Master of Architecture

Vanillian
Mon, 06 Jan 2014 22:27:55 +0000

quarter2004, I’m sorry to hear that you have reservations about your time at SCAD but I find most of your criticism unfairly aimed at the “quarter system.” I am by no means a SCAD apologist, having left SCAD to study at another institution, but I think it is important to contextualize your comments with an understanding of how architecture is universally taught.


“In architecture studio classes. we spent a lot of time discussing our own projects or other students projects with the class which limits your own time of getting your projects completed.”


Your experience was 10 years ago, I graduated more recently. My experience was that most of class time was treated as it was valuable. Discussing your own and others’ projects is integral to architectural education. The presentation, and the critique that follows of architectural projects is the purpose of architectural education. Architecture school is not meant to be a trade school, where you learn a set of skills, but is about learning a process of thinking. It is the communicating of your process and ideas and their result that is being honed by architecture school, and this happens during these discussions. That is not to say you aren’t there to learn any skills, but learning how to make stairs in a computer program is secondary to that.


“To make up the time, students have to spend long hours into the night to get their projects complete.” “I personally did about 100 all nighters in 3 years while attending SCAD.” “I would never go to a quarter system college again.”


The all-nighter is not the result of long classes in the quarter system, it is endemic of architectural education. Architecture school, for reasons outside of the scope of this discussion, promotes an attitude towards working that glorifies and requires an unhealthy work-life balance at every institution. One only needs to talk to another student of architecture at any other school to confirm this.


“I had some professors at SCAD cancel class after about 1 hour of teaching. But I paid for 2.5 hours of class time.”


As stated earlier, most of my experience was that class time was treated as valuable.


“You cannot take extra classes over full time like you can a semester system.”


Not sure if this has changed, but you can now.


“Those intern architects were very experienced with the software programs Sketchup and Revit. At Scad, I never heard of Sketchup or Revit…”


As state by another poster, SCAD today teaches Revit heavily (I would say to an unhealthy degree, but that’s another discussion.)


“Working at architecture firms also made me realize that there is not enough class instruction/preparation on construction document production.”


The preparation of construction documents is the purpose of an architectural internship. Very few, if any, schools teach this to any significant degree in school.


“Pass rates for SCAD students are not that great ranging from 49 percent to 76 percent in the different divisions in 2012. “


Looking at other school’s passage rates this range seems relatively normal, and the 49% is only in one category. In all the categories the passage rates are similar to Georgia Tech’s.

Once again, I’m sorry to hear that you regret your time at SCAD. Things have changed in the years since you’ve graduated and I think some of the issues have been rectified. However, I think it is unfair to blame the quarter system for some of the issues you had with SCAD, and other issues are just part of architectural education that will anyone studying elsewhere will also encounter.

I don’t post a lot on here but I felt it was appropriate to chime in as I don’t want parents/students to be dissuaded by things that were framed as being issues SCAD exclusively has.