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Which programs to learn prior to grad school?

supersupao

What are the programs used most by 1st year grad students? and how do students typically come across these programs? Do the schools provide them at a resonable discount? are students expected to pay for each individual copy themselves?

Should I bother acquiring these programs now and becoming familiar with them or will I pick this up quickly upon starting m.arch?
or do schools kinda expect that you know your way around the program and hence do not provide a how to but instead just expect you to learn once they straight laying down the assignments?

 
Apr 11, 07 6:27 pm
rabbits

pens + pencils.

-andrew

Apr 11, 07 6:52 pm  · 
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postal

though i have no idea what your financial situation is, paying for any of those pieces of software as a student is borderline crazy... even at the student discount prices

there are plenty of sources for this software on the web or from friends

besides, companies almost want you to experience pirated software in school, it sells you on their product, so when you go out into the work place you request it from your employer...

in regards to part ii, i would recommend getting some of the software and figuring some of the things out. there are a bunch of tutorials online. your school might have classes that will "teach" the program to you. usually these end up being Q&A sessions while the professor throws you through a trial by fire of assignments that utilize a bunch of the freatures of the program. it may not be worth your $$$. (in hindsight, this is what I thought, but sometimes the course was a nice breather from other studio's and arch electives that can be rough)

however, this is just my personal experience

Apr 11, 07 6:58 pm  · 
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Tony Snow

sketchup is very easy to learn and free online. It's not the most powerful program, but you should definitely check it out before you go to school.

Apr 11, 07 9:07 pm  · 
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colinrichardson

you first have to know what programs are emphasized at your school. they'll probably give oyu a good opportunity to learn whatever 3d program they use. i would recommend familiarizing yourself with adobe illustrator, indesign, and photoshop. and you might want to learn autocad. when i got to michigan it was somehow just taken for granted that everyone knew it or that they could jut pick it up instantly. give it a try. and i wouldn't pay for anything before getting to school, even if you pay for legit copies, you'll probably get a much bigger discount through your school than you can get on your own.

Apr 11, 07 9:23 pm  · 
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bucku

sketchup sucks, but it is easy and very intuitive. i dont think that trying to learn programme after programme prior to grad school is very worth while. many grad schools have classes for such things that could be taken as electives, but even so you learn most of the programme by playing with it in studio on a real project. i would recommend casual programmes like photoshop, illustrator, and hone up on model making and hand drawing. these things are timeless (at least the latter two) and you can never be good enough at either of them.

Apr 11, 07 9:25 pm  · 
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med.

No programs at all. For now Just sketch a lot draw a lot, read a lot about architecture, design, philosphy, history, anthropology, art history, and modern art. And make sure to be mindful of the built environment in general.

Theonly computer program I would highly recomend is photoshop and indesign for now.

The others will come later .. much later.

Apr 12, 07 8:51 am  · 
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difficultfix

Our First 2 qtrs (qtr system) we were not allowed to use any tye of CAD softwares for our studio classes. they wanted any of the drawings we worked on to be done manually. The softwares that were were allowed to use were softwares like photoshop, illustrator, indesign, flash, and any other software that was not cad related. Now in our 3rd quarter we were told that they are opening the doors to the cad software. at our Campus (newschoolarch.edu) we have, CAD, Revit, FormZ, Viz, and Sketchup. I personally use Rhino and Solidworks (from my own pc) and CAD, REvit....

I am not really interested in Form Z i probably should...but I feel Rhino is a better choice for me now..They dont offer rhino on my campus... but I learned Rhino on my own and have been using it for almost 2 years now

Apr 12, 07 9:03 am  · 
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