Just curious Sbeth, how old are you?

A B.Arch is a fantastic route directly to a career in architecture if you already know you love architecture when you go into college for the first time. Of course, the content of any degree varies by institution, but it is generally rigorous and thorough and gives a solid, broad & varied architectural education.

If you are coming to the career a bit later (as most people do) then the M.Arch is the degree for you. Yes, you will have fewer studios and slightly fewer # of courses overall, but the courses are filled with more mature (hopefully), clearer-thinking older students and thus tend to be more advanced in nature. The programs tend to be more focussed in nature (due to type of faculty, school pedadogy, etc.) than B.Arch programs which necessarily need to be a bit more generalist in approach. Consider the M.Arch the lean and mean architecture education. Streamlined and intense; you'll be surrounded by older students who focus well and know what they want to study and, more importantly, know themselves a bit better than younger undergard students. You will not at all endanger your education at all; both degrees are vetted by the same accrediting institution (NAAB) and both are thorough preparation for becoming an architect. I am a graduate of a B.Arch program and I can tell you that at this point in your life, having already completed one Bachelor's degree, going back and fleshing out 5 years in a B.Arch program instead of just doing a 3-year M.Arch would be a waste of your time.

If you really want the speediest route, I would probably tell you to drop the architectural technology program in the first place... if it's how to detail buildings, that's very useful knowledge (and woefully lacking in architecture school) but the reason it's woefully lacking is because it can (and must) be gained during your professional practice anyway. So if you want an architecture degree as fast as possible, but still want to know how to detail, then I'd recommend just working construction in the summers between architecture school.

To passerby- I'm 23

Brief life story: In college from 16-21. It included 2 universities, 2 study-abroads, and a 1 semester stint in art school. Majored in European Cultural Studies, but you can bet most of my time was spent doing the pre-med.)

Mantaray-
Thank you for your thorough response!

I guess what I'm afraid of is that though I do think I want to become an architect, I also want to give my creative self time to...:ahem: flower. Ugh, hate the puberty metaphors. Sure, I'd like a streamlined approach. But on the other hand, I don't want to stuff an advanced education down my throat without allowing myself time to explore the different avenues of architecture.

About the 'architectural technologist' thing- I am calling it that for lack of a better term, it's a degree they have here in Israel. It does attempt to integrate some arts into the education, and by the end we can design and sign on 4-story buildings (technically we can design 100-story buildings, but would not be able to sign on them.) I miss the academic rigor of university, I miss the theory and the philosophy. Maybe I'm just being a smarty-pants, who knows? I probably could make a living with this degree, but for personal reasons want to pursue something a bit more upstanding.

Yes, if I could, I would switch immediately to an M.Arch. However, I don't have the GREs yet, nor a portfolio. That means I could only apply for Fall 2010, by which time I'd have finished 2 years of this degree (I'm already 1 semester in!) so why not finish the entire 2.5 year degree here and THEN go for the M.Arch? (As I mentioned, who knows if I'll get tied down here in the meantime and never make it? And who knows if I should work a few years?)

Trust me, and I am absolutely dead serious, it will take you your entire life to "flower" in your personal creative process. You will spend your entire life searching to pin down exactly what being creative is to you -- what form it takes, what you're interested in exploring, etcetera will constantly be shifting and you will constantly be seeking out new avenues of thought. That is part of the beauty and fun of a creative lifestyle! The B.Arch and M.Arch will be no different in this respect. You will not completely flower in either; this is a process that will consume you for the rest of your life.

You need to think of the arc of an architectural education in its complete form : it lasts a lifetime and is not contained within either degree. They are both only one small piece of the process. Any designer worth their salt would let you in on this secret. Architectural education, in whatever form it comes in, is not the end all be all of becoming an architect.

Give it up and take the M.Arch already. At age 25 you will not want to be studying alongside 18 year olds who are taking their first courses outside of high school and do not understand what self-paced projects (without daily homework assignments, collection, and constant "grading" feedback) actually mean. You will probably spend the first 3 years frustrated at the pace of the program and will really only "flower" (if that's how you want to think of it) during the last few -- so just go to the M.Arch where there is higher-level mature thinking to begin with. Again I say this as the proud holder of a B.Arch degree.

Thank you so much, mantaray, your comments have been truly insightful.

I agree with above - I think probably the primary factor will be an issue of maturity ... I would argue that you will have a much more intellectually developed experience with a more mature group that one would find in graduate school ... the rest, you'd be surprised, you can catch up on as you go.

I fully agree with mantaray!

I went to a 5-year undergrad, and now i am doing a 2-year (nonaccreditted) masters at a school that also offers the 3-year track. So, I've seen both.

The 5-year was great and will definitely prepare you, but i think the 3-year is better for all the reasons already stated above.

Also consider - the 5-year I went to took that amount of time because it was a series of sequential studios that were all prerequisites for each other, and the rest of the course load for the beginning years contained a few things you've probably already taken: english comp, physics, etc. So.. i dunno if that's as pertinent as i thought it would be.

in any case....best of luck.

I guess what complicates matters is that I'm NOT studying in the U.S.

Here in Israel, most of the students are already 22-25 when they START their B.Archs. Which might make for a more worldy/mature group, but I dunno about their academic preparedness.

What also makes it tough is that it's hard to predict how an Israeli marketplace would treat an M.Arch vs a B.Arch. MArch's aren't common here... an unknown element. At the end of the day, I think they care more about skill than your title, though. I want to pursue an M.Arch mostly for ME.

Though I think working for a few years might be a good idea, I don't know if I have that luxury, if I were to relocate countries. It's much easier done while young and single than with a family.