Attending architecture school especially for the first time can be a daunting prospect, particularly as most new students have never studied or had the option to study architecture before.
So unlike students about to study a history or science degree for example, architecture students are completely unaccustomed to what lies ahead and enter into the subject relatively inexperienced and completely free of expectation.
The thought processes and projects that lie ahead of you (although very exciting) will likely present a whole new way of working and thinking, particularly in terms of the learning structure and techniques required to successfully pass them.
So here we want to share with you 12 tips to surviving your first semester of architecture school, that we hope you can also take and use throughout the rest of your time studying the subject.
For quick reference:
- Spend Time in the studio
- Be sociable
- Volunteer
- Have the right equipment
- Learn from others
- Look after yourself
- Attend
- Join a sports team of club
- Party
- Read
- Don’t be afraid of the workshop
- Don’t wait to be shown
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Spend Time in the studio
Spending time in the studio can be incredibly beneficial to your success at architecture school. This can be hard at first when you don’t know anyone, but as a first year student, this almost forces you to get to know the other students, most of whom you will be studying with for at least the next five years.
Working in the studio creates a collaborative environment that opens up debates and discussions on the projects you’re working on, and provides a team working atmosphere where you will work together with your friends to overcome difficult aspects of your projects.
It also ensures that you don’t miss anything, such as design brief changes, rearranged tutorials, project developments …just being there helps greatly.
Get to know your fellow student
Closely linked to spending time in the studio, is getting to know the people on your course. You will be working with them for at least the next five years (all being well), and forming close relationships will make this all the more enjoyable.
Being able to work with friends is an incredibly fortunate position to be in, and one that will help to pull you through even the most difficult sides of studying architecture.
A lot of the friendships created in architecture school continue into professional practice, with many opting to start practices together.
Volunteer to help other people
Volunteering can be anything from offering to help people within your group, to being the year representative, all the way through to being the school president.
The purpose of this (other than helping people of course), is that it will expose you to alternative sides of the architecture school that you may not otherwise see. It may also allow to you integrate with the more senior students and members of staff.
Have the right equipment
In architecture school having the right equipment can be crucial, and this can be anything from needing the right pen and having a enough power in your laptop to having a compatible drawing tablet. So do some research and identify what you will need to be as successful as possible.
There is nothing worse than not being able to start or finish something due to the wrong equipment.
We have a list of everything we believe you will need here, but a quick Google search may also summarise a few additional items and back up what we have already suggested.
It’s worth noting that a lot of the items you will need to initially buy should last you your whole time in architecture school, and so this helps to justify the initial outgoing costs.
Architecture is an expensive course!
Learn from others
Learning from others brings us back to the collaboration ethos of a studio environment and working with your friends and peers … don’t shut yourself off from the rest of your class and work in solitude.
Your initial thought processes can be private if you choose, but once developed, sharing them with the people around you will invite discussion and critique, that will only strengthen your design process and highlight areas that you may have not seen.
Opening up your work to effectively public scrutiny can be difficult to get your around at first, as nobody likes negative feedback (if people are honest, there will be some). However this is excellent practice and experience for when you eventually start to work within the profession.
Secondly, offering your opinion to others will also benefit you, in both your critical thinking and understanding, plus also experiencing alternative methods of thinking and working.
Look after yourself
For most students it will be the first time you have left home, and with the social side and benefits of student life it is very easy to forget to eat and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
A simple way to help keep yourself well is to take a vitamin. This should however never substitute a healthy diet and as you progress through university or college your cooking abilities are likely to improve, but until they do, a good all-round vitamin will keep your levels up.
Attend
We cover this here also, but keeping your attendance up is vital to your success. For most new students, architecture school is the first time they have experienced self-directed study and whilst an extreme amount of absence will not be tolerated, it’s very easy to skip the odd lecture, seminar or tutorial each week.
By doing this however, you will miss valuable parts of the course and its content, so make the effort to attend everything …even if you need to go back to bed afterwards!
Join a sports team of club
Architecture school can be an intense environment and one that is easy to be absorbed by. Joining a sports team or any other sort of club, will offer a welcomed break and provide the opportunity to create friendships outside of architecture school.
This is not only beneficial to your studying but also to your general experience of being a student, it will be over before you know it …so make the most of it!
Party
Believe it or not this is very important and follows the same thinking behind the above …don’t take it seriously all the time!
A lot of architecture students believe that they need to be in the studios 24/7 and sacrifice sleep, eating, socialising, and general normality. This just isn’t true and all comes down to time management and efficiency of the student.
Go out, and have a drink with your friends, it’s supposed to fun too!
Read
There are people that read and there are people that don’t, most people who do however are not reading architecture literature, but if it comes naturally to you then it’s a lot easier.
If you don’t, it can be difficult to “find the time” and justify sitting down when you could be physically doing something else.
Try to find the time even if it is just for 30 minutes, reading is the best and most efficient way to learn and we have several book lists here to get you started.
Don’t be afraid of the workshop
When we were first year students at architecture school, I remember being really hesitant of entering the workshop …there were bigger kids in there!
But the workshop is where you learn to work and create with different types of materials and forms, and is vitally important.
Physically modelling something is far more effective than creating it in 3D and also a far quicker method of testing concepts and ideas.
So get in there early and get experimenting, it’s one of the best places to be in architecture school!
Don’t wait to be shown
Although you are going to be taking in a lot of information on all aspects of architecture, don’t wait to be taught, especially if it can put you ahead.
For example, learning how to use a 3D modelling package and render software will enable you to start producing architectural visualisations for your projects, a lot of architecture schools only teach the basics, and so pushing yourself outside of this will give you the edge.
Enjoy it
Being an architecture student is likely to be the freest learning experience you would have had and likely will ever be to have, and so enjoy it. Every new project provides a new challenge, method of thinking, and areas to learn, with very little limits. It’s fun!
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