Both are professional program, and accredited by NAAB.

I usually don't want to post any comparison between schools one of which I didn't attend at.

However, if I say cautiously, "I have heared that hunting a job after graduate from Sci-arc is much easier than other schools(VT)." is not the case.

The style of the both schools are really different so I cannot tell you which style is better fit to you. But, probably VT graduates are more easily find a job than Sci-arc.

VT pursues "realistic" design and Sci-arc pursues (digital) "utopian" design, and most of firms don't want to be utopian. Sci-arc graduates' rendering "skills" would help them to fiind a job, though.
Most of firms buy their skills but not their utopian ideas. It's sad but true...

I could be wrong about Sci-arc, but its trend was such in the 90's and the early 00's.

They are two very different graduate schools in how and what they teach. If security is such a big factor in your decision making then VT should be your choice.

two excellent schools. I would compare the two schools based on demographics but also, isn’t VT notorious for school shootings!

Damn. Not really funny.

vt's dorms and chow halls suck. i wouldn't choose a school based on safety.

btw tuna, you're an effing douche.

If she's going to grad school at VT and chooses to live on campus then she can only live in the GLC which isn't bad. Although it's cheaper and flexible to live off-campus.

And I agree, choosing between two very distinct schools should not be based on safety. But, it is one of her "biggest problems" so...

I am sorry making you feel the security is my biigest problem based on I didn't express clearly.
In fact, there are two problems entangle me. One is the expense for SCIARC worthy than that for VT, since SCIARC is more expensive.
The other one is the security. But after one day consideration, I think the former one is more important.
Waiting for help. Thank you all so much!

At first it seemed as if you (renjian...) wanted opinions to help you decide. Now it seems as if you want others to decide for you. I don't know where you are from, but if you are that concerned with the security of a school since it is in a major city, go to Blacksburg. The are some good schools in relatively rural, or isolated to the school iteself, areas ex. UFlorida, Syracuse... maybe Montana U has a graduate program.

Such a sarcasm...

VT is a safer and easier place to go to major cities in the East coast from Atlanta to New York and Boston after graduation.

Is SCi-Arc's program related with any urbanism?
As long as I know, SCI-Arc don't care about real worlds.
Then, why do you guys think that living 2 years in a real urban area is so much important to decide to attend at SCI-Arc?

I have lived my whole life in one of the most busy cities in the world.
Living just 2 years as a student in a metropolice, you shouldn't insist you experienced the whole life as a metropolitan, but you are just a visitor.

If your reserch area is not related with an urbanism, spending 2 years at a peaceful place wouldn't be that bad.

I don't recall stating the living in an urban or suburban environment is vital to your architecture education. (I would argue that it does help, however it is not something that I even eluded to.) What I did state and was sardonic about, was the decision to choose a school and pedagogy of study, based on "security." I also found it ironic that security was being discussed considering relative recent & unfortunate events at VT.

So Syp, your faux argument had little foundation. Oh, it terms of SCI-Arc not caring about the real world - If that is the case, throw most schools out of the window. As a matter of fact, consider most of your theoretical architects and visionaries as "not caring about the real world." Sci Arc teaches students to think outside of the box. This does not mean that there is not a foundation of pragmatism to ideas. It also does not mean that the thought process is one of Eisenman's pretentious rhetoric that is not feasible or the purely theoretical works of Lebbeus Woods. Sci-Arc nourishes thinkers. I imagine that a thinker would have read my post for what it stated and not what it didn't.

"Sci-Arc nourishes thinkers."

Really???

Academically, which school of thinking are you mentioning?

If you are saying you just "think", you'd better know that every body thinks.
You shouldn't say only you are thinking.

So, if you are saying the term "thinker" in an ambiguous way,
it means you are not a true "thinker".




PS.
Academically architecture is not a profound field in the contemporary society.
If you think you are a thinker doing your M.Arch, you should be not proud of that.
And if you want to be a thinker, do your PhD.
M.Arch is a professional degree.

I honestly did not consider the possibility that I would have to actually explain what I meant by "thinkers." To be as puerile as to believe that what I was alluding to was that only a select few "thinks" is not something that I anticipated. Before you assume something else, I am not saying that one (a person) needs a masters from any institution to be profound in architecture; nor am I stating that architecture, in any way, is a cure all for society's ills.

As for the rest of your ps - I have my distaste for many aspects of this field, which I did allude to in my previous post, so I'm not approaching this from some pretentious high horse. An march degree for those w/ a professional degree (ba) in arch, will more than likely not take a course covering the basic tectonics of the field, rather attempt to push their design abilities. Do you think that Frank Gehry will be at USC discussing how to put a cd set together or window details?

If you actually wanted to respond to my actual post and argue against it, then state whether or not someone should choose between SCI-Arc and VT based on security concerns, rather than pedagogy.

" I am not saying that one (a person) needs a masters from any institution to be profound in architecture"

Then, why did you go to Sci-Arc over other schools to learn "how to think"?




"Do you think that Frank Gehry will be at USC discussing how to put a cd set together or window details?"

Then, do you think VT teach just "how to put a cd set together or window details"?
I bet a community college better teachs stuffs like that than VT and SCI-Arc do...




And ironically when I saw some pretentious architects I think I'd better learn "how to put a cd set together or window details" from those architects because most of them have nothing to teach how to think but how to be pretentious.

Architecture isn't everything.
Life is more subtle and various.
It's upto him or her that weighs some values over others.

If he or she thinks security is important to concentrate on studying better, why do other people blame about that?

Should I have read a tone of levity in that or are you serious? I'm pretty sure that I typed "SCI_Arc nourishes thinkers." Am I saying that SCI_Arc is the only school that does so, no. Am I saying that anything negative about VT, no. What I am saying - again - is that SCI_Arc is known for "pushing the envelope" and pushing the design creativity and process in architecture. VT is more pragmatic and the pedagogy of both schools are far different than once another. Do you agree? (I hope that you're shaking your head yes.) That, THE PEDAGOGY, should be the main factor in deciding on where you are going to study and spend +50k on an education on.

I'm not sure if your missing a few ampersands in your last paragraph or not, but I'm going to guess that you meant that you did not want to learn how to put a cd set together from a pretentious architect. I'm not saying that F. Gehry does not know how to put a doc set together, I'm sure that he does, but it is not something that he is going to teach.

"Architecture isn't everything." - Syp

Thanks for the poetic note. However I didn't say that it was and the question was about which architecture school the poster should attend. So architecture is the topic at hand.

Should I have read a tone of levity in that or are you serious? I'm pretty sure that I typed "SCI_Arc nourishes thinkers." Am I saying that SCI_Arc is the only school that does so, no. Am I saying anything negative about VT, no. What I am saying - again - is that SCI_Arc is known for "pushing the envelope" and pushing the design creativity and process in architecture. VT is more pragmatic and the pedagogy of both schools are far different than one another. Do you agree? (I hope that you're shaking your head yes.) That, THE PEDAGOGY, should be the main factor in deciding on where you are going to study and spend +50k on an education on.

I'm not sure if your missing a few ampersands in your last paragraph or not, but I'm going to guess that you meant that you did not want to learn how to put a cd set together from a pretentious architect. I'm not saying that F. Gehry does not know how to put a doc set together, I'm sure that he does, but it is not something that he is going to teach.

"Architecture isn't everything." - Syp

Thanks for the poetic note. However I didn't say that it was and the question was about which architecture school the poster should attend. So architecture is the topic at hand.

Holz - absolutley wrong about the chow halls. Prolly the best in the country. HTH school is one of the best in the country, and they serve it up! Don't know about the dorms, never lived in them.

You said like SCI-Arc nourishes thinkers.
And now you are saying SCI-Arc is creative.

Again, you are being really vague in using the term creativity.
Don't tell other people only what are you doing is creative.
I would say the both school are creative in a way.
Only the directions are different.
(Personally I don't think SCI-Arc's philosophy is that creative, though. It's a sort of the 90's.)



"That, THE PEDAGOGY, should be the main factor in deciding on where you are going to study and spend +50k on an education on."


It's only your opinion but not his or hers, and VT wouldn't burden +50K on a student. The pedagogy in architecture academia is somehow important but not that critical if you don't want to be a scholar.
In a broader view living in a capitalism society, +50K finanical burden could be a more critical factor to decide a school than following a transient fashion for 2 years because after graduation the practicing continues for tens of years anyway.
And that 2 years' debt could restrain your professional life for 30 years.
If someone wants to study in a profound way, I would recommend him to do Phd which offers more financial supports and academical depth and width.
M.Arch is not worth for enormous debts.

Do you realize that your argument is tangential to what I was stating? Also, are you seriously drawing a line separating "thinking" from "being creative"?

I am not being vague, the terms themselves are vague. If you don't like SCI_Arc, that's fine. You could dislike GSD, Cornell, Penn etc. and it doesn't matter. I wasn't promoting SCI_Arc or any other institution. I was saying that the decision should be primarily based on what you will learn and obtain from the program that you will spend a considerable amount of money and time on. (I can't state this any clearer.)

I almost agree with you about the debt and whether it is worth it or not. Architecture is not a lucrative career to begin with and I've heard older architects refer to it as basically a black hole of despair on their lives.

If you think my argument is tangential to yours, it is probably because my English is not refined enough to clearly deliever my intent.....

Or someone else might think my arguments answer to yours well enough, though.

I hope that Renjiansiyuetian might get some ideas out of our discussions.


Anyway...
I didn't want you to feel offended, ctrlZ, and wish good luck on you study.

Not offended at all. I appreciate and welcome the dialogue. It's just that I didn't feel that what I was actually stating was being taken into account. I also feel that we agree on some of the areas of architecture that was hinted at in our discussion.

but the word "metropolice" IS creative!