Sheffield School of Architecture, worst decision of my life.

Hi all,

I hope you are doing well,

It is very rare that I feel the need to go online and give my opinion, but for me, I feel that this needs to be said. I am a graduate of the University of Sheffield where I studied BA Architecture, and I can wholeheartedly say that doing my degree there was the worst decision of my life.

Despite getting a first class in my degree, and averaging a first class in every year, I feel that the information taught on the course was totally irrelevant to the discipline of architecture and I feel let down as a graduate. My fellow graduates and I find it difficult to find jobs at reputable architecture firms as the way we were taught by the university was so irrelevant and infantile. I have now returned home to self-teach computer programming.

I feel that the software they use, as well as the projects they assign, are not in any way preparatory for work in practice. If I could go back, I would have definitely chosen a degree in STEM. They push students to use obsolete techniques, despite having no additional functionality, for example, if one student were to design something digitally, and another using colouring pencils, the colouring pencil work would be marked significantly higher. I believe the reason for this is that many of the ageing lecturers were taught using pencils in the 80s and are desperately trying to cling on to this. This leaves students with redundant skills as they have no use in the real world as they strive to get good grades. Many of the lecturers have failed to do anything meaningful with their careers and it seems that this was the impetus for them choosing to become lecturers. They aren’t skilled enough to succeed in practice, which in turn leads the students to produce low quality work, and it becomes a vicious circle for then next generation of architects. If you conduct a search on LinkedIn to see where the graduates of this course have been employed, you will notice that a large number of them are currently working for third-rate architecture firms just to make ends meet. Don't let this be you.

It seems the primary driver of the course was to inculcate the students politically. I believe they also hire staff based on their woke politics. This finds its way into every conceivable aspect of the course. There were also times when the teachers were outwardly racist against European people, which I found to be incredibly troubling. Despite them officially having to mark students fairly, it becomes incredibly clear that if your project doesn’t include the necessary radical liberal buzzwords, or you decide to disagree with the lecturers on certain topics, then your work will be marked down. I also believe that European, male students were marked more harshly than others. This puts the students in a constant state of fear to express their true opinions and it created a very frustrating and unhappy university experience for me. I learned to not express my true feelings, to play their game to get the degree, however, if I could change the past, I should have left the course in the first year and taken a different degree.

If you are considering a degree in architecture, I would wholeheartedly encourage you to consider other universities for it, in particular, UCL, Cardiff and Bath.

I wholeheartedly wish you all the best in the future.

Thanks for sharing and I'm sorry for the situation you find yourself in. Interesting that you mention UCL - are you aware of the situation at the Bartlett reported in the press last year:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jun/09/ucl-apologises-for-bullying-and-sexual-misconduct-at-architecture-school

Unfortunately, I think there is a history of bullying in the architecture industry and this seems to carry over to architecture schools and even RIBA:

https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/riba-defends-handling-of-buried-bullying-report/5118422.article

Hi all,

I hope you are doing well,

It is very rare that I feel the need to go online and give my opinion, but for me, I feel that this needs to be said. I am a graduate of the University of Sheffield where I studied BA Architecture, and I can wholeheartedly say that doing my degree there was the worst decision of my life.

Despite getting a first class in my degree, and averaging a first class in every year, I feel that the information taught on the course was totally irrelevant to the discipline of architecture and I feel let down as a graduate. My fellow graduates and I find it difficult to find jobs at reputable architecture firms as the way we were taught by the university was so irrelevant and infantile. I have now returned home to self-teach computer programming.

I feel that the software they use, as well as the projects they assign, are not in any way preparatory for work in practice. If I could go back, I would have definitely chosen a degree in STEM. They push students to use obsolete techniques, despite having no additional functionality, for example, if one student were to design something digitally, and another using colouring pencils, the colouring pencil work would be marked significantly higher. I believe the reason for this is that many of the ageing lecturers were taught using pencils in the 80s and are desperately trying to cling on to this. This leaves students with redundant skills as they have no use in the real world as they strive to get good grades. Many of the lecturers have failed to do anything meaningful with their careers and it seems that this was the impetus for them choosing to become lecturers. They aren’t skilled enough to succeed in practice, which in turn leads the students to produce low quality work, and it becomes a vicious circle for then next generation of architects. If you conduct a search on LinkedIn to see where the graduates of this course have been employed, you will notice that a large number of them are currently working for third-rate architecture firms just to make ends meet. Don't let this be you.

It seems the primary driver of the course was to inculcate the students politically. I believe they also hire staff based on their woke politics. This finds its way into every conceivable aspect of the course. There were also times when the teachers were outwardly racist against European people, which I found to be incredibly troubling. Despite them officially having to mark students fairly, it becomes incredibly clear that if your project doesn’t include the necessary radical liberal buzzwords, or you decide to disagree with the lecturers on certain topics, then your work will be marked down. I also believe that European, male students were marked more harshly than others. This puts the students in a constant state of fear to express their true opinions and it created a very frustrating and unhappy university experience for me. I learned to not express my true feelings, to play their game to get the degree, however, if I could change the past, I should have left the course in the first year and taken a different degree.

If you are considering a degree in architecture, I would wholeheartedly encourage you to consider other universities for it, in particular, UCL, Cardiff and Bath.

I wholeheartedly wish you all the best in the future.