Re: Degrees

Bravo Bravo Bravo Garry...
The idea of a doctorate as a first professional degree is absurd.
The nomenclature debate has been raging for a long time now and the collateral
organizations don't have an adequate solution. A friend of mine and former
AIAS National President produced guidelines for new degree nomenclature to
clear up the discrepancy between B. Arch degrees at a 5 year school vs. M. Arch
degrees from a 4+2 school. The problem, as I'm sure you know, that the 4+2
schools have to some degree less of an emphasis on studio design than a 5 year
school, yet the degree upon completion is an M.Arch, which has the perception
or being more advanced than a B.Arch. The problem was that there exists within
the AIAS more 4+2 schools than 5 year schools and the possibility of change was
seen as threatening. So the whole matter was squelched and not even presented
for consideration by the other collateral organizations. That was about 4
years ago and to my knowledge nothing's been done on the subject yet.
I think this "credential inflation" smacks of elitism. It would be a
great disservice to begin to exclude people who want to pursue architecture in
various ways (ie. two year technical degrees or 4 year B.of Arts or Science in
Arch) because the architecture world at large feels like they have a perception
problem. Just my $.02.

Steve Cobb
Graduating with a B.Arch in December and damn glad of it
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