How feasible is it to maintain a marital relationship while completing M.Arch? How does time management change? How were you able to make it work financially?
In my class, all of the married students who began the program, except for one BSN who returned to nursing, were still married at the end of the M.Arch., but the spouses were independent and had an occupation. Just make sure you make the most of your weekends and summers together. Realistically, when you take out the summers and school breaks, you are only "apart" from 2 to 2.5 years, but you will also be coming home every night except for about 2 to 7 all-nighters each term when a project is due.
The question should be, "How feasible is it to maintain a marital relationship?" There is nothing in an M.Arch that would cause your marriage to suffer that isn't there already. The program may stress the relationship and expose its weaknesses but the M.Arch isn't the cause for those things.
Time management should be focused on your priorities. Just like in any marriage. Financial considerations should be openly discussed and decisions made based on what's best for both of you. Just like in any marriage. Do you see the pattern?
I was married for 4.5 years of my program; probably the best thing for my grades and my marriage. We had to face a lot of issues those first years and it only made our marriage better. I always knew I had my wife's support when things were tough at school and that got me through a lot of it.
When I got engaged my advisor strongly urged me to consider waiting until after graduation to get married. Really glad I didn't listen to her "advice".
I did my M Arch while married, with children. I had one child before starting the masters and one during my 2nd year (I did a 3 year program). I also worked part time on weekends to help support my family. I think the biggest thing is that I had to just hunker down and work. I learned real fast when I was most productive and not. Fr example doing work at home was hard with the kids, but I found I could get up earlier and be more productive than if I tried to stay up all night on a project. I also found that although I socialized with my fellow students, I tried to ensure I was home every night to spend time with family as well. I found my family to be a grounding force, it let me set real limits on my time and be more productive. I knew people who basically lived in studio, but they were single and today I've heard many of them overwork themselves for the firms they are at as well. So really being married can act as a grounding for you, it will test your relationship, there might be jealousy, but overall I found it to be good to have.
The jealousy might be from a spouse that doesn't have much on their plate and whose life centers around the married graduate student. Like I said, that kind of situation would be difficult. The spouse would have to be autonomous. They should have their own life, more or less, while this is going on.
I did notice that singles spent more time in studio, but then, singles far outnumbered married people in a master's studio, about 6:1. The other thing is that the married people are seemingly training to be generalists, so they can work in an office, where the singles who LIVE in the studio are generally interested in design, and are sometimes sleeping in other classes that aren't as interesting to them.
Observant, the jealousy stemmed from the time I had to spendworking on projects and the few overnight ears, in essence school was my mistress. My wife was/is a stay at home mom so she had the kids to deal with and needed my help. It abbé straining trying to balance everything, but we made it through ( she was with me for 8 ofthe10 years I spent in school, so she was just getting tired of all the school/ work/home schedule I had).
In my program we all had thematic areas for our program of study. I specialized in sustainability for example. There were basically three camps within the studio: singles, married without kids, and married with kids. Those of us with kids tended to do more work from home than others especially the final year. I think what it boils down to is how you view your time and schooling, as a married person, or with kids, you do have to take their needs of you into account as well.
Jan 20, 13 11:33 am ·
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Married and completing M.Arch (3 years)?
How feasible is it to maintain a marital relationship while completing M.Arch? How does time management change? How were you able to make it work financially?
This is an interesting article: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/20/marriage
In my class, all of the married students who began the program, except for one BSN who returned to nursing, were still married at the end of the M.Arch., but the spouses were independent and had an occupation. Just make sure you make the most of your weekends and summers together. Realistically, when you take out the summers and school breaks, you are only "apart" from 2 to 2.5 years, but you will also be coming home every night except for about 2 to 7 all-nighters each term when a project is due.
Time management should be focused on your priorities. Just like in any marriage. Financial considerations should be openly discussed and decisions made based on what's best for both of you. Just like in any marriage. Do you see the pattern?
I was married for 4.5 years of my pr
I was married for 4.5 years of my program; probably the best thing for my grades and my marriage. We had to face a lot of issues those first years and it only made our marriage better. I always knew I had my wife's support when things were tough at school and that got me through a lot of it.
When I got engaged my advisor strongly urged me to consider waiting until after graduation to get married. Really glad I didn't listen to her "advice".
I did my M Arch while married, with children. I had one child before starting the masters and one during my 2nd year (I did a 3 year program). I also worked part time on weekends to help support my family. I think the biggest thing is that I had to just hunker down and work. I learned real fast when I was most productive and not. Fr example doing work at home was hard with the kids, but I found I could get up earlier and be more productive than if I tried to stay up all night on a project. I also found that although I socialized with my fellow students, I tried to ensure I was home every night to spend time with family as well. I found my family to be a grounding force, it let me set real limits on my time and be more productive. I knew people who basically lived in studio, but they were single and today I've heard many of them overwork themselves for the firms they are at as well. So really being married can act as a grounding for you, it will test your relationship, there might be jealousy, but overall I found it to be good to have.
Marisco:
The jealousy might be from a spouse that doesn't have much on their plate and whose life centers around the married graduate student. Like I said, that kind of situation would be difficult. The spouse would have to be autonomous. They should have their own life, more or less, while this is going on.
I did notice that singles spent more time in studio, but then, singles far outnumbered married people in a master's studio, about 6:1. The other thing is that the married people are seemingly training to be generalists, so they can work in an office, where the singles who LIVE in the studio are generally interested in design, and are sometimes sleeping in other classes that aren't as interesting to them.
Observant, the jealousy stemmed from the time I had to spendworking on projects and the few overnight ears, in essence school was my mistress. My wife was/is a stay at home mom so she had the kids to deal with and needed my help. It abbé straining trying to balance everything, but we made it through ( she was with me for 8 ofthe10 years I spent in school, so she was just getting tired of all the school/ work/home schedule I had). In my program we all had thematic areas for our program of study. I specialized in sustainability for example. There were basically three camps within the studio: singles, married without kids, and married with kids. Those of us with kids tended to do more work from home than others especially the final year. I think what it boils down to is how you view your time and schooling, as a married person, or with kids, you do have to take their needs of you into account as well.
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