Is this true in all architecture schools and all studio classes? Are we still being graded under the same fraternal principles of the first architecture school(s)??
In the studio classes I have been in, there is never any indication as to what your grade is, until, weeks after the class has ended and you see your grade on your transcript.
So we get some verbal feedback. Some of it is positive, some negative, and generally you seem to be moving along. Then you get your grade at the end.
In one studio, I got positive feedback and she seemed to really like my stuff and she gave me a high grade.
In a second studio, I got positive feedback and he seemed to really like my stuff and he gave me a very low grade.
Naturally, when I try to get additional feedback as to what led them to my grade (I do not care if my grade is high or low at this point, I'd really just love to see how it connects to what I actually did)....they avoid me like the plague (no returned phones calls, etc.)
so is there ever a studio or a school where your grade is not passed down from heaven with the insturctions "do not ask questions, have blind faith" ??????
i just want to know how it related to my work!
it never does
i know people who were told they were doing poorly and they got a high grade and vice versa
In my last studio ever I did really well, wowed my jury (who told me to polish the project off and submit it for unbuilt competition), and was given a B+. When I talked to the team teachers about it, they pulled me aside and said, we decided not to give any A's this semester. Otherwise, you would have received the only one. We didn't feel your studio was up to snuff.
And that was that. Apparently everyone complained about them and they weren't invited back to teach. Didn't matter for me, I had graduated.
But, now I have a kick-ass project in my portfolio, I am still in love with it years later, I learned a ton about my own design ethic while doing it, and nobody ever asks about grades. So... yeah it still bugs me anyway.
it is so insane.....i do not care what grade they give me except when it comes to ----- oh yes, that minimum grade point you must have to graduate, and oh yes, those scholarships that need you to keep a certain grade point, and oh yes.....the reason why you work your ass off
by the way, one semester, my whole class got an A.....and some people worked their asses off, others did not in any way work any ass
haha, and still others worked their ass the whole way through school, huh... ;) tired? ;)
Yeah. I forgot to mention that the other teachers in the year also complained, feeling that we got shafted as a studio by the stern decision. Were they trying to teach a lesson, or something? Half of us were second-semester 5th years. What was the point?! The stupid thing is that the studio was honestly decent. It was the teachers' first teaching attempt. And last.
I could understand that, like, freshman year, in order to prove a point and help weed some kids out. But, 4th and 5th years?!
Most classes I've been in there were maybe 1-3 A's. Makes sense to me that if you don't think anyone deserves an A, you don't give one. There's the bigger picture, not just a handful of students.
speaking as someone who has taught classes as a grad student, i always tried to let my students know where they stood throughout the semester. from beginning to end. of course final projects could knock someone up or down, but there really were never any surprises in the end. however there were quite a few people who came up to me and complained that if i don't give them an A they could lose some scholarship. at which point i would tell them they needed to really bust ass the rest of the semester just to maybe make it.
i also have a couple of friends who teach, as professors, and through their experiences, i can understand why they avoid people when speaking about grades. right now, one of them is receiving a couple of e-mails a day from one of his students complaining about their grade and asking if there is any way they can do something to raise it.
he let him know early on he was slacking, but there was never any change in attitude until he got his grade.
overall, i've only had 1 professor from undergrad to grad that didn't let me know where i stood with my projects, and he is the most eccentric person i have ever met. so in answer to the post, i'd have to say no, not all architecture schools/professors leave you in the dark till the end. but at the same time, i have to say this... you should know where you stand in your own eyes before you worry about anyone elses opininon.
at UT SOA there were codified, if subjective, criteria as to what constituted what letter grade. i am reaching a bit back in time for this and paraphrasing as well, but:
F = did not attempt to satisfy minimum requirements of project
D = attempted but failed to satisfy minimum requirements of project
C = satisfied minimum requirements of project but with poor or below-average application of skills
B = satisfied requirements of project with average or above-average application of skills
A = transcended requirements of project by solving all issues in an aesthetically and functionally excellent manner
there were a lot of As and Bs handed out, as one might imagine these criteria to be fairly subjective -- but at least there was an intention of fairness. i never heard of studios being graded on a curve or being restricted from A grades
any past/present longhorns correct me if i'm wrong about those criteria--they were handed out in almost every studio syllabus, i should know them by heart!
I guess they have to grade, but the one thing that I find almost insulting is the use of the A+. So I'm at 'one of the best' grad schools in the country yet they still give us little gold stars. The problem is, there are people whose work isn't that great, but they get an A+ because they kissed the critic's ass, then they become even more annoyingly over confident yet continue to do shitty work.
Here's a story on why I wish they just gave pass fail. This one guy at my school apparently was rejected. However, his dad works in a different department, talked to the provost and got him in. Then his first semester critic gave half of the studio an A+. (In contrast, my critic didn't give out any A+'s but my work from that semester is in brochures and was shown at open houses) So this guy's ego gets bumped up even more (he's an obnoxious ex-frat guy already). He always comes by your desk "So do YOU have a BUILDING yet? My building is BEAUTIFUL." Mind you his work sucks...not lying, it sucks. It's worse than mine. THen he won the history award. He brags that he won and didn't even go to class. But, he forgets that the first semester history teacher is one of his dad's patients. No one stands out in first semester history. It is a lecture with no paper or discussion. You just sit there and try to stay awake in the dark, warm room. This semester he got TRASHED on his review and everyone was silently cheering. He talks about how great his renderings are, they are some of the worst I've seen. God I hate that guy. I hope he's not in my studio next semester. People avoided selecting the studio he chose because he's so annoying.
Sorry about the rant. I just really hate that guy.
Well, what bothers me is not the A+ but the lack of an A+ all together. At my school you can get an A, A-, B+,B,B-,C+,C,C-, etc.
I'm not saying I would have gotten any A+ but I feel that I should have at least been given the opportunity. Kinda Bullsh%t if you ask me
At my school studios were also intentionally set up with a mix of "talent-level" of students, and studio teachers graded exactly on the curve described above, usually coming up with about 2 A's (usually A-'s, mind) per studio. (On that note, btw, I'd be surprised to find out that any student in my school ever received an A+ in a design studio, ever. They are NOT given out. On the other hand, a preponderant amount of B+'s were given. (Oh sorry! You're soooooo close but just not good enough! Better luck next time!) This usually translated into an A project that simply wasn't totally finished in time.)
Anyway, yes, if no one in a studio did A-level work, no A's should be given. However, keeping in mind that studios are intentionally made to include a few top-level students in each, and that the other *teachers* teaching in that year bothered to complain to the department about the situation, and that the department actually responded by not inviting those studio professors back despite the perpetually difficult task of finding good upper level studio profossers, you can bet that in this case the decision wasn't warranted.
Guilty as charged. I've taught on and off (currently off) for the past four years, and the issue of grading is one of the hardest things to grapple with in teaching a design studio.
I am horrified to see that there are studios graded on a curve. It is my firm belief that the students are graded against themselves and not each other.
To whit, how do you grade a student who:
- Started out very mediocre, but pushed themselves, and although the projects at the end of the term weren't among the best in the class, really started to understand some things and showed great improvement throughout the term?
- Did exactly was asked of him and nothing more. Stayed in the comfort zone and dipped into the (very capable) bag of tricks. Never talked to anyone else in the class.
- Tried working with a material/language/concept that they weren't familiar with and due to the difficulties of working in a new media, didn't quite get everything done?
- At a desk crit, took every criticism and suggestion that was made and changed the project following the exact letter of the comments. Nothing else changed.
- Got a decent idea 30 seconds after the brief was handed out, made the thing, met all presentation requirements and then went home.
-Pulls multiple all-nighters, works his ass off, does twice as many drawings, models, and animations than I ask for, but the project is still not very good.
- Is obsessed with a certain historical style/ architect and insists on doing every project as an interpretation of said style/architect. The projects have great promise is it weren't for those (insert fluted columns/flying buttresses/prairie roofs/blobs/cargo containers)
The list goes on and on.
So what happens? I give the mediocre-but-greatly-improved student, say, a B+. He complains because last semester he did a lot less work and got an A. The talented slacker gets a B+ and I get an email telling me his project was so much better than the mediocre student's, so why is their grade the same? The student who followed my suggetions complains about his grade because he did exactly what I told him to do.
I used to give out a list of grading criteria and expectations for the projects. Unfortunately, these became a checklist, and the students would go through the list and when they got to the end, the project would be finished and they would ask for their A. I have since given more vague requirements that put a lot more of the responsibility for the project with the student. This can frustrate the students, many of which come from a high school/elementary education emphasizing endless apptitude tests, where they are always being told exactly what to do, and the odd answers are in the back of the book.
When writing up the grading criteria for the syllabus, I try to account for all of these possibilities, but there is always some factor which can override almost everthing. In the end, it's all so subjective and yet, it has to be assigned a letter. This is why I've gone to either giving exit interviews or written evaluations in addition to the assigned grade, so the student at least has some idea as to what I believe their strengths and weaknesses are. It helps, but there still is a lot of grousing when grades are given.
Adso, I really appreciated your post. Such great insight!!!! I really appreciate you doing the exit interviews or writen evaluations. Those sound like a breathe of fresh air. The main problem is no communication. I am not asking for a grade change when I want to speak about my grade, I am really just wanting to know how??? for instance, which situation that you listed do I fall in to so that I can change for the better, you know?
I think I may be looked at as the "slacker that meets the requirements" although she was really impressed with what I did. I tend to work very effeciently and so I am usually done ahead of time (that is how all my classes are, I do not like last minute working). So am I penalized for being done when others are still working away, when just days ago, they spent most of the beginning days talking and hanging out slacking at the beginning? Does the entire studio time need to be productive or can one do work at home or after class. Many times there is nothing to do until the professor gets to your desk for the crit so you can move on. I do my worst work the night before or the day before, so I always make sure I am ahead of things so that I finish early -- i just hope that isn't looked at as your scenario about doing the work and going home. I hope to find out from her!!!!! oh plus, i do my work early because i have to work while in school....and some things in architecture are hard to know how long they will take you, so i need to really watch my schedule so i can work, sleep, and eat in addition
i really appreciate your post adso, thank you, you are refreshing for sure!!!!!!!
excellent, adso... I would have a tough time tackling grading, too. Most of my professors in school seemed to genuinely attempt to grade us in a vacuum, but I think in the end it is hard to grade students in a subjective field without some level of comparison to the accomplishments of others in their small studio, for better or for worse. Exit interviews are very helpful, I always took notes in mine. The only studio for which I did not receive a true exit interview was the one bad egg I described earlier. (Probably partly explains everyone's disatisfaction.)
archinthecity... I was sympathetic for your case up until I read this: Many times there is nothing to do until the professor gets to your desk for the crit so you can move on. I have a hard time believe this is really true? I never once felt like there was ever "nothing to do" on a single one of my projects, literally right up until the moment of pin-up itself. I have a hard time imagining a setting in which I would look at my work, think, "yeah, that's about all I've got till I talk to someone" and then just sit there and wait for a "teacher" to come around. Perhaps this has something to do with your grade?
I have a prof. who told me that my project (thesis) was graded not on just my project, but on the other thesis students for balance and fairness across the board. Is this typical? Does it sound right?
myriam, i never sat and did nothing, i would always be doing something yes.....but usually i'd accomplish what she wanted for the next day (the day before or days before) and have not much more to do on the main objective (like once you ink the floor plans, what can you do next?) without knowing what she wants next??? that is another thing, my studios never tell us what we are going to do until the last possible minute.....we didn't know our final project was the final project until 3 weeks in to said project
but usually i'd accomplish what she wanted for the next day
...but what does it matter what she "wanted" done for the day? You should focus on what YOU want to get done on your project, and where YOU want it to go. I can't remember ever thinking, "okay, accomplish set objective criterion X for tomorrow, then stop"; there never *is* a set objective criterion, there is only what you dream your project could be. ...And all the many things to think through and work through and dead ends to follow and research to do and models to make to help yourself understand it better in 3D in order to get it to where you dreamed it could be, or something you never even dreamed in the first place.
You should tell us what year you are in, by the way. I mean, if you are in first year, then accomplishing step by step objectives makes a little more sense.
By the way, I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down hard on you. I think it's good and important that you want to analyze your process and see its strength and weaknesses.
When you sign up to a design paper, you agree to be bound by the judgement of the design teacher.
Grading is a judgement call. Any reasonable school will have procedures in place for moderating grades (making sure that various staff are grading in a commensurate manner).
as a student, i was always pretty clueless regarding grades. i got an a- once in a studio and i was pretty pleased with that because i always figured a's were hard to come by...and then i found out that in two of the other fives studios the teachers gave everybody straight a's. go figure.
generally, i really dislike the idea of grading studio work particularly in grad school. most of my classmates felt that in grad school you had already more or less earned way into the place and that you should be given the opportunity to set & evaluate your work on your own terms. i think a simple pass/fail arrangement would have been better but an even better idea was the "lucky charms" grading system. every body would get a grade such as a "purple horseshoe," "blue diamond," "orange star," etc. it would be completely arbitrary and non-hierarchal. some years would have more of one grade than another, but they wouldn't really mean anything. of course, it would be interesting to see how track over time...
thank you myriam for the discussion: i am first year
your insight and comments are insightful and I appreciate them
regardless on whether you are following just your professors criteria, or you are following your own "dreams" and what they can become, is there not a stopping pont??? a stopping point for the project's end?? a stopping point in a stage of the project? e.g. site analysis completion?
i argue there is a stopping point, and if there is not, there is at least a reasonable stopping point (otherwise, how do architects stop and say something is ready to be built)
there is a stoppoing point (or perhaps break point) to do laundry, to shower, eat, etc.
i really appreciate this discussion which includes your candor as well as your not being too hard on me, especially since i am new
no, there really isn't a stopping point. We should open this up to everyone else. In my view, and in the view of the firm I work for (which is probably partly why I chose it), there isn't really ever a stopping point apart from the pressures of external life: a building gets built because it must, at some point, get built, but I promise you that even after the final punchlist is signed off, we all still get the occasional "damn, I should have done THIS" moment in the shower, etc. In practice it is a bit easier than in school because of the realities of client + contractor that force decisions to be made and to be made pretty firmly. Even so, things get revised throughout the construction process and it is pretty impossible to force oneself to leave everything completely alone.
It sounds to me like you are still used to the idea of having a set amount of nightly homework to finish and have ready for class. Studio doesn't have homework. Studio is a project that wants to be something, and your goal is to realize the best project possible. It's not nightly or weekly "work" to do, it's YOU. It's a continual, beautiful, work-in-progress.
Myriam, i completely agree with you. And I think we have exposed this tension between real world and ideal world. I still would like to sleep, I would still like to eat (in order to live).....and I do not think you would want the building to not get built simply because you can keep going on the design forever.
But yes I agree completely with you that design never stops. However, the bill collectors, the body's need for sleep and food, never stops either.
I think you rock.
and, no I am not expecting a nightly package of homework each night, but I know there is only a certain amount I can possibly do....even if it is 24 hours of work, there is only 24 hours possible for a day, so the stop for the day happens at somepoint, even if it is at midnight
you'll always have the "oh shit!" moments, but you'll learn when to act on them and when not to. you'll probably learn by actually deciding you're going to change something last minute -- and then reaping the consequences. no project is ever complete, just your involvement in it.
There has only been one time that I believed I didn't get the grade that I deserved. This guy was a real ass and only paid attention to the cutesy girls in our studio. He had only given me one desk crit during the entire semester-and he left during the final review and didn't see my presentation. We each had to meet with him after the end of the semester-and tha was the first time he even saw my project. He was like "Hmm...if you make a couple of changes I could move your grade to the 'A' range." I thought about it but decided to just screw it-I'm wasn't going to jump through hoops to get a grade change from some guy how didn't even give a shit.
agree with myriam. never ever a stopping point, just a point where you stop. knowing where the latter is, now that's the thing ennit.
architecture is a take it home with you kind of job. more so now than when i did design for school, cuz now the deadlines mean money. i design in the shower, on the subway, when listening to a lecture by wiel arets, when drinking with wiel arets, in my office, in front of the contractor, with the contractor, when i walk to the grocery, whenever. that's why architects always look so distracted....;-)
but really if you are waiting for your prof to comment on your work before going on with more then you are not going to get the good grades, i guarantee it.
i have done a bit of studio teaching as well. the way it worked for us was for all the profs to gather after prelim grades had been decided (by each of the profs for each of their students), then we all went round the studio looking at each project and talked about whether the grade was appropriate, etc. there were a few minor changes but by and large the stand out projects stood out clearly and the mediocre projects were equally apparent. everyone almost always saw the same thing and when we didn't we would discuss. i thought it worked fairly well, at least for a big studio like that one was...
main thing though is that the point of school is not school. the professors know that and you should too. if school were the point then gaming the system would be worthwhile and leaving something sit til the prof could look at it would make sense as well. but it isn't , and it doesn't....
First off - Damn, where did you guys whose studios got so many 'A's go to school?! At mine there was maybe one real A per studio, with 0-3 A- thrown in depending on the crop of students. I've never heard of more than two real A's per studio up til now.
We didn't have A+, and if your work was below a C you failed. So the 'C is average' adage was out the window, obviously. I think B was average, though there seemed to be a lot of B+ students. Maybe that's just because anyone who got below a B kept that info to themselves, while the others were eager to brag... Those who failed had to retake the studio (they didn't kick you out, they just trusted you'd get the hint after failing enough times) in summer school or fall back a year.
Our first studio prof was randomly chosen for us. After that, the previous semester's prof would give the coordinator input as to which other profs they thought would be good for us - whether to challenge us better, or be more understanding, or whatever their own personal criteria for that were. Then starting fourth year we did 'topic studio', where the profs each developed different topics that they presented on the first day, and then we applied to the studio we wanted, and listed our second through tenth choices.
Honestly, I went through the first half of my schooling as a B/B+ student, always thinking I deserved better. I had talent, I worked hard, I got a lot of stuff done and the designs looked a damn slight better than those of the average guy who only had half a model done. I thought I was an A- student then, because I had my little bit of talent and had never not completed a project. A lot of people went through their entire academic career this way, and I'm now proud to say I wasn't one of them. If I had, I would be pretty bitter right now if I always though I deserved better than I got. And once or twice there, yeah, I did deserve better. But mostly they were right on.
Then I got this intensely rude Austrian professor for housing studio, who made me cry and made most of the students cry, called things ugly offhand, and really finally challenged me to be better. I worked my ass off, day and night, and finally learned that it wasn't ever going to be done (well, the drawings were, but the building wasn't), never got a damned bit of praise, and earned my first A. From then on something changed in the way I viewed it, and I was a lot more honest with myself about the quality of my work, and then I became an A-/A student, and FINALLY realized that I really did deserve all those B+'s.
Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is this: if you think you're getting screwed, stop thinking about it. Seriously. Only think about how you're screwing up, and throw your personal bias out the window. I had no chance of getting straight A's because I've got a less flamboyant style than that which is currently adored, and because I'm stubborn as a mule, which very few teachers can appreciate. But when I worked hard enough and was really brutally honest ("Christoph honest" is what I call it now, after that prof) with myself, then I could give them no excuse NOT to give me one of the top grades.
so not getting any praise could mean you suck or it could mean you are an A student
why such confusion!
you said "never got a damned bit of praise, and earned my first A. From then on something changed in the way I viewed it, and I was a lot more honest with myself about the quality of my work, and then I became an A-/A student, and FINALLY realized that I really did deserve all those B+'s."
what do you mean? you were honest in saying your worked sucked so you got an A? or you were honest in "never ever going to finish" so you worked harder to finish, still didn't finsh, and got an A?
please clarify cause it is sounding like you have to be a public masochist before you get an A -- like you have to say you are not worthy to be worthy.....sounds more like christianity than architecture school to me!
no, no, no.... apparently it's harder to type that out than I thought.
I guess I just feel like if you cut out all the self-congratulatulations that so many people indulge in, you'll get a more honest picture of your own work. The less praise I recieved, the harder I worked to try and produce something praiseworthy.
It's a matter of not telling yourself it's good enough, but telling yourself it could be better, and working to make it so.
The key to this is a degree of self-sufficiency that many don't seem to possess. You need to tell yourself that it can and will be better, but in your heart know that it doesn't quite 'suck'.
I still have a track record of never not turning in all the necessary materials, but so many people spout off the "it's never really done" crap without really getting it.... From the statements above, it's hard for me to believe that you really get it at this point. That can be ok, you may just not be there yet. I went through half my education before I got there, and prior to that I thought that statement was a load of hogwash meant to pacify professors.
I guess I'm just saying that you'll do better if you stop making excuses about, "he just doesn't get my work", or "well he only likes suck ups and that's not me" or whatever excuse is your favorite (and most if not all of us have one) and just focus on working on YOUR end of it. If the prof really DOESN'T get your work, then that one grade will reflect that, but the rest should reward the fruit of your efforts.
oh yes rationalist, thank makes a lot more sense, thank you for the clarification
and for the record i am not disputing my grade or wanting it changed, i just want to know how it was determined, what it means.....because we have received such little feedback, and the feedback i did receive was positive......i love the idea of exit interviews or something more than just a weird letter or "lucky charm"
thank you rationalist! I appreciate the idea of making it better always
In undergrad I was in a studio that had a situation similar to the one myriam initially described: a "no A" policy. This was bookended by another university rule: "three Cs and you're out". Combine these, mix in an unwillingness to call out unsatisfactory work and let people fail, and presto, Bs for everybody! Push to the middle, what's the point?
All the grad studios I've been in were pass/fail with exit interviews. A *much* more civilized system.
Rationalist... what school did you go to? Your grading/studio system sounds exactly like ours at CMU, up until your fouth year description. We were able to put down our studio choice selections from the beginning, and usually got our 1st or 2nd choice.
puddles - love it! I think I'll get it tattooed on my ass.
myriam - USC (Southern Cal, not South Car)
archinthecity - I had one of those, one of my 'B' studios... He said everything was good during the semester, but then at the end said that I could have pushed myself more. He was right, he was just wrong in his approach, because HE could have pushed me more, too, or at least let me know when there was still time to do something about it. I still think that, even though I accept that he was right, but anyway, I guess we've all got to accept that a lot of teachers suck, and the most successful students will get to a point where they rely less on the professor and more on themselves with every project.
I had a couple studios where I had exit interviews. One was VERY helpful, one was very much not. At the beginning there was no way to guage your progress, but I think the university cracked down on that in my second year, and they started handing out midterm reports, with numbers 1-5 for each of several categories from, "uses class time well", or "responds well to criticism", to "reseach", "site planning," and "concept", to "drawings" and "models", with a number circled for each one, and then a grade at the bottom telling you how you were faring thus far. Those could be very helpful when the teachers took them seriously.
Rationalist, I can relate to your austrian prof scenario.
I did well enough completing assignments and honestly trying like hell my first two years, but still not quite 'getting' it. Well enough to make the 50% cut and entered third year.
I had a joke of a professor first semester that spewed A-/B+'s.
And 2nd semester there was Patricia (pronounced pa-tree-see-a). I'm pretty easy to get along with and at the same time stubborn as hell, so we would go into these long arguments about the ethics and experience of walking across a parking lot to get to your building, but i believed we liked one another.
We had 3 projects that year, 2 of which resulted in the most painful critiques of my life. It took an intellectual baseball bat to the skull to shake me out of whatever mode of thought I had before. I don't think i realized it until much later, but that was the catalyst.
As if stumbling around in the dark, and the light was turned on. It hurt my eyes at first, but i'm adjusting, seeing, with increasing depth of field.
as a part time studio teacher as well, i'd like to say adso has a lot of great points - situations and 'characters' that i've encountered way too many times.
a couple of points to add: most schools, frankly, haven't quite figured out how to deal with studio grading. trying to balance some objective standards (which can lead to the checklist mentality someone mentioned) with the inherently subjective nature of the class type isn't very fun or easy. we don't set pre-determined grade distributions (x number of a's for instance), but the curves all seem to balance out. personally, i measure the students both against themselves (process, development) and against the others in the class (actual product). this usually shakes out those who truly have earned a's.
one huge problem, as someone alluded to earlier, is that a 'b' is almost a defacto given, a 'c' just as bad or worse than a 'f', and almost all the students think that hard work + meeting the requirements earns an automatic 'a'. throw into the mix that a few students who, by third or fourth year, seem to always get an 'a' while you never do, and a lot of resentment can build up.
finally, understand that we, as the teachers (and this applies across whole universities, not just in architecture), have never been challenged as bluntly as we are these days. whoever above said that this whole notion that you'll always get an 'a' started in secondary school is dead on. the sense of entitlement from some students is staggering to me. why they think that a 'b' in one of the most difficult courses in an elite university is some kind of letdown is truly beyond me....
The other problem, as I see it, is the disproportionate emphasis that studio professors (and some schools) put on studio as a whole. Studio is important, but when I was teaching it was hard for me to feel any compassion when students would beg for mercy after missing an assignment that they blew off for three straight days stippling. Non-studio classes and studios are primarily about learning to think (at least at the graduate level), and to the extent that professors spend their time mandating time intensive, brain minimal tasks like carving negatives out of walnut because the material has more "resistance" than basswood it is a waste of everyone's time.
No one should ever have to do an allnighter unless they have blown off the rest of the semester. When I was in school, I knew the first week of studio more or less what my grade would be - some professors are there to teach, some are there to assign work, and grading is done on that basis. My advice: get your c's in the classes that are about mindless production, and a's in the classes where you are learning.
in past studios, we were always given a grade usually within a week along with an assessment sheet, listing various criteria/aspects of the project.. they could be specific to the project or general, such as, "graphic presentation" and "process," etc. professors then noted where the student did well and so on along with notes. it was very helpful in improving in the future. unfortunately, for whatever reason, that didn't happen this past semester, but it was a horribly shittily organized studio to begin with basically controlled by the two professors who shouldn't have been there, while the two really good professors were basically forced to defend and enforce policies they didn't even agree with in the first place.
at my high school the advanced chemistry course was taught by a dandruff-covered, poorly-washed sadist who every year assigned an asinine project called the "isomer lab." basically what he did was he gave the class one organic compound -- and then each student had to spend weeks finding and drawing ALL the different isomers of the compound. it was a pointless waste of time that inevitably was turned in at the absolute last minute. (i drove by his house at five minutes to midnight to deliver my 6500+ isomer booklet)
it was graded on a scale of 1-100 ... i received a 139. utter grade inflation.
in architecture school we had our "isomer lab": the 3rd-year "bay model," a 1/2"=1'-0" scale sectional model through our "sound building" project. its sole purpose was so that the models could sit in the hallway for four weeks and all the other profs could marvel at the ingenuity of the studio professors. in my year some people's bay models were 5-6 feet long by 12" deep. some people were using rockite to approximate concrete, some people were cold-welding metal, etc. all ultimately so that the models could be shown in the prospectus. pointless, pointless, pointless. didn't teach anyone anything except how many CDs i could sell to finance the damn thing.
, you're spot on. One of the universities I taught at years ago was pretty large, and admission into architecture was based upon the same criteria as any other major: SAT's, GPA, extra-curricular. The architecture department was pretty competitive to get into, so the caliber of students was pretty high. However...
In my first semester there, I taught a lower division design class, basically the first design class. The student with about the least amount of apptitude towards design wound up being this guy who had around a 1500 SAT, was president of the student body in HS, and had one of those ridiculous GPA's, like a 4.9. He gets to college, pledges a frat, joins the ski club and thinks he can just continue his overacheiving ways. At mid-term, I informed him he was getting a C (Did the work, warmed the chair, but the projects were hopelessly mediocre and showed no development) and he had a complete meltdown. Told me he had never gotten anything less than an A in his life, what can he do to get an A. He was very frustrated that I couldn't give him a definitive list of things he could do to get an A, or what would make his projects A projects. He wound up with a B- for the term, which was probably a gift. Needless to say, he toasted me in evaluations (which are anonymous, but he mentioned specific things that gave him away). He got a B the next semester and a C after that and transferred into Business (I am glad he didn't take a creampuff professor that gave blanket A's, that would extended his misery). My point is that a lot of times, it takes students awhile to get used to what is basically an entirely different education system than what they grew up with, and the whole issue of grading is also different. A friend of mine actually got a call from a parent once about a bad grade. What a nightmare.
Myriam's post upthread about her B project that, "I am still in love with it years later, I learned a ton about my own design ethic while doing it, and nobody ever asks about grades." Is precisely the reason why grading doesn't matter (in terms of your growth as a designer). That situation, to me, is really what school is about- the discovery. I've had projects in school that I totally tanked, and then a year later, I wind up revisiting some of those ideas, expanding upon them, then suddenly it becomes the cornerstone of my Master's thesis.
On finishing- I don't think a good project is ever finished, there is always something that can be improved, always something that you wish you'd done a little differently, but there just isn't enough time. This doesn't mean you have to pull all-nighters all the time and spend every waking minute in studio. It is always my hope that the students can get the projects to a point where they are not doing it for me, but for them- not trying to meet the goals I set out for the project, but to satisfy their curiosity. This is what that student I mentioned above failed to understand.
One of the tricks I like to pull is, a couple of class periods after giving a large assignment, to show up an hour late for class. Sure enough, there are a few sitting at their desks, waiting for me to tell them what to do. IT's not necessarily that they wer bad students, it's just thatt I had to impress upon them the idea that my approval wasn't needed for every element of the project to advance.
One of the things that makes it easy to spot the A students is when it becomes obvious that they are improving the projects of everyone around them. I taught a studio last year in which there were two really great students. I'd come into class and they would frequently be at other people's desk, talking to them about the project. Love those. That's why I tell my classes that working at home will adversely affect their grade. It's not so much that they are making my job easier (although they are), it's just that the things you discover for yourself wind up sticking with you much more than the things I say. There tends to be a lot more "what if" in the conversations the students have with themselves.
Mind you, these are my opinions, and every instructor is different. There are those who won't let you do anything without talking to them about it, and those who give out a checklist, and this doesn't necessarily make them good or bad instructors. archinthecity's situation sounds a bit different than the studios I'm describing in that it is a lower division class, which are usually more prescriptive, and that the projects have a linear process of steps to follow. What I've been describing (especially in terms of finishing) are for longer projects that are more architectural. In terms of grades, however, when you have projects where steps are being given and there is a lot of contact with the instructor (and a point where the project can easily be seen as being finished), the grading situation should be fairly clear, as a fairly prescribed process usually means a fairly prescribed outcome (i.e. the classes projects will all look similar). The issue of grading then becomes much more simplified.
All this being said, ignore the fucking grades. You will do great projects for bad teachers and bad projects for good ones. Projects that you thought were pieces of shit wind up being revisited. It might happen that you will realize that some studio professors who baffled you actually had a method to their madness, and ones in whose classes you had a lot of fun didn't teach you a damn thing (or vice versa). It is up to you to figure out what you believe in and try to seek out the elements of your education that will help you become stronger, regardless of the grade you might get or whether the class counts towards graduation.
Don't be discouraged with your C projects and never be satisfied with your A ones.
--1st year, 1st semester, 2nd project. portable chair. i took baltic birch plywood and painted it black. did not think about connections, craft, or portability (among other things). got a C+. i will never paint baltic birch plywood again, and i have a pretty visceral memory of our shop instructor breaking the chair as he sat in it.
--2nd year, 2nd semester, 1st project. i put a 10' metal screen between the user and a beautiful view of the hills west of austin. got a B+ (the rest of it was really pretty good) and a reaming from my jurors. i will never make a decision for the sake of what my form looks like in model without considering the experience from within.
--3rd year, 1st semester, 1st project. make a bridge out of toothpicks and elmer's glue and the grade was based on the bearing capacity. my idea was based heavily on someone else's but i stupidly loaded the bridge in the middle of a truss span, not at the connection. it failed with 5 lbs and i made an 5. the highest capacity was 190 lbs. i learned that if you're going to steal an idea, at least figure out how it works.
Studio Grades
Is this true in all architecture schools and all studio classes? Are we still being graded under the same fraternal principles of the first architecture school(s)??
In the studio classes I have been in, there is never any indication as to what your grade is, until, weeks after the class has ended and you see your grade on your transcript.
So we get some verbal feedback. Some of it is positive, some negative, and generally you seem to be moving along. Then you get your grade at the end.
In one studio, I got positive feedback and she seemed to really like my stuff and she gave me a high grade.
In a second studio, I got positive feedback and he seemed to really like my stuff and he gave me a very low grade.
Naturally, when I try to get additional feedback as to what led them to my grade (I do not care if my grade is high or low at this point, I'd really just love to see how it connects to what I actually did)....they avoid me like the plague (no returned phones calls, etc.)
so is there ever a studio or a school where your grade is not passed down from heaven with the insturctions "do not ask questions, have blind faith" ??????
i just want to know how it related to my work!
it never does
i know people who were told they were doing poorly and they got a high grade and vice versa
no rhyme or reason, what is up with this ????
In my last studio ever I did really well, wowed my jury (who told me to polish the project off and submit it for unbuilt competition), and was given a B+. When I talked to the team teachers about it, they pulled me aside and said, we decided not to give any A's this semester. Otherwise, you would have received the only one. We didn't feel your studio was up to snuff.
And that was that. Apparently everyone complained about them and they weren't invited back to teach. Didn't matter for me, I had graduated.
But, now I have a kick-ass project in my portfolio, I am still in love with it years later, I learned a ton about my own design ethic while doing it, and nobody ever asks about grades. So... yeah it still bugs me anyway.
i am soooo sorry to hear about this!
it is so insane.....i do not care what grade they give me except when it comes to ----- oh yes, that minimum grade point you must have to graduate, and oh yes, those scholarships that need you to keep a certain grade point, and oh yes.....the reason why you work your ass off
by the way, one semester, my whole class got an A.....and some people worked their asses off, others did not in any way work any ass
haha, and still others worked their ass the whole way through school, huh... ;) tired? ;)
Yeah. I forgot to mention that the other teachers in the year also complained, feeling that we got shafted as a studio by the stern decision. Were they trying to teach a lesson, or something? Half of us were second-semester 5th years. What was the point?! The stupid thing is that the studio was honestly decent. It was the teachers' first teaching attempt. And last.
I could understand that, like, freshman year, in order to prove a point and help weed some kids out. But, 4th and 5th years?!
Most classes I've been in there were maybe 1-3 A's. Makes sense to me that if you don't think anyone deserves an A, you don't give one. There's the bigger picture, not just a handful of students.
speaking as someone who has taught classes as a grad student, i always tried to let my students know where they stood throughout the semester. from beginning to end. of course final projects could knock someone up or down, but there really were never any surprises in the end. however there were quite a few people who came up to me and complained that if i don't give them an A they could lose some scholarship. at which point i would tell them they needed to really bust ass the rest of the semester just to maybe make it.
i also have a couple of friends who teach, as professors, and through their experiences, i can understand why they avoid people when speaking about grades. right now, one of them is receiving a couple of e-mails a day from one of his students complaining about their grade and asking if there is any way they can do something to raise it.
he let him know early on he was slacking, but there was never any change in attitude until he got his grade.
overall, i've only had 1 professor from undergrad to grad that didn't let me know where i stood with my projects, and he is the most eccentric person i have ever met. so in answer to the post, i'd have to say no, not all architecture schools/professors leave you in the dark till the end. but at the same time, i have to say this... you should know where you stand in your own eyes before you worry about anyone elses opininon.
at UT SOA there were codified, if subjective, criteria as to what constituted what letter grade. i am reaching a bit back in time for this and paraphrasing as well, but:
F = did not attempt to satisfy minimum requirements of project
D = attempted but failed to satisfy minimum requirements of project
C = satisfied minimum requirements of project but with poor or below-average application of skills
B = satisfied requirements of project with average or above-average application of skills
A = transcended requirements of project by solving all issues in an aesthetically and functionally excellent manner
there were a lot of As and Bs handed out, as one might imagine these criteria to be fairly subjective -- but at least there was an intention of fairness. i never heard of studios being graded on a curve or being restricted from A grades
any past/present longhorns correct me if i'm wrong about those criteria--they were handed out in almost every studio syllabus, i should know them by heart!
I guess they have to grade, but the one thing that I find almost insulting is the use of the A+. So I'm at 'one of the best' grad schools in the country yet they still give us little gold stars. The problem is, there are people whose work isn't that great, but they get an A+ because they kissed the critic's ass, then they become even more annoyingly over confident yet continue to do shitty work.
Here's a story on why I wish they just gave pass fail. This one guy at my school apparently was rejected. However, his dad works in a different department, talked to the provost and got him in. Then his first semester critic gave half of the studio an A+. (In contrast, my critic didn't give out any A+'s but my work from that semester is in brochures and was shown at open houses) So this guy's ego gets bumped up even more (he's an obnoxious ex-frat guy already). He always comes by your desk "So do YOU have a BUILDING yet? My building is BEAUTIFUL." Mind you his work sucks...not lying, it sucks. It's worse than mine. THen he won the history award. He brags that he won and didn't even go to class. But, he forgets that the first semester history teacher is one of his dad's patients. No one stands out in first semester history. It is a lecture with no paper or discussion. You just sit there and try to stay awake in the dark, warm room. This semester he got TRASHED on his review and everyone was silently cheering. He talks about how great his renderings are, they are some of the worst I've seen. God I hate that guy. I hope he's not in my studio next semester. People avoided selecting the studio he chose because he's so annoying.
Sorry about the rant. I just really hate that guy.
Well, what bothers me is not the A+ but the lack of an A+ all together. At my school you can get an A, A-, B+,B,B-,C+,C,C-, etc.
I'm not saying I would have gotten any A+ but I feel that I should have at least been given the opportunity. Kinda Bullsh%t if you ask me
trace, etc...
At my school studios were also intentionally set up with a mix of "talent-level" of students, and studio teachers graded exactly on the curve described above, usually coming up with about 2 A's (usually A-'s, mind) per studio. (On that note, btw, I'd be surprised to find out that any student in my school ever received an A+ in a design studio, ever. They are NOT given out. On the other hand, a preponderant amount of B+'s were given. (Oh sorry! You're soooooo close but just not good enough! Better luck next time!) This usually translated into an A project that simply wasn't totally finished in time.)
Anyway, yes, if no one in a studio did A-level work, no A's should be given. However, keeping in mind that studios are intentionally made to include a few top-level students in each, and that the other *teachers* teaching in that year bothered to complain to the department about the situation, and that the department actually responded by not inviting those studio professors back despite the perpetually difficult task of finding good upper level studio profossers, you can bet that in this case the decision wasn't warranted.
Guilty as charged. I've taught on and off (currently off) for the past four years, and the issue of grading is one of the hardest things to grapple with in teaching a design studio.
I am horrified to see that there are studios graded on a curve. It is my firm belief that the students are graded against themselves and not each other.
To whit, how do you grade a student who:
- Started out very mediocre, but pushed themselves, and although the projects at the end of the term weren't among the best in the class, really started to understand some things and showed great improvement throughout the term?
- Did exactly was asked of him and nothing more. Stayed in the comfort zone and dipped into the (very capable) bag of tricks. Never talked to anyone else in the class.
- Tried working with a material/language/concept that they weren't familiar with and due to the difficulties of working in a new media, didn't quite get everything done?
- At a desk crit, took every criticism and suggestion that was made and changed the project following the exact letter of the comments. Nothing else changed.
- Got a decent idea 30 seconds after the brief was handed out, made the thing, met all presentation requirements and then went home.
-Pulls multiple all-nighters, works his ass off, does twice as many drawings, models, and animations than I ask for, but the project is still not very good.
- Is obsessed with a certain historical style/ architect and insists on doing every project as an interpretation of said style/architect. The projects have great promise is it weren't for those (insert fluted columns/flying buttresses/prairie roofs/blobs/cargo containers)
The list goes on and on.
So what happens? I give the mediocre-but-greatly-improved student, say, a B+. He complains because last semester he did a lot less work and got an A. The talented slacker gets a B+ and I get an email telling me his project was so much better than the mediocre student's, so why is their grade the same? The student who followed my suggetions complains about his grade because he did exactly what I told him to do.
I used to give out a list of grading criteria and expectations for the projects. Unfortunately, these became a checklist, and the students would go through the list and when they got to the end, the project would be finished and they would ask for their A. I have since given more vague requirements that put a lot more of the responsibility for the project with the student. This can frustrate the students, many of which come from a high school/elementary education emphasizing endless apptitude tests, where they are always being told exactly what to do, and the odd answers are in the back of the book.
When writing up the grading criteria for the syllabus, I try to account for all of these possibilities, but there is always some factor which can override almost everthing. In the end, it's all so subjective and yet, it has to be assigned a letter. This is why I've gone to either giving exit interviews or written evaluations in addition to the assigned grade, so the student at least has some idea as to what I believe their strengths and weaknesses are. It helps, but there still is a lot of grousing when grades are given.
I got an A (the max at the school i went to) in ALL my design studio's a little bit over ten mind you.
I agree it should be a pass/fail type thing.
Adso, I really appreciated your post. Such great insight!!!! I really appreciate you doing the exit interviews or writen evaluations. Those sound like a breathe of fresh air. The main problem is no communication. I am not asking for a grade change when I want to speak about my grade, I am really just wanting to know how??? for instance, which situation that you listed do I fall in to so that I can change for the better, you know?
I think I may be looked at as the "slacker that meets the requirements" although she was really impressed with what I did. I tend to work very effeciently and so I am usually done ahead of time (that is how all my classes are, I do not like last minute working). So am I penalized for being done when others are still working away, when just days ago, they spent most of the beginning days talking and hanging out slacking at the beginning? Does the entire studio time need to be productive or can one do work at home or after class. Many times there is nothing to do until the professor gets to your desk for the crit so you can move on. I do my worst work the night before or the day before, so I always make sure I am ahead of things so that I finish early -- i just hope that isn't looked at as your scenario about doing the work and going home. I hope to find out from her!!!!! oh plus, i do my work early because i have to work while in school....and some things in architecture are hard to know how long they will take you, so i need to really watch my schedule so i can work, sleep, and eat in addition
i really appreciate your post adso, thank you, you are refreshing for sure!!!!!!!
excellent, adso... I would have a tough time tackling grading, too. Most of my professors in school seemed to genuinely attempt to grade us in a vacuum, but I think in the end it is hard to grade students in a subjective field without some level of comparison to the accomplishments of others in their small studio, for better or for worse. Exit interviews are very helpful, I always took notes in mine. The only studio for which I did not receive a true exit interview was the one bad egg I described earlier. (Probably partly explains everyone's disatisfaction.)
archinthecity... I was sympathetic for your case up until I read this:
Many times there is nothing to do until the professor gets to your desk for the crit so you can move on. I have a hard time believe this is really true? I never once felt like there was ever "nothing to do" on a single one of my projects, literally right up until the moment of pin-up itself. I have a hard time imagining a setting in which I would look at my work, think, "yeah, that's about all I've got till I talk to someone" and then just sit there and wait for a "teacher" to come around. Perhaps this has something to do with your grade?
I have a prof. who told me that my project (thesis) was graded not on just my project, but on the other thesis students for balance and fairness across the board. Is this typical? Does it sound right?
myriam, i never sat and did nothing, i would always be doing something yes.....but usually i'd accomplish what she wanted for the next day (the day before or days before) and have not much more to do on the main objective (like once you ink the floor plans, what can you do next?) without knowing what she wants next??? that is another thing, my studios never tell us what we are going to do until the last possible minute.....we didn't know our final project was the final project until 3 weeks in to said project
...but what does it matter what she "wanted" done for the day? You should focus on what YOU want to get done on your project, and where YOU want it to go. I can't remember ever thinking, "okay, accomplish set objective criterion X for tomorrow, then stop"; there never *is* a set objective criterion, there is only what you dream your project could be. ...And all the many things to think through and work through and dead ends to follow and research to do and models to make to help yourself understand it better in 3D in order to get it to where you dreamed it could be, or something you never even dreamed in the first place.
You should tell us what year you are in, by the way. I mean, if you are in first year, then accomplishing step by step objectives makes a little more sense.
By the way, I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down hard on you. I think it's good and important that you want to analyze your process and see its strength and weaknesses.
When you sign up to a design paper, you agree to be bound by the judgement of the design teacher.
Grading is a judgement call. Any reasonable school will have procedures in place for moderating grades (making sure that various staff are grading in a commensurate manner).
as a student, i was always pretty clueless regarding grades. i got an a- once in a studio and i was pretty pleased with that because i always figured a's were hard to come by...and then i found out that in two of the other fives studios the teachers gave everybody straight a's. go figure.
generally, i really dislike the idea of grading studio work particularly in grad school. most of my classmates felt that in grad school you had already more or less earned way into the place and that you should be given the opportunity to set & evaluate your work on your own terms. i think a simple pass/fail arrangement would have been better but an even better idea was the "lucky charms" grading system. every body would get a grade such as a "purple horseshoe," "blue diamond," "orange star," etc. it would be completely arbitrary and non-hierarchal. some years would have more of one grade than another, but they wouldn't really mean anything. of course, it would be interesting to see how track over time...
thank you myriam for the discussion: i am first year
your insight and comments are insightful and I appreciate them
regardless on whether you are following just your professors criteria, or you are following your own "dreams" and what they can become, is there not a stopping pont??? a stopping point for the project's end?? a stopping point in a stage of the project? e.g. site analysis completion?
i argue there is a stopping point, and if there is not, there is at least a reasonable stopping point (otherwise, how do architects stop and say something is ready to be built)
there is a stoppoing point (or perhaps break point) to do laundry, to shower, eat, etc.
i really appreciate this discussion which includes your candor as well as your not being too hard on me, especially since i am new
thank you for your help
no, there really isn't a stopping point. We should open this up to everyone else. In my view, and in the view of the firm I work for (which is probably partly why I chose it), there isn't really ever a stopping point apart from the pressures of external life: a building gets built because it must, at some point, get built, but I promise you that even after the final punchlist is signed off, we all still get the occasional "damn, I should have done THIS" moment in the shower, etc. In practice it is a bit easier than in school because of the realities of client + contractor that force decisions to be made and to be made pretty firmly. Even so, things get revised throughout the construction process and it is pretty impossible to force oneself to leave everything completely alone.
It sounds to me like you are still used to the idea of having a set amount of nightly homework to finish and have ready for class. Studio doesn't have homework. Studio is a project that wants to be something, and your goal is to realize the best project possible. It's not nightly or weekly "work" to do, it's YOU. It's a continual, beautiful, work-in-progress.
Myriam, i completely agree with you. And I think we have exposed this tension between real world and ideal world. I still would like to sleep, I would still like to eat (in order to live).....and I do not think you would want the building to not get built simply because you can keep going on the design forever.
But yes I agree completely with you that design never stops. However, the bill collectors, the body's need for sleep and food, never stops either.
I think you rock.
and, no I am not expecting a nightly package of homework each night, but I know there is only a certain amount I can possibly do....even if it is 24 hours of work, there is only 24 hours possible for a day, so the stop for the day happens at somepoint, even if it is at midnight
you'll always have the "oh shit!" moments, but you'll learn when to act on them and when not to. you'll probably learn by actually deciding you're going to change something last minute -- and then reaping the consequences. no project is ever complete, just your involvement in it.
There has only been one time that I believed I didn't get the grade that I deserved. This guy was a real ass and only paid attention to the cutesy girls in our studio. He had only given me one desk crit during the entire semester-and he left during the final review and didn't see my presentation. We each had to meet with him after the end of the semester-and tha was the first time he even saw my project. He was like "Hmm...if you make a couple of changes I could move your grade to the 'A' range." I thought about it but decided to just screw it-I'm wasn't going to jump through hoops to get a grade change from some guy how didn't even give a shit.
agree with myriam. never ever a stopping point, just a point where you stop. knowing where the latter is, now that's the thing ennit.
architecture is a take it home with you kind of job. more so now than when i did design for school, cuz now the deadlines mean money. i design in the shower, on the subway, when listening to a lecture by wiel arets, when drinking with wiel arets, in my office, in front of the contractor, with the contractor, when i walk to the grocery, whenever. that's why architects always look so distracted....;-)
but really if you are waiting for your prof to comment on your work before going on with more then you are not going to get the good grades, i guarantee it.
i have done a bit of studio teaching as well. the way it worked for us was for all the profs to gather after prelim grades had been decided (by each of the profs for each of their students), then we all went round the studio looking at each project and talked about whether the grade was appropriate, etc. there were a few minor changes but by and large the stand out projects stood out clearly and the mediocre projects were equally apparent. everyone almost always saw the same thing and when we didn't we would discuss. i thought it worked fairly well, at least for a big studio like that one was...
main thing though is that the point of school is not school. the professors know that and you should too. if school were the point then gaming the system would be worthwhile and leaving something sit til the prof could look at it would make sense as well. but it isn't , and it doesn't....
First off - Damn, where did you guys whose studios got so many 'A's go to school?! At mine there was maybe one real A per studio, with 0-3 A- thrown in depending on the crop of students. I've never heard of more than two real A's per studio up til now.
We didn't have A+, and if your work was below a C you failed. So the 'C is average' adage was out the window, obviously. I think B was average, though there seemed to be a lot of B+ students. Maybe that's just because anyone who got below a B kept that info to themselves, while the others were eager to brag... Those who failed had to retake the studio (they didn't kick you out, they just trusted you'd get the hint after failing enough times) in summer school or fall back a year.
Our first studio prof was randomly chosen for us. After that, the previous semester's prof would give the coordinator input as to which other profs they thought would be good for us - whether to challenge us better, or be more understanding, or whatever their own personal criteria for that were. Then starting fourth year we did 'topic studio', where the profs each developed different topics that they presented on the first day, and then we applied to the studio we wanted, and listed our second through tenth choices.
Honestly, I went through the first half of my schooling as a B/B+ student, always thinking I deserved better. I had talent, I worked hard, I got a lot of stuff done and the designs looked a damn slight better than those of the average guy who only had half a model done. I thought I was an A- student then, because I had my little bit of talent and had never not completed a project. A lot of people went through their entire academic career this way, and I'm now proud to say I wasn't one of them. If I had, I would be pretty bitter right now if I always though I deserved better than I got. And once or twice there, yeah, I did deserve better. But mostly they were right on.
Then I got this intensely rude Austrian professor for housing studio, who made me cry and made most of the students cry, called things ugly offhand, and really finally challenged me to be better. I worked my ass off, day and night, and finally learned that it wasn't ever going to be done (well, the drawings were, but the building wasn't), never got a damned bit of praise, and earned my first A. From then on something changed in the way I viewed it, and I was a lot more honest with myself about the quality of my work, and then I became an A-/A student, and FINALLY realized that I really did deserve all those B+'s.
Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is this: if you think you're getting screwed, stop thinking about it. Seriously. Only think about how you're screwing up, and throw your personal bias out the window. I had no chance of getting straight A's because I've got a less flamboyant style than that which is currently adored, and because I'm stubborn as a mule, which very few teachers can appreciate. But when I worked hard enough and was really brutally honest ("Christoph honest" is what I call it now, after that prof) with myself, then I could give them no excuse NOT to give me one of the top grades.
if some prof made my lady cry, well i'd just have to challenge them to a duel
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b7/Hamilton-burr-duel.jpg/320px-Hamilton-burr-duel.jpg width=418[/img]
[img]
messed that up. but i m an excellent shot.
so not getting any praise could mean you suck or it could mean you are an A student
why such confusion!
you said "never got a damned bit of praise, and earned my first A. From then on something changed in the way I viewed it, and I was a lot more honest with myself about the quality of my work, and then I became an A-/A student, and FINALLY realized that I really did deserve all those B+'s."
what do you mean? you were honest in saying your worked sucked so you got an A? or you were honest in "never ever going to finish" so you worked harder to finish, still didn't finsh, and got an A?
please clarify cause it is sounding like you have to be a public masochist before you get an A -- like you have to say you are not worthy to be worthy.....sounds more like christianity than architecture school to me!
what am i not reading clearly?
This semester I did the dart board grading technique. worked like a charm.
I'll do the same next semester in Minnesota....
hey Cameron, hahahahahhahahaahahahhaahhhaahha!!!! now there is an answer that actually makes perfect sense!
i miss minnesota, i hope you enjoy =)
no, no, no.... apparently it's harder to type that out than I thought.
I guess I just feel like if you cut out all the self-congratulatulations that so many people indulge in, you'll get a more honest picture of your own work. The less praise I recieved, the harder I worked to try and produce something praiseworthy.
It's a matter of not telling yourself it's good enough, but telling yourself it could be better, and working to make it so.
The key to this is a degree of self-sufficiency that many don't seem to possess. You need to tell yourself that it can and will be better, but in your heart know that it doesn't quite 'suck'.
I still have a track record of never not turning in all the necessary materials, but so many people spout off the "it's never really done" crap without really getting it.... From the statements above, it's hard for me to believe that you really get it at this point. That can be ok, you may just not be there yet. I went through half my education before I got there, and prior to that I thought that statement was a load of hogwash meant to pacify professors.
I guess I'm just saying that you'll do better if you stop making excuses about, "he just doesn't get my work", or "well he only likes suck ups and that's not me" or whatever excuse is your favorite (and most if not all of us have one) and just focus on working on YOUR end of it. If the prof really DOESN'T get your work, then that one grade will reflect that, but the rest should reward the fruit of your efforts.
Did that one make any sense?
vado: these days maybe you should just challenge to a googlefight?
p.s.- thanks for the thought vado = )
oh yes rationalist, thank makes a lot more sense, thank you for the clarification
and for the record i am not disputing my grade or wanting it changed, i just want to know how it was determined, what it means.....because we have received such little feedback, and the feedback i did receive was positive......i love the idea of exit interviews or something more than just a weird letter or "lucky charm"
thank you rationalist! I appreciate the idea of making it better always
In undergrad I was in a studio that had a situation similar to the one myriam initially described: a "no A" policy. This was bookended by another university rule: "three Cs and you're out". Combine these, mix in an unwillingness to call out unsatisfactory work and let people fail, and presto, Bs for everybody! Push to the middle, what's the point?
All the grad studios I've been in were pass/fail with exit interviews. A *much* more civilized system.
Rationalist... what school did you go to? Your grading/studio system sounds exactly like ours at CMU, up until your fouth year description. We were able to put down our studio choice selections from the beginning, and usually got our 1st or 2nd choice.
that's too bad archinthecity since i was going to give you a purple shamrock
but vado retro gets a yellow moon for messing up that picture post
cameron sinclair - orange star
rationalist - orange star
manama - purple shamrock
jump - blue diamond
kissy_face - blue diamond
ochona - orange star
myriam - pink heart
agfa8x - blue diamond
melquiades - blue diamond
adso - purple shamrock
typetpmark - blue diamond
io35pep - blue diamond
jumpy - pink heart
hasselhof - blue diamond
momentum - pink heart
j -blue diamond
and everybody else (who didn't post to this thread) gets one of those lame oats.
I want a green clover.
puddles - love it! I think I'll get it tattooed on my ass.
myriam - USC (Southern Cal, not South Car)
archinthecity - I had one of those, one of my 'B' studios... He said everything was good during the semester, but then at the end said that I could have pushed myself more. He was right, he was just wrong in his approach, because HE could have pushed me more, too, or at least let me know when there was still time to do something about it. I still think that, even though I accept that he was right, but anyway, I guess we've all got to accept that a lot of teachers suck, and the most successful students will get to a point where they rely less on the professor and more on themselves with every project.
I had a couple studios where I had exit interviews. One was VERY helpful, one was very much not. At the beginning there was no way to guage your progress, but I think the university cracked down on that in my second year, and they started handing out midterm reports, with numbers 1-5 for each of several categories from, "uses class time well", or "responds well to criticism", to "reseach", "site planning," and "concept", to "drawings" and "models", with a number circled for each one, and then a grade at the bottom telling you how you were faring thus far. Those could be very helpful when the teachers took them seriously.
ohhh... I like an orange star. If you're at UofM you get an A+++ next year.
...Tom Fisher is so going to regret taking me on.
ooh my, I hadn't even noticed what good company me and my orange star are in! Now I know that's a top grade ; )
Rationalist, I can relate to your austrian prof scenario.
I did well enough completing assignments and honestly trying like hell my first two years, but still not quite 'getting' it. Well enough to make the 50% cut and entered third year.
I had a joke of a professor first semester that spewed A-/B+'s.
And 2nd semester there was Patricia (pronounced pa-tree-see-a). I'm pretty easy to get along with and at the same time stubborn as hell, so we would go into these long arguments about the ethics and experience of walking across a parking lot to get to your building, but i believed we liked one another.
We had 3 projects that year, 2 of which resulted in the most painful critiques of my life. It took an intellectual baseball bat to the skull to shake me out of whatever mode of thought I had before. I don't think i realized it until much later, but that was the catalyst.
As if stumbling around in the dark, and the light was turned on. It hurt my eyes at first, but i'm adjusting, seeing, with increasing depth of field.
oh, and received my first studio C
as a part time studio teacher as well, i'd like to say adso has a lot of great points - situations and 'characters' that i've encountered way too many times.
a couple of points to add: most schools, frankly, haven't quite figured out how to deal with studio grading. trying to balance some objective standards (which can lead to the checklist mentality someone mentioned) with the inherently subjective nature of the class type isn't very fun or easy. we don't set pre-determined grade distributions (x number of a's for instance), but the curves all seem to balance out. personally, i measure the students both against themselves (process, development) and against the others in the class (actual product). this usually shakes out those who truly have earned a's.
one huge problem, as someone alluded to earlier, is that a 'b' is almost a defacto given, a 'c' just as bad or worse than a 'f', and almost all the students think that hard work + meeting the requirements earns an automatic 'a'. throw into the mix that a few students who, by third or fourth year, seem to always get an 'a' while you never do, and a lot of resentment can build up.
finally, understand that we, as the teachers (and this applies across whole universities, not just in architecture), have never been challenged as bluntly as we are these days. whoever above said that this whole notion that you'll always get an 'a' started in secondary school is dead on. the sense of entitlement from some students is staggering to me. why they think that a 'b' in one of the most difficult courses in an elite university is some kind of letdown is truly beyond me....
The other problem, as I see it, is the disproportionate emphasis that studio professors (and some schools) put on studio as a whole. Studio is important, but when I was teaching it was hard for me to feel any compassion when students would beg for mercy after missing an assignment that they blew off for three straight days stippling. Non-studio classes and studios are primarily about learning to think (at least at the graduate level), and to the extent that professors spend their time mandating time intensive, brain minimal tasks like carving negatives out of walnut because the material has more "resistance" than basswood it is a waste of everyone's time.
No one should ever have to do an allnighter unless they have blown off the rest of the semester. When I was in school, I knew the first week of studio more or less what my grade would be - some professors are there to teach, some are there to assign work, and grading is done on that basis. My advice: get your c's in the classes that are about mindless production, and a's in the classes where you are learning.
in past studios, we were always given a grade usually within a week along with an assessment sheet, listing various criteria/aspects of the project.. they could be specific to the project or general, such as, "graphic presentation" and "process," etc. professors then noted where the student did well and so on along with notes. it was very helpful in improving in the future. unfortunately, for whatever reason, that didn't happen this past semester, but it was a horribly shittily organized studio to begin with basically controlled by the two professors who shouldn't have been there, while the two really good professors were basically forced to defend and enforce policies they didn't even agree with in the first place.
nicely said Janosh... I hate professors that just asign crappy assignments just for the hell of it.
at my high school the advanced chemistry course was taught by a dandruff-covered, poorly-washed sadist who every year assigned an asinine project called the "isomer lab." basically what he did was he gave the class one organic compound -- and then each student had to spend weeks finding and drawing ALL the different isomers of the compound. it was a pointless waste of time that inevitably was turned in at the absolute last minute. (i drove by his house at five minutes to midnight to deliver my 6500+ isomer booklet)
it was graded on a scale of 1-100 ... i received a 139. utter grade inflation.
in architecture school we had our "isomer lab": the 3rd-year "bay model," a 1/2"=1'-0" scale sectional model through our "sound building" project. its sole purpose was so that the models could sit in the hallway for four weeks and all the other profs could marvel at the ingenuity of the studio professors. in my year some people's bay models were 5-6 feet long by 12" deep. some people were using rockite to approximate concrete, some people were cold-welding metal, etc. all ultimately so that the models could be shown in the prospectus. pointless, pointless, pointless. didn't teach anyone anything except how many CDs i could sell to finance the damn thing.
, you're spot on. One of the universities I taught at years ago was pretty large, and admission into architecture was based upon the same criteria as any other major: SAT's, GPA, extra-curricular. The architecture department was pretty competitive to get into, so the caliber of students was pretty high. However...
In my first semester there, I taught a lower division design class, basically the first design class. The student with about the least amount of apptitude towards design wound up being this guy who had around a 1500 SAT, was president of the student body in HS, and had one of those ridiculous GPA's, like a 4.9. He gets to college, pledges a frat, joins the ski club and thinks he can just continue his overacheiving ways. At mid-term, I informed him he was getting a C (Did the work, warmed the chair, but the projects were hopelessly mediocre and showed no development) and he had a complete meltdown. Told me he had never gotten anything less than an A in his life, what can he do to get an A. He was very frustrated that I couldn't give him a definitive list of things he could do to get an A, or what would make his projects A projects. He wound up with a B- for the term, which was probably a gift. Needless to say, he toasted me in evaluations (which are anonymous, but he mentioned specific things that gave him away). He got a B the next semester and a C after that and transferred into Business (I am glad he didn't take a creampuff professor that gave blanket A's, that would extended his misery). My point is that a lot of times, it takes students awhile to get used to what is basically an entirely different education system than what they grew up with, and the whole issue of grading is also different. A friend of mine actually got a call from a parent once about a bad grade. What a nightmare.
Myriam's post upthread about her B project that, "I am still in love with it years later, I learned a ton about my own design ethic while doing it, and nobody ever asks about grades." Is precisely the reason why grading doesn't matter (in terms of your growth as a designer). That situation, to me, is really what school is about- the discovery. I've had projects in school that I totally tanked, and then a year later, I wind up revisiting some of those ideas, expanding upon them, then suddenly it becomes the cornerstone of my Master's thesis.
On finishing- I don't think a good project is ever finished, there is always something that can be improved, always something that you wish you'd done a little differently, but there just isn't enough time. This doesn't mean you have to pull all-nighters all the time and spend every waking minute in studio. It is always my hope that the students can get the projects to a point where they are not doing it for me, but for them- not trying to meet the goals I set out for the project, but to satisfy their curiosity. This is what that student I mentioned above failed to understand.
One of the tricks I like to pull is, a couple of class periods after giving a large assignment, to show up an hour late for class. Sure enough, there are a few sitting at their desks, waiting for me to tell them what to do. IT's not necessarily that they wer bad students, it's just thatt I had to impress upon them the idea that my approval wasn't needed for every element of the project to advance.
One of the things that makes it easy to spot the A students is when it becomes obvious that they are improving the projects of everyone around them. I taught a studio last year in which there were two really great students. I'd come into class and they would frequently be at other people's desk, talking to them about the project. Love those. That's why I tell my classes that working at home will adversely affect their grade. It's not so much that they are making my job easier (although they are), it's just that the things you discover for yourself wind up sticking with you much more than the things I say. There tends to be a lot more "what if" in the conversations the students have with themselves.
Mind you, these are my opinions, and every instructor is different. There are those who won't let you do anything without talking to them about it, and those who give out a checklist, and this doesn't necessarily make them good or bad instructors. archinthecity's situation sounds a bit different than the studios I'm describing in that it is a lower division class, which are usually more prescriptive, and that the projects have a linear process of steps to follow. What I've been describing (especially in terms of finishing) are for longer projects that are more architectural. In terms of grades, however, when you have projects where steps are being given and there is a lot of contact with the instructor (and a point where the project can easily be seen as being finished), the grading situation should be fairly clear, as a fairly prescribed process usually means a fairly prescribed outcome (i.e. the classes projects will all look similar). The issue of grading then becomes much more simplified.
All this being said, ignore the fucking grades. You will do great projects for bad teachers and bad projects for good ones. Projects that you thought were pieces of shit wind up being revisited. It might happen that you will realize that some studio professors who baffled you actually had a method to their madness, and ones in whose classes you had a lot of fun didn't teach you a damn thing (or vice versa). It is up to you to figure out what you believe in and try to seek out the elements of your education that will help you become stronger, regardless of the grade you might get or whether the class counts towards graduation.
Don't be discouraged with your C projects and never be satisfied with your A ones.
my most memorable projects were:
--1st year, 1st semester, 2nd project. portable chair. i took baltic birch plywood and painted it black. did not think about connections, craft, or portability (among other things). got a C+. i will never paint baltic birch plywood again, and i have a pretty visceral memory of our shop instructor breaking the chair as he sat in it.
--2nd year, 2nd semester, 1st project. i put a 10' metal screen between the user and a beautiful view of the hills west of austin. got a B+ (the rest of it was really pretty good) and a reaming from my jurors. i will never make a decision for the sake of what my form looks like in model without considering the experience from within.
--3rd year, 1st semester, 1st project. make a bridge out of toothpicks and elmer's glue and the grade was based on the bearing capacity. my idea was based heavily on someone else's but i stupidly loaded the bridge in the middle of a truss span, not at the connection. it failed with 5 lbs and i made an 5. the highest capacity was 190 lbs. i learned that if you're going to steal an idea, at least figure out how it works.
failure: architecture's no. 1 professor
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