Michael Kaplan wrote:
>re: B. Arch., M. Arch. etc.: There is a move by the "Collateral
>Organizations" (NCARB, NAAB, AIA, AIAS and ACSA -- forgive me, non-US
>readers) to standardize the architecture degree with a new Doctor of
>Architecture as the first professional degree. (This brings architecture in
>step with, say, law or medicine.)
This seems crazy. The American sociologist Randall Collins calls this
credential inflation, noting that this inflationary market for credentials
is central to the social stratification system. It always starts in the
most highly sought-after positions (law and med in the USA, I suppose) and
acts simply as a mechanism to maintain the high level of rewards available
to the credential holders by requiring more and more 'education' and hence
ever more strictly filtering out those who cannot afford it. Many people
feel that 'real' arch education starts after school. If true, then
requiring a doctorate is not a means of preparing students FOR the real
world, but a way of keeping them OUT of it.
I can barely see the need for a Masters degree, let alone a doctorate. Ye
Gods, only twenty years ago (specifically, 1976) fully one-quarter of all
American architects did not have ANY sort of degree, let alone a bloody
doctorate. What next? Twenty years from now will the architectural alphabet
soup demand a double doctorate: Doctor Doctor Smith? How about a quadruple
doctorate, allowing graduation at about forty, followed by a twenty year
internship, then a twenty week examination under arc lights AND THEN you
are deemed qualified to design toilet details PROVIDED you also have a
chair at the Sorbonne, three Nobel prizes, an honorary British knighthood,
the Congressional Medal of Honor and a small dog named Irving.
Garry Stevens
Dept of Architectural and Design Science
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
AUSTRALIA
>re: B. Arch., M. Arch. etc.: There is a move by the "Collateral
>Organizations" (NCARB, NAAB, AIA, AIAS and ACSA -- forgive me, non-US
>readers) to standardize the architecture degree with a new Doctor of
>Architecture as the first professional degree. (This brings architecture in
>step with, say, law or medicine.)
This seems crazy. The American sociologist Randall Collins calls this
credential inflation, noting that this inflationary market for credentials
is central to the social stratification system. It always starts in the
most highly sought-after positions (law and med in the USA, I suppose) and
acts simply as a mechanism to maintain the high level of rewards available
to the credential holders by requiring more and more 'education' and hence
ever more strictly filtering out those who cannot afford it. Many people
feel that 'real' arch education starts after school. If true, then
requiring a doctorate is not a means of preparing students FOR the real
world, but a way of keeping them OUT of it.
I can barely see the need for a Masters degree, let alone a doctorate. Ye
Gods, only twenty years ago (specifically, 1976) fully one-quarter of all
American architects did not have ANY sort of degree, let alone a bloody
doctorate. What next? Twenty years from now will the architectural alphabet
soup demand a double doctorate: Doctor Doctor Smith? How about a quadruple
doctorate, allowing graduation at about forty, followed by a twenty year
internship, then a twenty week examination under arc lights AND THEN you
are deemed qualified to design toilet details PROVIDED you also have a
chair at the Sorbonne, three Nobel prizes, an honorary British knighthood,
the Congressional Medal of Honor and a small dog named Irving.
Garry Stevens
Dept of Architectural and Design Science
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
AUSTRALIA