agreed that the facilities could use some work.

if anything i would wish for a more cohesiveness in direction. while they highlighted that their faculty is diverse and interested in a variety of explorations, i somewhat wish that the school as a whole had a little more focus. that would be my only criticism of the curriculum.

mark lee, by and large, impressed me the most.

ants-
its killing me thinking that i may have talked to you yesterday and not known it, can you give me initials?

A.K.

asian guy w/ a small faux-hawk? no? perhaps we'll see each other in the fall. i was only there for yesterday's stuff.

huh?
i was the dude that asked the current students to tell me the one thing they didn't like. of course they didn't answer the question.

mark lee is legit.

thanks for the insight guys (sure there's more coming from others as well).

MArch06 -- i decided not to crash the open house after all...would've sucked to drive all the way up there and get turned away. they'll probably have another one in the fall for '07 applicants anyway.

if you end up going to UCLA, perhaps i'll meet you and ACfA this fall (and with a couple months experience in the trenches)...

ACfA -- can you elaborate on your "lack of cohesiveness" observation? mainly since i'm not sure what you mean by a cohesive direction (or what that might be)...

overall i feel that the school has a lot of good professors that are doing really good work. however. the areas that each professor is working in seems somewhat independent of any kind of over-arching philosophy or direction held by the school. it feels like a studio of a lot of good designer/professors that have been put together but not necessarily collaboratively. i guess "collaboration" is the best way to boil it down. it didn't seem like the whole school played off of each other as an entity but rather was compartmentalized into specific interests and research directions. which is both good and bad. it seemed to want to play up this experimental lab type atmosphere with everyone doing their own thing. i found myself REALLY fascinated in what some professors were doing and not at all interested in others.

i think that's right on. but as you said, its both good and bad. i tend to think its a good thing...assuming of course that you are able to study with those that you want to. but having that diversity is great and while they may not all agree ideologically, i did get the sense that they are all on the same page when it came to overall educational goals

ok, i understand. thanks guys!

ants-

good point about the faculty. although it seems to me that the faculty have different ideas of direction in architectural discourse, they appear to be suggesting that it would be a positive thing. after all, isn't graduate school about making our own decisions concerning we want to pursue? i am definitely interested in a diverse faculty, which appears to be emphasized in both of the open houses i've attended so far. perhaps schools use this as selling tool for their program, so no single person is turned off by a suggested directionality toward a particular school of thought. has anyone noticed this so far?

Beyond the quality of the faculty, which I don't think anyone will argue with too much, I was pleasantly surprised by their candor, both in talking about their own program and other schools as well. They didn't automatically go into defensive mode and start bashing the GSD, Columbia, et al (except for SCI-Arc), and I thought gave thorough analyses of each of the programs and how they stack up to UCLA. After talking some more Sunday night with a friend who is a first-year M.arch I student now, I think I'm pretty well set on going there this fall.

i'm not saying it's a bad thing (as i tried to disclaim above). i guess i just feel like sometimes it seems more powerful when a school seems to be all pushing for something. rather than just experiments in design, if a school is really comitted to something, it's indicative of a direction that perhaps the industry will be pushed in. you could do something really powerful if all the faculty and students were all headed in the same direction.

but yes. it's nice to be able to be exposed to so many things that are going on at the same time.

one thing i'm still curious about is how much interaction the arch school has with perhaps other schools at UCLA. from what i've heard, other schools like the GSD have a high dgree of interconnectivity with other grad schools at Harvard.

i'm actually getting really curious about doing a concurrent MUD as well at this point. have to talk to the faculty about it though...

you're right - they didn't touch on any possible interaction with other schools at UCLA, but they did mention the fact that you can substitute classes that you may have already taken during undergrad with classes in other schools. from what i've heard, there isn't much interaction between schools. is there anything that you're particularly interested in? my guess is that you would have to actively pursue this on your own (perhaps through talking to different faculty within other disciplines).

come to think if it, i was a little disappointed with the fact that they don't bring in visiting professors. don't get me wrong - the faculty at ucla seems very strong, but part of what i liked about other schools is that they bring in outside professors who may have something different to contribute to the program. was anyone else concerned about this?

i still haven't made up my mind yet - what other schools were you all considering?

for those not from Cali that made it out there....what was it like?

did the campus, weather, palm trees, beach, etc (and all the other important school-related factors) have any influence on you?

shay-
i guess you're right, i didn't even stop to realize that they didn't bring in visiting instructors. chalk that up with the less than impressive shop as major bummers

i'm from michigan, so yes, the weather is a MAJOR influence in my grad school search. i am sick and tired of scraping/brushing ice/snow off everything before i leave for work/school. the weather during the better part of open house, however, was not so great - it was cold and raining.

i have lots of relatives out in LA and have visited on multiple occassions, but i must say that i never thought i would want move here. i believe what's drawing me out here (in addition to the weather) is the general disposition of the people on the west coast. where else can you show up to work at 10 am and not get fired? this is a new concept to me.

They do have those workshops (text from the guidebook):

"Every year at least two distinguished architects conduct intensive workshops with students. Recent and forthcoming visitors include Petra Blaisse, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Toyo Ito, Jeffrey Kipnis, Rafael Moneo, Enrique Norten, Wolf Prix, Hani Rashid, Bernard Tschumi, Billie Tsien, and Ben van Berkel. The workshops provide participants with an opportunity to explore relevant issues integrating the curriculum and the instructors' own research, followed by an exhibition of the work created."

As for the LA factor, from a midwesterner's point of view, I'd be lying if I said it didn't factor in at least a little bit. Aside from the Mediterranean climate, lush landscapes, beaches, etc., LA seems like one of the most dynamic place I've ever visited in terms of creativity and trying to push the envelope and try new things. I had never been to California before the open house and while certain stereotypes of LA were reinforced (TV news vans hanging out by the movie theaters, people selling Star Maps on the sidewalk along Sunset Blvd., etc.), some were proven incorrect (traffic wasn't a constant parking lot, not everyone was model-gorgeous, and for the most part, the populus seemed hospitable).