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Architecture apprenticeship or degree?

I'm considering taking architecture but wonder whether it's best to do this with an architecture degree or architecture apprenticeship. Which would you suggest? What are the pros and cons?

Reply 1

zayxr1

honestly this isn't any help but I didn't even know apprenticeships all I know is the university route

Reply 2

SebastianMesser

@georgiag22, think of them as equal, but different. I cannot imagine there can be many undergraduate architecture apprenticeships on offer, as you have to have a job in a practice and it is the company who applies, not the individual. The principle difference is, of course, that you will be working - nearly full time - alongside studying (my colleagues who deliver apprenticeships hate it when it is compared to the old ‘day release’ programmes, but in timetabling-terms, that is exactly what it is).

A part time route has distinct advantages in terms of the ‘on the job’ experience you gain and that you can draw on, but you are trading this against the time to explore and develop. You have to remember, architecture is a general arts degree. Likewise, although you are not accumulating student debt and may have more disposable income, but you are trading that against being pulled in two directions by practice and by university. At part 2 I would simplify it as is the difference between becoming better at what you do now, or becoming the person you want to be in ten years’ time.

Therefore, the apprenticeship route generally will suit and attract more mature students. If you’ve got a supportive employer (they need to know what their responsibilities are in this tripartite contract too) and you are super-organised, if you’re going to be a mature student or have other responsibilities e.g. as a carer or parent, or for mortgage payments, then the advantages of apprenticeships might suit you. If you have been working in architectural practice for three years or more already, then look also at the RIBA Studio run on behalf of the RIBA by Oxford Brookes.