Professional Degree means either a Bachelor of Architecture or Master of Architecture. With a four-year degree, unfortunately you have either a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture or a Bachelor of Science in Architecture; neither allows you to sit for the exam in most states. (Some states--very few--still allow someone to sit for the exam after working for a long time, such as 13 years.)

Check out NCARB's documentation on the subject.

It sounds like you may have to go back to school to earn a professional Master's of Architecture in order to be eligible for licensure.

Frankly... I'm kind of shocked you made it through four years of school with nobody explaining this to you! (?!)

I just found this

link

under 2i - so i think i need 5 years

That's great. Also impressive that NY still offers the 12 year route, with no college degree necessary. Go NY!

However, keep in mind that you probably will be very limited as to which states you can transfer your license to, should you ever decide to practice outside of NY.

1170 TUs per your 4 yr degree according to NCARB which equals 4.68 years @ 50 full time 40 weeks a year in the exact TU categories being fulfilled......never happen.

go to grad school

-ff33 where do you see that? I see here 1170 TU's apply to CO and IL...
For NY it says 5 years, so Im assuming you need the typical 700 Training Units within a 5 year period

I would LOVE to go to grad school but right now with all my student loans for my 4 YR degree I just dont think i can afford it

yea accumulate your loans, go to grad school - and depending on which state you are in they will help pay for it. But it seems like the best thing for you is grad school

outthere, it's kind of confusing but it sounds like you don't need a professional degree, but you DO need to complete IDP. If I were you I would put phone calls into both your state licensing board and NCARB to clarify these points. Write down the name of who you talk to, the time of call, etc. for your records, of course. (you never know, with NCARB...)

if you can avoid more loans, by all means do it.

outhere - as I read this thread Im running my finger along the edge of my newly framed license from the state of IL.

4 yr bachelors of Architecture. 1170 TU's. Take the exam. You need to go to the State of New York's Department of Profesional Regulation and find out what 4 year programs are acceptable in that state. Remember - NCARB suggests the rules and the states more or less abide. But each state tweaks them whichever way they need to. In my case UIC is an acceptable 4 year program for licensure.

Find out is SUNY is an acceptable 4 year bachelors in NY.

Its ironic that heres a thread trying to make the most of a 4 year degree, the gold standard of the last 50 years, and folks are telling him just go to grad school make life easier - have you read this thread?
[url=http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=78797_0_42_0_C
]link[/url]

Complacency in accepting the dictated "track" is how we got into this mess. You kids in grad school have been tracked since birth. Even in kindergarten youve been seperated into the high middle and low reading groups, math groups, set on a track predetermined by educational philosophers with accountability. Your being brainwashed. Fight the Power.

ladies and gentlement - this is why we have this thread. Its good to know that there is something you can get registered with just a 4 year pre-professional degree. I would be curious if that registration could be transferred or allow you to take the licensing exam in another state.

not for the first 5 years I believe of my licensure. I would have to petition the states directly - not through NCARB's reciprocity program. Look - Im all for IDP and I think NCARB's intern development program is great. But do not be fooled that NCARB and the universities are in bed together on meddeling with the education standards. My own school - UIC - actualy told me there is no way possible for you to become licensed in Illinois with a four year degree from this institution. Yet here I am.

Lesson 1 - your school will lie, distort or sell bad info or terrible loans.
Lesson 2 - your alone and need to figure it out for yourself
Lesson 3 - people who support less architectural education should stand up, be heard on this forum, speak to college kids, and keep the 4 year discussion open and never let it be killed. Our entire post war society has been built arounf the 4 year degree. Is the world honestly that much more complex now? I dont think so.

Ive learned Lesson 1 first hand. My professor who had a presentation to our class on grad school said if we didnt go to grad school we would need something like 12years of experience before being able to sit for the exam.

I will definately call NCARB and the state ..thanks for the advise.

I do have an associates degree in engineering and a total of 6 years of college and more debt from school would just be to much for me right now.

Thanks positive-p

outhtere I feel your pain.


... p-p has very good insight here. I gave up on his #3 and just went ahead applied to Grad School Last yr. ...so I have a 2 yr A.A.S. degree ...+ the 4 yr design degree...and there is no solution for me I feel...aside from commiting to working for someone for the next 5 yrs...so whatever,...I am going back to school.

but outthere, I respect that you think you have had enough...

spread the word

what word is that?

i did pre-prof 4 yr degree then 2.5 yr pro degree, working in office for 3.5 years in between the 2. i knew going in that was the way it was going to be.

but not having an accredited pro degree is i think an enormous liability, so i didn't settle.

without 2nd degree i would not have been able to get my licence in the UK, nor anywhere in Europe for instance. 5 years is the requirement in most countries as a minimum. why is it better to aim for less? i can't understand it really. if the aim is less education then why not go to 5 yr b.arch school? at least that way you don't force yourself into a corner.

the system where i live (japan) is one where if you can sit for the exam and pass it you can be an architect. education is not part of the equation except that they require 7 years exp for high school grad, 2 years for bachelor of anything. and NO experience if you have a masters degree in anything. which is why many architects in japan open offices or get licence without having ever worked professionally.

which is great. but if you live in north america the easiest choice is just to get the pro degree. 1 yr more of school in exchange for freedom to move to another state seems pretty easy calculus to me.

But even with a 4 year degree and a license you can get reciprocity. Just not via NCARB. No one advocates less education, just focused 4 year education. A real education grounded in physics, technology, art and design. Does it bother anyone that our whole studio experience is essentially exploration of the avante-garde? Maybe even practicle design studios and not playtime for adjunct professors is in order. This is how it was done for years and no one can say we are better designers today than 40 years ago. What says studio at school is a better way to learn than drafting in the studio of a real architect?

You will not graduate and then become an architect with the 4 year. You will graduate and continue your IDP. As far as protecting the health and welfare of the public as the license dictates you may even be a few years ahead. And as for design it could be argued the master of the common techniques is best to tackle higher forms and architectural theory because the basics of all buildings are inherent in even the most mundane warehouses and strip malls. Maybe if we concentrated on the world as it is we would be better tooled to actually advance it towards what we want. Maybe we will even start to respect the complexity of the buildings we callously dismiss.

The other danger I fear is the personality type becoming architects today is "filtered" through the selective process of design schools which are fashion heavy and incestuous in their harvesting of new talent who thinks like them, talks like them and emulates them. Somewhere theres a brilliant kid drawing buildings as they are and learning by doing and slowy digesting what they see so that can hope to achieve more later once they understand the world around them. And somewhere theyre being told they may be better cut out for engineering who deal with such mundane matters. What is the danger of telling the entire next generation the world as it is is completely broken and you have to fix it but don't worry about learning why its broken. You run the risk of throwing out the things that do work just fine and creating a quagmire of dissatisfaction and disrespect.

As the degree requirement inflation started in the late 80s and early 90s a whole generation of architects became conspicuously absent in the profession. There is a drought of architects right now 35-45 - the same age as the start of the degree inflation. There's a small uptick occurring this decade in the enrollment to take exams but there's something very different about the abilities to lead a construction project from conception through completion with our generation. I just dont see the caliber of person entering the profession as the people Ive worked for all now in their 50s and 60s. Today its a lot of "archi" - graphic designer render heavy talent but severely lacking in the technical and legal mindedness to required to execute the "tecture" part of the professional body. I think this is directly the result of the refocusing of the architect's education from preparation for licensure to "design" exploration.

PositiveP Kick'n some knowledge, street style

i get your point of view pp.

by pure chance i worked for years in an office where almost NONE of the architects went to uni, including the president. like tadao ando 50% of the staff were self taught about the theory and design of architecture, and got their technical and design training in the office, drafting as you say for another architect. the rest went to community college type schools and learned to draft but couldn't tell you the difference between togo murano and frank lloyd wright. so essentially i lived in the world you describe. i don't think it works. in fact it really works poorly from anything but a technical point of view.


the president of my office finished high school then got his license after working 7 years and taking the exam. he is driven, a good businessman, a very good draftsman, and actually not too bad as a designer. he is by far one of the smartest people i know who make a living as an architect. which is why he runs the show.

BUT the rest of his staff who followed the same route as him are pretty much incapable of critical thinking. technically perfect workers they bring the level of competence of the office down. and it is entirely because they have no education in the way architects might think about architecture outside of the engineering world - testing ideas, exploring the limits of a project and so on. when i first started working at the office i was hired as a designer basically, because my education in canada prepared me for that. of course i was horrible at the technical side of things, but after 3+ years of 14 hour days 7 days a week i pretty much had that side of things in hand. now it is close to 8 years since i quit that job and i have become i think quite ok as an architect, comfortable with theory, academia and the technology of architecture. in fact i am quite geeky about the latter.

but the guys i left behind are still doing the same work they always did. this is, as far as i can tell, because no one taught them that architecture is a living art, requiring critical thinking and not just technical competence. if it were not for my old boss the place would be a wreck. and when he retires in a few years i am pretty confident the place will be done. no one else there has ever been required to think beyond calculating FAR or structural loads, or how to detail a wall.

sure it is possible to become a good architect without that studio work, but it is much harder. by way of evidence i suggest taking a look with google street view down any part of tokyo.

what you have to say is valid, but in the end i think a balanced education is essential. at my school i think we did quite ok on that score. i certainly would not dismiss professional degrees as stupid or as missing the important bits. choosing to not go to a pro degree school in order to become an architect because of that bias would be an enormous error. doing it for financial reasons i understand. the rest, which comes down to learning competencies is i think not a correct characterisation of archi-school by a long shot.

Im not advocating no school. I'm not advocating no critical thinking. Im advocating the the 4 year bachelors of architecture for licensure requirement be kept available.

platypus: you can get reciprocity in some states without a professional degree. But not in many others. About a third of all states have no way to apply for reciprocity at all without an NCARB certificate. And even many of those that don't require an NCARB certificate still require a profesisonal degree for reciprocity.

Also: the NCARB certificate that is granted to people with a professional degree is not the same as the "Broadly Experienced Architect" (BEA) NCARB certificate that is available to those who do not hold professional degrees but who have been licensed in at least one state for at least 8 years. The latter is not accepted by several states. The application process for the BEA NCARB certificate is also very expensive (over $1000 to apply, $750 for each interview, etc.) and the application process typically takes 1 to 3 years...
Certainly it's not impossible, but I don't think we should oversimplify the difficulties.

Well in that case lets all go get 45K in debt and get a masters degrees - because thats certainly easier. Bloopox I think your missing the point - because NCARB is slowly forcing these rules we should cave in and accept it? Remember these requirements can be as easily repealed as they were enacted - NCARB did not say to moses chisel these requirements in stone. My guess is that as the boomers move towards retirement and the architect dip hits the rules will again change to allow more people into the profession. Its a check valve in the guise of education.

I dind'nt go through all 50 but I went through at least 25 and only came up with 4 states that don't accept BEA standard - and of those 4 one says contact state board for case by case. And if you read a State Licensure Act - they almost always say that reciprocity arrangements can be at the discretion of the licensure board.

hm, that is good to know,

but why not just take a 5 year degree. one year makes that much difference with the debt? surely that 25-50 k could be spent on one more year of schooling and then the problem disappears.


more the point, the 5 year minimum reqt. is i am guessing partly a move to keep up with international standards. 5 years of focused architecture education is what is expected in many countries now...and they are talking about making it standard in japan too. its a reciprocity thing. not impt to most, but still...

at the time i was in school my university offered 4 year only so I wouldn't have been able to do the 5 year - the 4 year was still quite common in the 90s.

My former boss went through the BEA process because it was the only way he could get reciprocity in an adjacent state. It took about three years. He did it mainly because the firm had a lot of onging work in that state and the other partner was planning to retire, so there wasn't going to be anybody in the firm who could stamp the drawings for that state. It can be done but it doesn't fix all situations. Sure, rules can and will change in the future. But the current state of things is that each year more states seem to toe the NCARB line.
There are 15 states where NCARB certification is mandatory for reciprocity. BEA certification isn't currently accepted in Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missourri, New Jersey, or Washington, (or in Kansas unless issued before 1993). There are 10 other states with rules allowing the state board to accept or reject BEA candidates at their discretion, and the other 30-some states do currently accept it. Some states do tend to make exceptions on case by case basis but others are notoriously inflexible.
Where it is accepted it's still not a quick fix. Even NCARB's poster-child for the BEA process took more than two years to get through the series of interviews & portfolio reviews, and you can't even apply until you've already been licensed for eight years.