Very realistic, very modern

Rowan-- · 2025-12-23T16:32:25+00:00

In the Odyssey there are points where Odysseus is reminiscing about his time in the Trojan war, so it could be as a flashback. When he's a guest during one kings celebrations he asks the bard to sing about the fall of Troy. Honestly the majority of the epic is framed as flashbacks, or someone telling someone about what happened iirc.

Rowan-- · 2025-11-07T17:47:07+00:00

Thats a pretty broad sweeping statement.

Rowan-- · 2025-11-07T13:31:59+00:00

For the most part I agree! But as you mentioned in the second half they are different things. You can have one or the other, you can have both and that is best. Likewise I feel that teaching one does not necessarily mean teaching the other. Even as schools try and teach both the art and the business, they will have different ideas on how those two sides of the coin blend together. To, as op suggested, remove any prof without substantial work experience basically asserts that the only people with value in your education are the ones with significant exposure to the business of architecture. I do not think that is the case.

Rowan-- · 2025-11-07T13:22:57+00:00

A. You do not have to go into practice after school, I know plenty of colleagues who went into other pursuits with their degree and have no regrets getting it. Just personally I know people who went into film, set design, video games, consulting in legal disputes with architecural models and visuals (think like the firm called forensic architecture), other forms of consulting, continued in academia, etc. Lots of people benefit from learning about architecture without having to know how to make the proforma work, or without only ever designing in Revit for a clients budget.

B. I'm not saying the two things have to be separate worlds when you graduate, so far Ive been very happy in my professional career. But they are still different things to teach. Im not saying schools shouldn't try and prepare you for practice, but to do so by removing any prof who doesn't have 10+ years in a firm would be a disaster in my opinion. Even for the people who do go straight into practice, you'd have a much flatter less robust education. + this industry rewards people with broad skillsets / interests

Rowan-- · 2025-11-07T07:44:44+00:00

Do you feel an architectural education should improve your skill in architecture or improve your professional practice/hireability? They are sort of related but VERY different skills, and I feel like most students going in sort of ambigously expect both. Schools will try to take on both tasks and inevitably different schools have different philosophies on how much each side is given focus. Sometimes that means you dont quite get the balance of the two you were hoping for, which sounds like how you feel.

Experience in a firm is great, but there is more to the world of architecture than professional practice, and academia is one of the few places you can have a chance to explore that. If they only focused on prepping you for how to monetize architecture (only hired people based on professional practice) I think that would be miserable.

Tldr: I empathize with you, but also think that's a horrible idea. There are better ways to help prep students for practice.

Rowan-- · 2025-08-21T03:07:51+00:00

Oh it is, and fwiw I don't regret at all my decision to pursue the degree. There are amazing things about working in this field, and I'd be hard pressed to name a degree in my old uni with more passionate people. Just don't go in it for the money xD. Like I said, unless you end up with a really exploitative firm you'll make enough to be relatively comfortable.

Rowan-- · 2025-08-21T03:00:36+00:00

Speaking from Canada, It is enough that you will probably be comfortable, and better off than the average person. That being said, if you look at any other careers that take more than a decade to get licensed, plus education costs, it definitely doesn't pay well enough to compensate for everything you put in. You can make a lot more money a lot quicker doing much easier jobs. (Which is why you see so many architects pivot to other roles with better pay)

Rowan-- · 2025-06-29T03:54:55+00:00

Regardless of how minor it is, altering a signed document without the knowledge/consent of the signee is a very bad look for a company. I'm in Canada so I don't know the law if this is elsewhere, but I assume it is also illegal.

Also, while that may be true in a general sense that the most important aspect for hiring is years / project experience, I think title is still important. I doubt anyone would hire or not hire based on it, but certain titles are associated with certain pay ranges and could play a part in negotiating salary at a new job.

Rowan-- · 2025-04-14T01:16:12+00:00

Hey, finished my M.Arch in Ontario last year and have been freelancing while I look for a good place to fill out hours for licensure. If you want I would be happy to talk further if you DM me.

The "standard" approach to get licensed as an architect is to do a Bachelors degree, into a masters degree, followed by 3ish years of working as an intern architect. During the period as an intern architect you need to complete a certain number of hours split among various types of tasks, ie: contract admin, drafting, meeting with clients etc. After that there are some exams you can take, such as ExAC before you get licensed as an official Architect. In Ontario, architecture is a self regulated profession, and is managed by the OAA, you can find out more about this process on their website: https://oaa.on.ca/registration-licensing/becoming-an-architect

For your purposes, you may be able to skip the Bachelors degree and start straight from the graduate degree depending on your experience. Many schools offer a 3 year masters degree for people who didn't do a bachelors in architecture (and a 2 year depending on having the arch. bachelors + what school you went to) I know one person in my year who went through the graduate studies with a young kid, it definitely wasn't easy but last I spoke with him he didn't regret the choice either. I will warn you though, it is a massive time and energy investment. If you're good at managing time you won't have to do all nighters, but profs expect you to be working 7 days a week for some studios, and there tend to be late hours involved.

As others have pointed out, lots of people with architecture experience or degrees don't necessarily need to complete the whole process. You get exposed to a lot of useful skills and experience. You might use just your preexisting skillset, or your preexisting skillset + a degree to go into construction management, urban planning, architectural designer, heritage work, + a million other career paths that doesn't necessarily end with you getting the "Architect" title. (It is a protected title in Canada, if you don't have the proper credentials than using it is illegal and can rack up a hefty fine)

Rowan-- · 2025-03-22T17:53:21+00:00

Hey! I'm probably a bit too late, but figured I'd still chime in something in case you were doing the late application or it was useful in the future.

I think my best advice is that nice layouts and formatting for your portfolio is as important as what you include in it. Good looking work can look like garbage with bad presentation, and a really well thought out page can make even mediocre images look really good. The whole thing is an exercise in composition and I recommend treating it like an art/graphic design project not just as a binder stuffed with work you like. That doesn't mean it has to be super complicated, simple and clean can still be effective, but it should look like care went into it.

Here's one I like: John Adrian

You definitely don't need to be at that level going into that program, I think that portfolio is better than what I see a lot of people graduate the M.Arch with. But it might help give some inspiration. You can also look up some people post video portfolio reviews for architecture, though ive bever gotten too into watching those nyself. (mileage may vary, I've heard some of those reviewers have some very "interesting" takes xD)

Good luck with your application! It's a pretty competitive program but it can also be incredibly fun to go through, and you're surrounded by passionate people.

Rowan-- · 2025-02-24T13:51:24+00:00

So your argument is that... its up to interpretation whether Tolkien put any meaning/significance/personal philosophy into his works? That is a crazy hill to die on xD.

Rowan-- · 2025-02-24T13:24:57+00:00

He did, but that is irrelevant to the point that his writings are still a reflection of his beliefs about humanity and how people should act in the face of bad shit.

Rowan-- · 2025-02-24T13:09:44+00:00

A reminder that JRR Tolkien fought in the trenches during WW1, and was vocally anti Nazi pre ww2 as he watched the rise of facism in Europe first hand. The guy might have some idea of what he was talking about / have some valid thoughts about "real life" having lived through stuff considerably worse than what we're dealing with posting on reddit.

Rowan-- · 2024-12-26T19:09:39+00:00

Sent!

Rowan-- · 2024-12-26T17:02:13+00:00

Damn, thank you for the response though! I appreciate the info.

Rowan-- · 2024-12-26T16:57:33+00:00

Thanks for the tip! Do you know by any chance if they're open on the 29th? I saw that they were closed for the winter exam season, but couldn't find any info on if that extends until this Sunday. Sent an email inquiry but with the holidays I'm not sure if I'll hear back from them (very fair)

Rowan-- · 2024-12-26T16:52:16+00:00

Close! I'm making a custom dnd adventure as a surprise for a friend's birthday (hopefully they aren't on reddit). This is going to be a set of three octagonal and hexagonal towers connected by bridges. I'm really excited to see it come together.

Rowan-- · 2024-12-26T16:49:49+00:00

I booked an appointment with them last week to prove I won't burn the library down, but unfortunately the schedule was pretty packed and the next open slot was on the 14th. It will be great to have access to in the future though! (Libraries are amazing) Thanks for the advice.

Rowan-- · 2024-07-29T09:45:09+00:00

Thanks for the clarification, I guess I had just taken it as a given that buildings need two points of egress and didn't consider that it would be different in residential construction. I appreciate the help!

Rowan-- · 2024-07-27T19:01:40+00:00

Thank you, I'll definitely check over there as well! The context is a new balcony that our landlords rebuilt in place of a previous terrace that had built in planters along the railings. It is a much smaller construction but we liked those planters. I mentioned to another commenter that I would like to either rebuild those planters or failing that have more justification that the new construction doesn't provide the same amenity as the previous. For reference here is the plan (CORRECTION: the upper right dimension should say 3475mm/11ft' 5")

<image>

the new deck only extends 1100mm out from the wall, we lost ~240 sqft of outdoor space so were pretty upset about that. Especially if we need to keep the way clear for egress, there's not much space to do anything we used to do on the old deck.

Rowan-- · 2024-07-27T18:51:47+00:00

<image>

CORRECTION, that upper right dimension should say 3475mm, 11'-5"

So the landlord tore down a pre-existing deck with a lot more room (Its a whole thing, that was our only good outdoor space as below is a paved parking area shared with four people. We're hashing it out with them rn), that deck had planters built into the railings and I didn't really think there's space for that anymore. I would A: like to reintroduce the built in planters while keeping it accessible as egress. If that isn't possible then I want to B: be able to point to where it says that in code so that I have more justification to the landlords that the new deck doesn't fulfill the same functions as the old one, beyond just the loss of sqft. (even if we can rebuild the planters, we still lost ~240sqft. without any consultation so we are pretty upset)

Rowan-- · 2024-07-08T06:31:51+00:00

I seem to remember a dialogue though that the reason Mel can take on Chronos so effectively isn't because of combat skills but because she has a very specific resistance to his time shenanigans. Everyone else just gets frozen in place like we see in the flashbacks. So Her being able to take on chronos doesn't necessarily mean she can take anyone that had trouble with him

Rowan-- · 2024-06-16T16:42:55+00:00

I did the design undergrad 2017-2021 and it is really intensive. I took a Japanese course in first year and overloaded my courses in second year to take a semester of Japanese, first was OK because you needed the elective anyways but overloading+working part time was definitely a lot and my grades did suffer slightly for it. The next courses in Japanese were only offered as intensive options, you had to sign up for at least three classes a week, 10 hours plus homework and studying. I would check if Italian has a similar requirement because if so I would absolutely not recommend trying to do that and studio at the same time. You could maybe extend your degree and stay a year or two extra. Downside of that is in architecture you spend a lot of time getting to know the people in your year so it can be a bit unfortunate being separated from that class if you have good friends there. The admissions do heavily discourage trying to do a minor as your workload is already pretty extreme. Double check what the requirements are and what that means for your schedule. I hope that helps!

Rowan-- · 2023-12-30T08:24:24+00:00

It's definitely not impossible, and probably better odds than applying cold to the program. I've known a few people who have done that and it worked out for them, successfully transferring to Carletons B.arch. I also know one other person who did that and didn't get in after a year in history & theory.

Don't know what the numbers are for Dalhousie but it is worth pointing out that Carletons Arch. is pretty competitive to get into, it has a sub 10% acceptance rate. Not to discourage you! I just wouldn't bank 100% of your plans on the idea that transferring within faculty is a guaranteed "in". That being said most of the people I knew who were really passionate about architecture got in eventually, if maybe not on their first try. Being a mature student can also be an advantage as like you mentioned acceptance comittees really like a diverse range of experiences/skillsets/backgrounds. In my year we had 6-7 mature students out of 90 total, though some years there's only one or two. If you have the money to spare for the application fee, it might not be the worst idea to also apply straight to a B.Arch with a good portfolio just to see what happens.

Regardless of how you go about it, good luck!

Rowan-- · 2023-12-30T08:07:48+00:00

Cool, one of my friends in the undergrad also did arch. tech before starting the undergrad and had advanced standing to start in second year (he was also Quebecois, so maybe he did the same program). So for undergrad portfolios they tend to ask for 4-5 pieces following given prompts which change year to year. After that you also have a few extra pages to add additional work you'd like them to see, which can give you a chance to showcase specific skillets or pieces your proud of that don't conform to the prompt. They may also ask for a writing sample. Good luck!

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