Education options

[Michelle Westberg]

I am currently a third year architecture student and I am beginning to feel that this degree is not taking me where I want to go. I am very interested in community planning and dealing with environmental and social issues in communities. However, I love architecture. I don't exactly know what a planning degree involves, so can anyone help me find information on how I could mix architecture and planning as a career, and what my options as far as school are right now? Would finishing my bachelor's of Architecture and then heading to grad school be best, or should I find a new school now?

[Lisa Valdez]

My personal opinion is that an undergraduate degree in architecture would be very beneficial to you as a planner. Your design background would put you in a unique category and help you more than you could possibly imagine. It would allow you, as a planner, to take the ideas you will formulate in your head and communicate those to your audience far better than just in writing. I guess I am somewhat biased because now that I have been in grad school -not having an undergraduate in architecture - I wish I had that talent!

[Jason Haremza]

I'm a third year undergrad student in geography and I sorta have the same problem, only I want to move more in the direction of architecture and away from the science of geography. I'm tentatively planning on going to grad school for landscape architecture, a interesting mix of architecture and planning. Have you considered it? Any thoughts, let me know, I need people to bounce ideas off of, especially since there are few architectural types at my school.

[Darin Tietgen]

I am a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a degree in Geography. I took an emphasis in urban planning, as I have been working towards it since I can remember. In the course of taking many architecture classes for my optional classes, I began finding interest in architectural design. I am taking a true architecture class at the local junior college, and will be be applying to graduate school under the "URBAN DESIGN" program. This program blends architecture with urban planning. I think you should check out some schools' websites that offer graduate studies in architecture and/or planning, and see if they offer urban design. From what I know, it takes into account planning issues and larger-scale design elements, with emphasis also put on architectural design. Good luck!