Cooper Union or Syracuse for BArch

silverarch
Sun, 10 Apr 2016 00:26:02 +0000

As a current student at Cooper Union, perhaps I can give some insights. Cooper is indeed a small school. My class is 21 students (Syracuse has around ~80 per class I think).The school has an individual approach to architecture that can be polarizing, making it a great school for certain students but not others. The best aspects of Cooper, in my opinion, are its commitment to freedom of thought and a continual challenging of architectural precedent, (professors often encourage students to break rules or challenge the project at hand) its intertwining of analysis and design, the continuance of hand-drafting along with digital representation, its incredible and increasingly diverse faculty, and its history in the field of architecture (along with the AA, it helped bring about the biggest changes in architecture from about 1970-1990). The school has a wealth of knowledge to be mined and allows students an incredible degree of autonomy with which to discover and develop an individual voice in architecture. However, the school is not without its problems, or points open to criticism. Due to the unique admissions process, a broad range of students can be accepted. This at its best can lead to classes of highly engaged students offering vastly different points of view, and at its worst lead to fracturing within the class, and acceptance of students who don’t care as much about their education. You’ll also be at a loss if your interest lies in digital fabrication. While there are professors at the school who stress digital media and explore it in unique ways, the school’s facilities are particularly lacking (although there are plans to set up a fabrication lab within the next few years).Both Syracuse and Cooper will demand a lot of assured commitment to architecture, and neither are technical schools that simply view architecture as a profession. Ultimately, the obvious issues (Syracuse not being in NYC and Cooper not being a large institution) are not as large as they may seem. Due to the commitment architecture requires, most of your time will be spend in the studio, not engaging with university activities. Due to the nature of the field, most of Syracuse’s connections are in NYC, and the school gets lecturers and professors from firms in the city.

Sorry for the long response, but there’s a lot to say. ultimately I would argue that Cooper offers a unique education not available at other school, and has slightly better faculty and reputation in the field. Syracuse is probably better in multimedia work and digital design fabrication. Both are great schools with great reputations. If you have further questions about Cooper Union or about architecture school in general, please feel free to message me; I’m more than happy to elucidate on what can be a mysterious or convoluted admissions process.