When advising prospective architecture students who are still in High School, we often get a number of similar questions, and we thought it might make sense to offer answers to these frequently asked questions here.
What courses should a student take in his or her senior year to prepare for an academic career in architecture? The best thing for a student to do in High School before applying to architecture school is to take courses that encourage synthetic thinking and curiosity. At the end of the day, an architectural education is about creative problem-solving about telling coherent stories. Architects today are part of large teams that offer very specific expertise in a given area. But as the leaders and coordinators of those teams, architects are responsible for keeping these vast groups working in the same direction. To that end, courses in creative writing and drawing are every bit as important– if not more so– than courses in math and science.
Does a student have to excel in math and science in order to do well in architecture ? Math and science are important. Quantitative and spatial thinking help students to execute their ideas. But math and science alone are not the essential elements of architecture that they once were. Calculus and Physics are still required at University to study architecture, but critical thinking and creativity are just as important.
What distinguishes different architecture schools from one another ? in the United states, there are really three kinds of architecture school: art schools (like RISD, Cooper Union, and Cranbrook, for example); technology schools (like RPI, NJIT, and MIT, for example); and design schools (like Northeastern, Cornell, Syracuse, and Penn). Each of these types offers specific advantages. Art schools teach architecture as a fine art, and as such, they often focus on the individual artist. They often teach architecture as a means of "finding one's own voice". Technology schools teach architecture so that innovations in systems and materials are foregrounded. Design schools offer perhaps a more sythetic approach, focusing less in finding one's voice, and more on "learning a language" (an approach that presumes that architecture is a conversation that has been going on for a long time, and will continue beyond the time frame of the individual student).