trust more in the schools to flush this out. And the schools should respond by actually doing so.

Teach us what you believe and what is necessary, have confidence and test us that we've learned it, and let us go our way.

Then transfer responsiblility to the profession. It's not good enough that there are distribution requirements; Interns should have a set one year program that firms must comply with and which would alieviate the cad-graphics-monkey syndrom.

Neither NCARB or the AIA has stood up for young interns in this regard and untill they do interns and the profession will continue to suffer.

MORE is better,
and BETTER is also the key.

(power in numbers)

st. -- I dont think I've called "out the archinect staff to respond" -- and I'm not even sure what that means?!?! I've never done so nore do I have any association with the "archinect staff" other than the few years I've been posting here. Go spit.

whoa. sorry. i should've put a "to: cynic" before that post (and, in it, i was taking up for you, too).

besides, i was so obviously messing around.

well, you've both been towing the same line, so I took it as it was even though you did (admittedly) reference me in defence.

we all get caught up in things now and again.

now, now,.....calm down the both of you's

st--you know that's now how i meant it (and i know that you were you messing around)......i am just curious what other people think; the reason i called on the Archinect staff is because if a person is that passionate about architecture and design to run a website for it and constantly be in tune to current events in this field, then how does that person feel about such a controversial issue such as this. as i said all the comments up to now have been great for the discussion.....keep it up, and tell your friends!

in the first office i worked at in japan i soon discovered that half of the office, including my own boss, had never been to architecture school and got their licence by logging hours in the office and then taking the exam. This is very common here. Because architects here are all tecnically structural engineers the exam is a bit different from north america in that you have to solve simultaneous equations and do some basic statics in addition to the questions on law and contracts, safety on building sites and so on. THAT is the first exam, the second is a design exam that is not intended to showcase design skill but rather whether you know enough to put staircases for emergency egress in the correct place or not, et cetera. It isn't an easy exam but has absolutely zero to do with design. It does ensure a minimal level of competence though.

SO db would theoretically find this system terrifying because design is taught AT NO POINT IN THE ROAD TO LICENSURE. And it does show. I was hired first as a designer because I was actually taught it, and that was fun enough. But it became clear very fast that I needed to learn all of that other stuff that you need to make a working building. So I asked for and was given more responsibility with CDs and structural design (architects often do their own structures here). Also fun. But after awhile the lack of design education in the office made it almost impossible to talk about design in aything but abstract terms with folks in the office and that is annoying when you have to work in a team. rem koolhaas? who's he? educatorium? corbusier? oh yeh i heard of him, likes white right? anyone wacky like zaha hadid is so far off the radar it is useless to mention. The canon was a limited bit of Maki, Ando, and maybe Ito or Sejima...

This environment was great for two things;

to see how much we actually do learn at school and how it makes design better;

to see how lacking that education doesn't really harm the act of making buildings that much. What we learn in the office is enormously important and what we learn at school gives it direction. they are both necessary to making a good architect.

the licence is just a way to prove that there is a minimum level of ability, no more, and that is where the problem lays, because it tends to encourage aiming for those standards and no higher. I don't believe there is a way around that except to be exceptional individually. It also explains why HOK sucks and OMA doesn't. The goals are different. So, btw, is the licencing sytem, which is not recognised in the US.

so, i asks meself, if koolhaas and hadid et al are considered dangerous and incompetent in the US system why are they obviously such good architects? I think it must be a cultural thing. somewhere in all that litigation and history america has learned that it is better to aim for the middle...seems that is where the most money and least risk are. sad.

jump, my english better, i say dot same.
now, what to do differnet to better make?- join middle people- clean out horse droppings?