I'm assuming you mean first year grad, and not undergrad. Was your undergrad in architecture?

I'm currently in my 5th (and final) studio for my 4 year degree in architecture, I came back after 7 years being out of school to (hopefully) finish my degree.

Right now I'm in a studio of mostly graduate students, and being one of the few undergrads there makes me feel rather stressed trying to compete with them for grades.

In my early studios I was lucky and usually got quality (and mostly positive) feedback from my professors. It was easier because I felt good about my work compared to others around me, and could relax and just design.

Now I feel as if I, as an undergrad, have to try to outperform students that are above me (grad students, many with professional experience). It hasn't helped that we've only had 1 project this semester, so I haven't been graded on anything yet. Final crit is on Dec. 10th and I have no idea where I stand! The professor has been giving informational feedback, telling me helpful things to look up in books, or other architect's work to look at, but hasn't given much positive or negative feedback about it.

The closer the end of the semester gets, the more stressed I get about it, I hate the idea of getting up in front of the class, presenting my work, and thinking nobody thinks my design is as interesting as I do.


I would ask if you are friends with anyone in your studio. It helps to have someone else to talk to and compare how you're doing with, other than in a formal crit.

I would suggest that for now, you try to do the best work that you can, for yourself. Make your design how you want to, and to the level that you think is good.

It just may be that all this stress and panic and negative criticism is more about the competitive environment we work in, and not about your design in particular. Your professor might think you're doing just fine (except for the missed classes, but thats understandable).

If however it turns out that you get a lower grade than you expected, talk with your professor after your grades come out, tell him or her that you didn't think your project was that bad and ask why they thought the way they did, and what you can do to improve it.


I've kinda shut down over the last two weeks worrying about how I'm doing in studio. Whether or not I graduate this semester depends on my GPA, and in my other classes I've had exams that have given me feedback so I know I'm doing OK, but in studio I have nothing, so its been very stressful.

Just try to fight through it...if you give up you're sure to fail and feel even worse than you do now, but if you fight back and do the best you can under the circumstances, at least you'll be able to learn something about yourself to improve your work for the future.

Good luck, hope it all turns out well for you!

Bettyloo I recently came to realize that design work is all about selling. I'm a senior now and recently I worked as a door-to-door salesperson for a short time but I learned a lot. People yelled at me,people slammed doors on my face or laughed at my face for trying to sell the product or did lots of other rude things. I've never been humiliated so much in my entire life! but I got used to it. It is a part of the selling process. Every people who has worked in sales know how much hard it is,especially if your income depends mainly on the commission.

Industrial design students are used to this,they not only have to design the product but search for the market,determine people's need and figure out how to sell and market the product (as a part of the curriculum). You may have the best design skills in the world but if you can't sell it it is worthless.Likewise even if your product is not that good,if you have good sales,persuasion skills and can convince people your product is the best thing since the sliced bread then you become successful but it is definitely not easy. You have to be aggressive! I suggest you to check out some sales and presentation books. I recently read the Presentation secrets of Steve Jobs and learned a lot from it.

Of course you should still spend many hours trying to come up with a good design solution and produce good models,drawings to explain your design but what I'm saying is your selling/presentation skills are just as important as the design of your product. If somebody tells you your product is a piece of s**t,don't get mad instead try to convince them otherwise.

The above advice is really good, so listen to that.

Here's the way I see it:

There are a few different entities that all get wrapped together in critique -

There's "you" as a person who needs to be (generally) healthy and happy.

There's "your work" which is what you're interested in doing architecturally speaking - this can vary with the school's pedagogy, but essentially, it's what you'd be doing without a school to guide you. It's your personal investment in architecture, continually blending and expanding with what you do in class

And there's "the project" which is what you're producing for school that will be graded so that you can be evaluated and eventually get a degree. This needs to be finished, and in the "finished" capacity, may not reflect what you really like "your work" to be...This is where it's essential to separate #2 from #3; what you produce for school may not always mesh with what you're interested in, but you gotta do it. And it's easier (and often more productive) if you can mentally remove your emotional ties so that you can push forward with "the project" - often in the end, this really helps you learn and expand "your work"

good luck

bettyloo - I've had that feeling too, I graduated from architecture school with b.arch degree in 2006. But I realized that architecture is not for me back in 2004, 2 years before graduation, however, decided to finish my education.

Design crits are important, even if they completely destroy your design, it is important to listen to criticism because you are not an expert yet, and there is really no such thing as bad criticism. And there is no such thing as "too sensitive", you are either been today very well until this point or got false encouragements in your life and thought that you are a really successful individual, but now in arch school, you realize that you are not that person and there are better people, more successful people, while your design is getting trashed, their designs are getting praised.

You are confused because in this society we were thought from very young age that you must stand up for yourself, you must protect your idea no matter how bad your idea is. Well, welcome to arch school where this mentally will get challenged in every studio. Should you protect your idea? or should you listen to criticism and evolve your design based on that? I would go with the later.

Its up to you, whether you want to be stuck in your self-centered world, or listen to the voices outside and at least consider what they are saying.

good luck.

This is exactly the kind of obnoxious comments that I find so frustrating about the program. I have no problems with criticism of the design, the problem is that I find it to be a very negative environment to work with IN GENERAL. And who are you to judge whether or not I was overly encouraged earlier in life? You must have me confused with yourself.

Sometimes the teachers think that instilling fear is a motivating factor, except it's not working for me at all - fear is just making me feel like I'll never graduate, and totally demoralizing me and cutting down on my ability to produce. I frankly think some teachers do not know how to teach, or sometimes they make mistakes in using the wrong tactics for the wrong students. I.E. a harsh criticism on someone with an enormous ego might help to improve their design - a harsh criticism on someone that already sees all the flaws in their design will do nothing but reinforce negativity.

But I really greatly appreciate the first two comments. I definitely think I need to draw a better line between me (and my personal happiness), the work, and the project, I'm sure reminding me to separate the two will help me understand that it's not personal and prevent me from being generally demotivated.

This is exactly the kind of obnoxious comments that I find so frustrating about the program. I have no problems with criticism of the design, the problem is that I find it to be a very negative environment to work with IN GENERAL. And who are you to judge whether or not I was overly encouraged earlier in life? You must have me confused with yourself. I was not taught to defend my ideas at all times, I was taught to shut up while the teacher talks. It is taking me extreme effort to get into this frame of mind where I have to be uber-confident about my mediocre design - and I notice all the students with enormous egos seem to do ok, even when they do have mediocre design! And it is just because of their confidence and presentation, Milwaukee 08, you are absolutely right!

Sometimes the teachers think that instilling fear is a motivating factor, except it's not working for me at all - fear is just making me feel like I'll never graduate, and totally demoralizing me and cutting down on my ability to produce. I frankly think some teachers do not know how to teach, or sometimes they make mistakes in using the wrong tactics for the wrong students. I.E. a harsh criticism on someone with an enormous ego might help to improve their design - a harsh criticism on someone that already sees all the flaws in their design will do nothing but reinforce negativity.

But I really greatly appreciate the first two comments. I definitely think I need to draw a better line between me (and my personal happiness), the work, and the project, I'm sure reminding me to separate the two will help me understand that it's not personal and prevent me from being generally demotivated.

bettyloo - sorry if I offended, I agree with you that some teachers are just too negative, I had few as well and that made the whole studio very negative. I also had some fun teachers, and the whole semester was fun. I guess you are still deciding whether architecture is for you, because in real world after college there is rarely such thing as good criticism and non-negative environment.

I am just saying that, it is necessary to listen to criticism and have some negative-environment in your studio a semester or two, this prepares you for real world, so don't get discouraged by that.

If you already see the flaws, you need to communicate that to your professor. The vast, VAST majority of students do not see flaws (OR strengths, much of the time) and a lot of getting through architecture school is simply learning how to evaluate your own work, and become your own editor. The professor needs to facilitate that, and therefore -- particularly in the first few years -- needs to make sure the students get channeled in the right direction. This requires both positive and negative reinforcement. Example : "Here's what you did well; here's what isn't working. You need to ditch this idea entirely, improve this other one, and keep this last one as is -- it's great."

Is your professor giving you this kind of critique? Yes, or No? Now hold that thought :

To a moderate extent, critiques (juries AND desk crits) are determined by how you yourself present your project and frame the debate. I find that often students don't realize just how much their own comments can define (and, in a positive way, control) the discussion; you realize that when you sit in the jury chair yourself. In this, I concur with the poster above who suggested learning how to sell you project -- however, don't think of it as selling -- think of it as guiding and framing the discussion. If there are specific parts of your project that you want the jury to look at, you need to be very particular about how you present those. You can't ever completely control a critique, of course, but you can certainly do what you can do get the feedback you need.

Which brings us back to you and your professor.

If you aren't getting the kind of criticism you need, then try the following. Tell your professor that you tend to see a lot of faults with your work and that you have difficulty reading the strengths, and that this is leaving you stymied when you sit down to work in the evenings, because you look at your project and you don't know what's good enough to move forward on. Ask your professor specifically -- before you've discussed anything else about your project, to look it over and help you recognize what's working and what you should move forward with and build on. Finally, tell your professor that you have identified x, y, and z as potential faults, and you'd like his/her thoughts (you may find that you're wrong about your projects' flaws).

Your professor is most likely a trained architect; not a trained educator. For some architects, teaching comes naturally, for some it does not. You'll have good communicators and not-so-good communicators as professors. They each, however, will have something important to tell you about architecture, and unfortunately, the truth is that sometimes you will have to both work at communicating together, at trying to speak the same language. So if you're not getting what you want out of a crit, don't expect your professor to read your mind -- speak up, and tell you professor what kind of criticism you need.

And lastly, know that your professor wants you to succeed. I don't think students quite realize this... your teacher may be frustrated right now that he/she hasn't managed to hit the right note with *you*. Teaching is not easy and not particularly rewarding, and teachers choose to do it because they like to engage with students. You may be surprised to learn that your professor is nervous on your crit day as well, just like you -- he/she wants to see that all of his/her students have done well, and are happy with their projects, and got some sleep, and are feeling confident, and have pulled off a good presentation, and everything. No teacher wants to see his/her student crash and burn. So don't feel like it's two sides in a fight -- your teacher is on your side too, and if you have a problem like this, you should make an appointment and discuss it with him/her.

It used to help me a lot to start desk crits with :

1. This is the thing that's frustrating me the most, in my design
2. This is the thing I'm happiest with in my design.

"You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you cant fool all of the people all the time".

That quote I've heard was supposedly attributed to Abraham Lincoln. I think of it as replacing "fool" with "please", in regards to life, and architecture school.

You can't make everyone happy (with your designs) all of the time, and some people are just naturally confrontational people which you can never please.


It all depends if they themselves offer any type of solution to their negative criticisms. If they do, realize that they are trying to balance their criticisms and (in their mind at least) help you, try to acknowledge that changes could be made, if all they do is criticize and won't (or aren't smart enough to) offer up a solution, defend your solution. Challenge them to provide a solution that's better, and then defend why you did what you did and how you believe it is the best solution for the situation.

In this environment we're often lead to believe that its the best designers that will tell people what their doing wrong, so many will be overly critical of other peoples work thinking that their design is high quality, so criticizing others reinforces their self-image of being "good".

And there is the thought in architecture school that some people just don't have the talent to be good designers, so professors are often encouraged to expose students they think are unworthy and get them out of the school. Students generally know professors are supposed to "weed out" or "thin the herd", and since they see the professor something to aspire to (both to make themselves better professionally, and to get a good grade), they will criticize other students to try to "expose" them as bad designers.

In a subjective class like studio not everyone can be good, unlike a lecture class where theoretically anyone can do well on an exam. Studio is like a game of musical chairs, someone has to be on the bottom but nobody wants to be "it", so criticizing others is something people often do to make themselves look better, and to expose other peoples flaws.

Basically what I'm saying is try to learn what you can from your colleagues, even if all you learn is that sometimes you just have to ignore people.

Thank you all for your replies. These last comments have really help me understand the motivations of others, and why they may be acting the way they are, regardless of my own work.

I am not in college and have spent several years in the work world already, at this point quitting is out of the question. I do really like architecture and think I can make it, simply because I've tried other things that I didn't enjoy as much. Hopefully I will be able to toughen up a little bit, focus on my work, and ignore the rest.

Thanks again -

You will. It may take some sleepless nights and perhaps even a tear or two. But you will learn and persevere if you keep a positive attitude.


I do think that there are those that 'have it' and those that don't, but when and if someone gets there is a large variable. I consider myself to have 'sucked' until the end of the second year, so 4 design classes (and a full summer prior to starting undergrad with a wonderful prof). I did ok though and eventually I 'got it', but it took a lot of sweat and tears.

Study other's work, both your classmates and the exceptional in this profession (use your library!). Understand why someone got a great crit, and if you don't, ask questions. You'll be amazed at how much you learn and you'll discover that there really is some consistency to the crits, even thought it can seem/feel like it is a total hit/miss, love/hate.

Bettyloo,

I would suggest obviously not to focus on the negativity. Going through MANY similar negative crits in which the suggestions were to simply start over. I decided early on, that you have to stay true to yourself and what you really believe. In the end, it only matters what you thought of your design. In some sick/ weird way it can make you a stronger person and designer, by standing up against negative comments, and doing what you feel is right. I’m not saying that all crits are bad, for me desk crits worked a lot better, less pressure-more causal. And some mid-crits were extremely helpful, it really depends on the personality of the people reviewing. Again, when you are designing something it is all opinion based-for the most part (unless for building/zoning codes). I hope you have found some positive in my advice, and it is always good to talk to someone, who is neutral. Sometimes you need to just let it out. Good luck on your future projects !

-Andy

re : separating yourself from your work --

honestly, after awhile it just gets easier. I used to take things personally at first, and honestly by now it's hard to even remember feeling that way. Mostly because after awhile you realize that your designs become much more of a joint effort between yourself and others (in school, you have multiple feeds of input and each of these has a hand in crafting your thinking, and in the profession, well there are even MORE points of input). Even the most iconoclastic designs have to, in some way, become a bit of a team effort just to get built. So, I guess you start feeling less attached to particular ideas and designs and realizing that your career is an arc -- you are just at the very beginning of it, but it goes on and on, and you will have plenty of time to resuscitate and improve various threads of ideas / designs that you had to put aside previously for some reason or another.

If you like something, but it's not working for a particular project, learn to recognize when it isn't a bad idea itself but it doesn't fit for that particular project -- and then put it to the side and save it for later. You'd be surprised how much it helps to know that every project isn't your last, and to know how much you'll be able to revisit earlier ideas, earlier forms, and -- in a sense -- have a conversation with your own self throughout your career in which you pick up ideas, put them down, pick them up again, refine them, adapt them, discard them, start new ones, mix the new ones with the old ones, etcetera. Again, it's an arc. This is how you develop as a designer. Don't get too hung on to any one thing. I disagree with AndyV for that reason. Sometimes standing up to negative criticism just means holding on to an idea that's not working, when you could be moving on and making something better.

Just know that your ideas aren't life forms -- they won't die, gasping on your drafting table, if they need to be removed from your project. They live on, in your mind and sketchbook, and they come back to life later. Knowing that really helps me work through idea after idea and not feel too bad when one gets criticised.