If you can do simple math (addition, subtraction, simple division) you'll be fine. Make sure you know the difference between nominal and actual lumber dimensions.

I minored in Math, and I don't use anything I didn't learn in high school.

i once was looking at a book with some working drawings by... hmm, i was a sophomore, i don't remember who, i think it was like Corb, one of the biggies of modernism. Anyway, he had a few equations scribbled out in note-to-self fashion. Among them: 12/4

he didn't finish writing the answer.



so anyway, you'll be fine phil

you'll be fine and can excel. trust me.

learn excel

thanks guys
anotherq - did you guys go to big universities
and what not to become an architect?

"learn excel" is actually good advice. I find that most of the 'math' I do on a regular basis is actually just tabulations of square footage and other building requirements like plumbing fixture counts and egress path widths. Excel sure beats hand calculations, and it's easier to pass along to someone else to update.

i had to be tutored through 6 math classes for one of my degrees (thank you ex-boyfriend and patient professors) and really struggled with structures but grasped enough to pass. luckily i didn't have to take physics like most of my fellow classmates (always read the fine print in all paperwork your program gives you, they didn't HAVE to take it either but didn't know that b/c they didn't read the paperwork :) which i probably could have passed but barely.

that being said, i do use the internet to remember how to do stupid things like change a percent slope to a degree slope so i can draw it in autocad (anyone know a command in cad that will do this for you?) but most of the math you do is fractions, multiplication, addition, subtraction and division. our use of anything more complex is pretty limited and the internet along with your coworkers can be a great help. and it's fun to see everyone else forgets these things too :)

i went public university b/c it was a decent program w/ the options i was looking for and relatively "affordable" (minus that year overseas, well worth it but added another 4 years of tuition costs to my grand total...anyone want to buy a couple of degrees?)

really, the program you choose is more what you make of it.

the other day my co-worker and i were working some stair calcs outloud. she was sorta talking to me, sorta talking to herself, she asked, "What's 7 times 12 divided by 7?" and grabbed her calculator to crunch the numbers... There's hope.

That's a great story, Strawbeary.

Philarct, don't worry about the math.

know that a 2 x12 is actually 1.5"x11.25"........

Yes, don’t worry about the math.

...or science, or grammar, or theory...

Hell, shoot for mediocre and rise just a little above the bottom.

It probably wouldn't hurt to learn rebar sizes either. Oh and HOW BUILDINGS GO TOGETHER (standard building details). Also, if you can learn some archispeak, you can fake what you don't know. When all else fails ask about the sequence of arrival.

As cute and innocent as my first years were, it hurt me to hear them say "vertical beam".

I'm just saying knowing where the moisture barrier and vapor barriers go, and the difference between the two are way more important than math. That's the engineers job.

I haven't taken math since I was a sixteen-year-old high school student. The only math I do is 90% geometry, 10% semi-complex trig. And most of it can be worked out visually in autocad when you get stuck. So don't worry about it.

when i was in first year undergrad, i was also enrolled in a calculus class. the week before drop-class deadline, i was sleeping on a bench outside the dean's office with a calc book over my face - having lost the battle while desperately trying to study.

the dean (of course) shook me awake in the morning, asked me what was up. i told him i was studying, not feeling very good about calc, etc, and he asked, 'well, how are you doing in calculus?'

breaking a sweat, i admitted that, at that point i had a 27 average - and then i started to reel off lots of excuses why: german professor unintelligible, smart-ass t.a., ... but he stopped me and said:

"drop it. you don't need it. you'll get everything you need in structures. stop torturing yourself."

i called my mother that morning and told her the dean said i should drop calculus and then immediately headed for the registrar's office.

i failed calculus two times and barely got by on the third pass, now i should point out that i rarely did homework and studied the night before, but math as a whole was the least of my strengths. in fact, i am still trying to figure out what my strength is right now....

Man you guys rock, thanks alot, im glad
i registered to this site

Booyah, this is a very nice book...

In defense of math -

One thing math does do for you wether your an architect or not, is train your brain to think differently. At a young age, even 19 and 20, the brain is not yet fully developed and neural pathways are still forming ( this is why you should wait until your older to smoke pot). Math trains (forms?) the network of decision making and reasoning in the wet mess in our heads - wether or not your good at it or like it, its like excerise for the mind.

But you wont need to use it much in your daily work.

evilp, that is very, very wise advice...all of it, especially the pot part.

I returned some cabinet pulls today to a supply house that has closed, so the owner didn't have a calculator and neither did I. We wrote out the calculations (quantity, cost, tax, shopping as a percentage of the whole order, restock fee) and both came up with the same answer - and frankly, it felt great, like stretching some muscles I hadn't used in awhile. Of course math is important, and uses parts of your brain that should be stimulated to excel in design. No one is slamming math.

What I'm slamming is the notion of taking a math class that will very likely: take a lot of time, cause a lot of stress, result in a poor grade, and thus affect GPA, and probably not be professionally useful.

My story is similar to Steven's except that I didn't drop the class and thus suffered a D - an actual D - on my transcript. Ugh. No that it mattered, but it was totally unnecessary.

tadao ando was a boxer? Mr. white turtle neck? really?

you just need to know how to count by 8 so that you stay on block coursing...

also, for site planning you need to be able to divide by 43560 to get from SF to acres...

also, you need to know slope=rise/run...

all pretty easy stuff with a calculator...

finally, for the license exams you'll need to be able to do some relatively simple algebra... you're given the equations... so as long as you can plug the numbers in and solve for the unknown you'll be fine...

While it is true most of the day you do not need high level math you should be able to do it. The fact is the same problem solving abilities that lead someone to understand math are very valuable to architecture. There is in fact a reason why most architecture schools require calc. and multiple physics classes.

At the very least though you should become the master of all things related to fractions.

dont worry... you will make a wonderful meal for a hungry bird

i have a colleague who formatted a cost estimate in excel...and then did all the calcs with a hand-held calculator.

you should pass all the math classes you have to pass, but don't fret too much about having to use anything beyond algebra or trig in the profession.

you will never make enough money so wont even need to do simple calcs like addition and subtraction...

oh, you'll use subtraction

and you'll learn about negative numbers

you'll see one every time you get a bank statement

ochona - now there's maths that matter

I'd would have exchanged my A-level maths (calculus included) for financial planning anyday.

math you need a 2 x 4 is 1-1/2 x 3-1/2
an 8' precut stud is 7'-8 5/8"

.... and if you want to join the modern world - you'll go decimal and take the meter as your base dimension!

Steven I love that story, pretty funny!

yeah from what I have read as well, Mr Tadao Ando was a boxer, and then after his formal yrs in school ( from what I remember) he told his father he wanted to travel. He packed his shit and off he was to the west...Europe that is, where he visited architectural sites and taught himself to draw, and sketch.

A brilliant man!

oh yeah, so don't loose hope young grasshoppa!

Learn all you can, but don't sweat the grades (unless they are vital to you and to your being accepted to a top notch uni). Otherwise, whilst you enjoy learning what you are being taught, you will find that it can all be put to good use.

sq, you mean lose hope?
sorry just had to point spelling

semantics semantics.....hehe, yes of course (I've been known to make mistakes too)

Thanks sameolddoc!

i took two years of chemistry in high school. interesting, yes, but mostly irrelevant to architecture except for those all-important lessons on dissimilar materials and their reactions.

and a little something called dimensional analysis.

dimensional analysis, simply put, is a way to take a quantity that is expressed in one kind of unit and convert it into another kind of unit using known equivalencies. the way my chemistry teacher taught it was very graphical, which made it stick in a way that stoichiometry did not.

i still use this method almost every single day. an example:

i have 200,000 square feet. i want to "express" that area in terms of required number of fire exits. my occupancy type says that each occupant has 200 square feet of space to themselves, and that each occupant needs 0.2 inches of width. i'm going to make the assumption that each fire exit corridor, for a number of reasons, needs to be 84 inches wide.

200,000 sf * (1 occupant / 200 sf) * (0.2 inches egress width / occupant) * (1 fire exit corridor / 84 inches) = 2.38 fire exits -> 3 fire exits

in other words, 200,000 sf equals three fire exits.

math trains you in much the same way: while math theory is as nonlinear and instinctual and intuitive as anything, the method of math (especially simple math up thru single-variable calculus) is linear and orderly. i learned in calculus/physics/etc to solve a problem by applying a series of ordered iterative steps rather than all at once. thing is, we had to show our work in HS calculus or else we didn't get any credit. for better or for worse, it's now how i design.