UC Berkeley , Cal Poly SLO Pomona, USC , UCLA

omarsiddiqui728 · 04-13-2008, 11:23 PM

Hi..im going to be a transfer from Consumnes River College (community college in sacramento, ca) and i was just wondering how hard it was to get in to the california architecture schools? i was also wondering which schools people preferred...i just went to Cal Day at UC Berkeley and saw their architecture building and did a tour..

whats more beneficial...a four year program like UC Berkeley and UCLA or a 5 year program like Cal Poly SLO, Pomona, and USC...

and i would also like any input from people of these schools...if you guys liked ur school...what was bad/good....and the workload...do architecture students have a chance to workout..or hangout with friends...ect

thanks sooooooo much

omar

4trees · 04-13-2008, 11:27 PM

Cal Poly has an open house end of this week, Friday and Saturday April, 18th & 19th.

vyan · 04-15-2008, 04:07 AM

i went to ucla

and i transferred from cosumnes river college, a community college in sacramento.

vyan · 04-15-2008, 04:26 AM

whats more beneficial? you ask yourself. you want to go through a 4 year + grad program ?
or just go with a B.arch and that's it? Which program is better? well..is picasso better than Van Gogh?

i don't know, it's personal preference.

It is hard to judge which art school is better. Just look at the resources, faculty members, what they teach, what kind of opportunities that they offer, the location, etc. (I know, all the basic stuff, right?) and make your decision base from that. It's a bias conclusion, cause I mean, I'll probably say UCLA owns all the schools, I don't know about Berkeley though. I would have gone to Berkeley because it was closer to home.

and to answer your question, well crap...we're not force to do anything really. It's not like we came in and the faculty said, "alright punk b!tChe$, your life is gone". It's really based on your work ethics. If you want to do only average work, then do average work and go hang out. If you want to do a superb job, then stay at the studio, forget the parties, the work-outs, whatever you do on a daily basis or what pleasures you and just stay at the studio and work your butt off. What distinguishes a superb architect student from a normal student is in their work, and that only comes from how much you sacrifice.

the goods: great faculty members, thomas mayne,neil denari, new chair director: hitoshi abe, and many more. many prestigious architects around the area to intern for, um, good work-shop for modeling, what else....just UCLA i suppose, oh, um great classes, a lot of digital work using Rhino 4.0,illustrator, photoshop, etc. We have happy hours on wednesdays where grad studnets and undergrad students hang out in the architect's building quad and bbq + beer. we're the only department on campus that has a license to distribute alcohol. Very VERY nice lectures, guest lecturers ranging from prestigious architects to Nike Designers, and etc.

the bad: very artsy, just too artsy in my opinion, but ample teaching to gear yourself to starchitect level. the undergrad department isn't fully developed, but the grad program is.

Cal has a very nice architecture building. their studio is sick. Tell Mr.Ellis i said ucla rocks.

omarsiddiqui728 · 04-16-2008, 11:07 PM

thanks a lot man

i really apprecaite it...

im going to consumnes river college

what was ur GPA when u transfered?

any more advice u can give me?

vyan · 04-17-2008, 01:49 AM

haha, yes I know.. you said you were going to cosumnes river college because you said so in the first post.

thus, I commented saying I transfered to UCLA from there.

my gpa was 3.8
I didn't finish IGETC either, but yet still applied
I didn't do any of the computer design courses that cal poly required me to do,
so..

I got accepted into:
UCB
UCLA

rejected:
calpoly-SLO
Calpoly-pomona

my advice is that you are in this profession because you have a passion for it. Do keep in mind that it's a low-salary pay profession and you need to win it to earn it. I advise you that you critique yourself and make sure you can handle it. I can't stress this enough because it saves a lot of time, and if I had to do it all over again, I would've gone to an engineering degree first, and then apply for a masters in architecture. Do I regret making this decision to go here as undergrad? in good days, no, bad days, yes. When are these bad days? when I have to pull all-nighters like crazy. So just BE ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE you are in architecture because you ABSOLUTELY love it. I've seen so many people come and go when I was at CRC and only one person dropped out from here. But if you plan on continuing this field, do your best in every project you and compose a portfolio so you can be ready to submit. Good luck to your future architecture endeavors.

omarsiddiqui728 · 04-17-2008, 01:48 PM

thanks soo much

do u recommend any teachers specifically at CRC?

angie4life14 · 04-17-2008, 07:56 PM

personally i turned down usc for ucberkeley.

omarsiddiqui728 · 04-18-2008, 08:18 PM

how do u like UC Berkeley??