why is Architecture a hard degree?
As i'm going to be studying this I don't understand the specifics of why it is hard. Also if any current architecture students are reading this can you include what you learn about. I'm scared that I will regret choosing it.
Why? Well, the fundamental reason is that design and ideas are subjective. And you will be critiqued on every choice you make. Every line you draw must have a meaning and you must be able to justify that choice. Why? ...
Well, from experience I can tell you that it is hard because individuals make it hard on themselves by overcomplicating their life. Keep it simple.
What we learn about? We learn about architecture in broad terms.
– Design
– Structures
– Environment
– Management
– Law
– Urban Design
– etc.
– etc.
It is your choice if you want to make it hard on yourself or not.
Why would you regret choosing it if you are passionate about it?
Hopefully this helps?
Best Regards,
Vili
Well, from experience I can tell you that it is hard because individuals make it hard on themselves by overcomplicating their life. Keep it simple.
What we learn about? We learn about architecture in broad terms.
– Design
– Structures
– Environment
– Management
– Law
– Urban Design
– etc.
– etc.
It is your choice if you want to make it hard on yourself or not.
Why would you regret choosing it if you are passionate about it?
Hopefully this helps?
Best Regards,
Vili
Original post by Vili Welroos
Why? Well, the fundamental reason is that design and ideas are subjective. And you will be critiqued on every choice you make. Every line you draw must have a meaning and you must be able to justify that choice. Why? ...
Well, from experience I can tell you that it is hard because individuals make it hard on themselves by overcomplicating their life. Keep it simple.
What we learn about? We learn about architecture in broad terms.
– Design
– Structures
– Environment
– Management
– Law
– Urban Design
– etc.
– etc.
It is your choice if you want to make it hard on yourself or not.
Why would you regret choosing it if you are passionate about it?
Hopefully this helps?
Best Regards,
Vili
Well, from experience I can tell you that it is hard because individuals make it hard on themselves by overcomplicating their life. Keep it simple.
What we learn about? We learn about architecture in broad terms.
– Design
– Structures
– Environment
– Management
– Law
– Urban Design
– etc.
– etc.
It is your choice if you want to make it hard on yourself or not.
Why would you regret choosing it if you are passionate about it?
Hopefully this helps?
Best Regards,
Vili
what do u mean when u say keep it simple, keep what simple? And do u or did u do architecture at uni? thanks for the response helped so much!
Physics
Original post by Vili Welroos
Why? Well, the fundamental reason is that design and ideas are subjective. And you will be critiqued on every choice you make. Every line you draw must have a meaning and you must be able to justify that choice. Why? ...
Well, from experience I can tell you that it is hard because individuals make it hard on themselves by overcomplicating their life. Keep it simple.
What we learn about? We learn about architecture in broad terms.
– Design
– Structures
– Environment
– Management
– Law
– Urban Design
– etc.
– etc.
It is your choice if you want to make it hard on yourself or not.
Why would you regret choosing it if you are passionate about it?
Hopefully this helps?
Best Regards,
Vili
Well, from experience I can tell you that it is hard because individuals make it hard on themselves by overcomplicating their life. Keep it simple.
What we learn about? We learn about architecture in broad terms.
– Design
– Structures
– Environment
– Management
– Law
– Urban Design
– etc.
– etc.
It is your choice if you want to make it hard on yourself or not.
Why would you regret choosing it if you are passionate about it?
Hopefully this helps?
Best Regards,
Vili
I don't know if I'm passionate about it though since I haven't had any experience in the feild. So it's kinda a gamble. If I don't like architecture I plan on going into interior design nyway
Original post by Caz1234567
Physics
elaborate?
Original post by lollipoplady101
elaborate?
One of the main differences between interior design and architecture is physics. As well as health and safety etc.
Lots of maths too
Original post by Caz1234567
One of the main differences between interior design and architecture is physics. As well as health and safety etc.
but many people don't talk about the maths/physics side to architecture they always talk about the design side more? surely the physics and maths can't be too overwhelming?
Original post by lollipoplady101
what do u mean when u say keep it simple, keep what simple? And do u or did u do architecture at uni? thanks for the response helped so much!
I am an architect (ARB/RIBA) with 3 years post Part 3. Yes. I studied architecture at university (all my degrees). What I mean by keeping it simple is the overall study of architecture. Make a very clear plan and stick to it. This applies both to work-life and university life; agree what the deliverables are; don't add too much complexity without reason – often the most simple are the most elegant designs. "Less is More" as Mies van der Rohe would say.
I don't know if this helps clarify slightly?
The workload of architecture projects and the variety of different skills and things you have to do in your workload can be overwhelming. Research and critical thinking, to technical and software skills, model making, artistic flair, social awareness, and graphic presentation skills etc.
But you grow with the workload, all you have to do is try your best and be certain that you’re passionate about architecture.
But you grow with the workload, all you have to do is try your best and be certain that you’re passionate about architecture.
@Caz1234567 is talking nonsense. Architecture is a general arts degree, I can show you all of the maths required for most architecture degrees in under 60 seconds (it was my university open day ‘party trick’) - although it was true when I studied architecture you had to calculate bending moments in first year (our lecturer was a structural engineer who said, “you’re all too thick to understand this…“) and I never did it in practice and cannot remember how to now! (Although I did calculate heat losses/ size domestic heating systems, which scared the **** out of my boss, and negotiated the finances for my medium sized projects, which is also not typical in the UK).
Architecture is difficult to study because you are learning something you have not done before (in the UK - I wish we were like Finland where it is on the national curriculum from aged 5). Fundamentally you are learning a new way of thinking, which is cognitively hard work and energy intensive. The very first thing you will be challenged by (and this will probably continue throughout and beyond the time you formally study architecture) is what you think architecture actually is! There is a moment (for most, but not all) where architecture ‘clicks’, where that way of thinking becomes your way of thinking.
Architecture students often make life difficult for themselves because of their preconceptions. My experience - both as a student as as a lecturer - is that architecture students can be very conservative and create arbitrary constraints for themselves - “I don’t do that” - which makes it much harder.
As @username4591444 implies, doing architecture is complex - it is a very specific combination of heuristic and abductive inference: there are no right or wrong answers, only better or worse decisions - the trick is to make it look simple (like J.S. Bach’s music sounds straightforward but is incredibly difficult to play). As @Vili Welroos says, you can make your life more difficult by making things unnecessarily complicated (which is the opposite of complex).
Studying architecture can be frustrating - over the course of an architectural education you may design half a dozen hypothetical buildings, which will all, to a greater or lesser extent, ‘fail’ - because you are learning the process of how to design, not being taught the model for the perfect house, or museum, or whatever product to reproduce…
All of that said, architecture can be extremely creatively and emotionally rewarding - and that’s why we keep doing it.
Architecture is difficult to study because you are learning something you have not done before (in the UK - I wish we were like Finland where it is on the national curriculum from aged 5). Fundamentally you are learning a new way of thinking, which is cognitively hard work and energy intensive. The very first thing you will be challenged by (and this will probably continue throughout and beyond the time you formally study architecture) is what you think architecture actually is! There is a moment (for most, but not all) where architecture ‘clicks’, where that way of thinking becomes your way of thinking.
Architecture students often make life difficult for themselves because of their preconceptions. My experience - both as a student as as a lecturer - is that architecture students can be very conservative and create arbitrary constraints for themselves - “I don’t do that” - which makes it much harder.
As @username4591444 implies, doing architecture is complex - it is a very specific combination of heuristic and abductive inference: there are no right or wrong answers, only better or worse decisions - the trick is to make it look simple (like J.S. Bach’s music sounds straightforward but is incredibly difficult to play). As @Vili Welroos says, you can make your life more difficult by making things unnecessarily complicated (which is the opposite of complex).
Studying architecture can be frustrating - over the course of an architectural education you may design half a dozen hypothetical buildings, which will all, to a greater or lesser extent, ‘fail’ - because you are learning the process of how to design, not being taught the model for the perfect house, or museum, or whatever product to reproduce…
All of that said, architecture can be extremely creatively and emotionally rewarding - and that’s why we keep doing it.
Original post by lollipoplady101
As i'm going to be studying this I don't understand the specifics of why it is hard. Also if any current architecture students are reading this can you include what you learn about. I'm scared that I will regret choosing it.
So, if you did start in September, how are you finding studying architecture?
Original post by SebastianMesser
So, if you did start in September, how are you finding studying architecture?
A more recent thread by the OP titled "I hate my course"
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=96024222&highlight=
Original post by normaw
A more recent thread by the OP titled "I hate my course"
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=96024222&highlight=
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=96024222&highlight=
Ah thanks @normaw for the link. I do not have any direct, personal experience of MSA, only via a couple of lecturers/ professors who teach/ taught there and from a couple of our BA alumni that moved to MSA for part 2 but then transferred back to us.
@lollipoplady101 I am sorry you are not having a good experience so far.
With the pandemic, the opportunity to visit unis in person was virtually non-existent, but it really is important to find out as much as possible about the courses before you apply - things you might only be able to find out by speaking to the staff and students: like the number of students in a year and how they are taught, the access to facilities which are available to you (such as, do you have a dedicated space to work in studio, or is it hot-desking, or will you have to work from home), as well as looking at the official info put out by the university on their website, and degree shows/online display of work done by the students. Consider in what conditions you will do your best, and then trust your gut instinct and ignore what other people tell you (especially on TSR 😉), the ‘reputation’ and league tables!
You were evidently uncertain about studying architecture, so it may be a self-fulfilling prophesy… if you really are hating it, I would suggest you speak with your pastoral tutor as soon as possible and discuss how you are feeling. Before you meet them set aside time to reflect on your expectations and why these are not being met - e.g. is it because you are doing something which others thought you should do rather than following your own ambitions? is it the nature of the subject? (As architecture is a general arts degree, I would expect you will be given lots of different types of exercises to try to help a everyone build a baseline of skills, and applying these to project briefs which will increase in scale and complexity throughout the degree), something about the institution or the facilities? and so forth. Write it all down - perhaps as a pros and cons list.
If you do decide to withdraw and start again, then do it as soon as possible so you minimise the costs and are still entitled to student finance for the full duration of your next course. I know the government are talking about moving the goal posts again (and after the budget are now taxing new graduates at 50%), but currently if you did go on to qualify as an architect you could expect to pay back only around 40% of the ‘fees’ for the first three years, so everything after Xmas in your second year effectively is ‘free’.
If you want to go into an arts/design area - from your comments in the other thread about ‘abstract art’ and comparing your ideas/work to others, then I am not sure that you do? - then you could take a one year art foundation course where you will get a chance to try different disciplines and approaches before you commit to an area.
(edited 2 years ago)
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