my advice: if you're fortunate enough to be working, and finishing your hours toward registration (I'm assuming you're in the U.S.), then I say keep working.

Graduate school will always be there, but jobs won't.


I know almost nothing about TU Delft or Oxford Brookes, sorry.

Jakethesnake, thanks for your comment. I’m actually based in Ireland and I’m registered/chartered as an architect with 4years postgraduate experience. I am employed at the moment but I want to get out of this job (I won’t go into the details). The job situation for architects is bad here in Ireland as well, maybe even worse than the US, and that was my thinking for the past two years, since the recession started, I’ll keep my head down and keep the job notwithstanding it’s killing my soul. I’m debt free and for the past two years I’ve been saving for whatever I might decide to do, and my options are:
1. Do a Master in urban design
2. Take a looong vacation and try some different career paths

Doing a Master could be pretty straight forward and after some research into the available master courses I’ve applied and got admitted for the two Masters mentioned in my first post. Probably not the best two in the world, but among the best in Europe and my main criteria of selection was value for money. But I have doubts about doing a Master, always did. Probably in the US a Master is valued by employers and it pays off doing a postgraduate, career prospects improve…but I’m not so sure in Europe, especially in the field of urban design.

That’s the reason I’ve posted here, to get opinions on this aspect, if you are an architect with a Master degree working in Europe or know someone who is what’s the view, was it worth it? Job-wise, do employers value a Master degree?

I've known several people that have worked overseas, all in London, at very high end classical firms... John Simpson, Porphyrios, etc.. 1 has a master's degree and now is a partner at that firm, the other just has a B.A. and is still employed there going on 4 years. That's all the info I have on that.

I would go to the program that will open the most doors; meaning the ones that have most connections...which doesn't really mean it's the best program.

For example, Notre Dame in the states, isn't the best program by a long shot, BUT, it does have an "in" with several of the high end firms in NYC and other places. So figure out what you want to do with that Urban Design degree and where you want to use it, and then figure out which school is going to help you accomplish it.

My .02cents