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PrincetonUniversity |
School of ArchitectureThe undergraduate program offered by the School of Architecture is for students who wish to concentrate in architecture. The program provides a foundation for graduate professional studies. Students may also elect a program offered jointly by the School of Architecture and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Students in the School of Architecture find the design studios the most creative part of their campus experience. In the studios, architectural designs are prepared by the students and then reviewed by the faculty. The studios meet with the faculty for three-hour sessions every Monday and Friday afternoon. Wednesday afternoons are spent working on drawing projects directed by the design studio faculty. The design studios, held in the Architecture Building, are open all the time for students' individual work, which is the department's equivalent of independent work. The courses in architecture develop a broad understanding of the concepts and methods for the planning and design of buildings, landscapes, and cities. They include the history of architecture, the history of urban form, analysis of contemporary urban problems, analysis of modern architecture and visual studies, related social sciences, and building technologies. Drawing skills are not required before entering the program; they are developed as an essential part of the course work and design studios. Architecture 203 and 204 are prerequisites for the major, with Architecture 204 serving as the preliminary studio course. The program also prepares the student for further study and research by examining analytical and theoretical problems of architecturearchi-tecture's history and its practice in modern culturethrough research, interpretation, and writing. Junior Year: Each student is required to complete independent work in each semester of the junior year and the fall semester of the senior year. All students in the concentration are required to complete three studios in the two years of their study. In the fall and spring semesters of the junior year the independent work requirement is satisfied by taking a design studio. Senior Year: In the fall semester of the senior year, the independent work requirement is satisfied by taking a design studio. In addition, in the fall semester of their senior year all students must complete Architecture 403 (Topics in the History and Theory of Architecture), a course that is mandatory for all architecture majors and is also considered the first half of the yearlong undergraduate thesis in architecture. In the spring semester of the senior year, the independent work requirement is satisfied by the architectural thesis. In addition, all students will take the departmental examination, administered as an oral defense of the thesis that demonstrates knowledge in the general area of cultural, aesthetic, social, and historical issues related to the thesis. Graduates of the school's undergraduate program generally go on to professional schools of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and engineering. Some have recently entered law, business management, and public affairs schools, while others are engaged in arts such as painting and theater. Some are working in activities and institutions related to city-building and architecture. National Architectural Accrediting Board Statement: In the United States most state registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency authorized to accredit United States professional degree programs in architecture, recognizes two types of degrees: the bachelor of architecture and the master of architecture. A pro-gram may be granted a five-year, three-year, or two-year term of accreditation, depending on its degree of conformance with established educational standards. Master degree programs may consist of a preprofessional undergraduate degree and a professional graduate degree, which, when earned sequentially, comprise an accredited professional education. However, the preprofessional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree.
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