James Madison University

Date: Feb 02 2016
Major: Architecture (This Major's Salary over time)
I came here to warn those of you who are looking to join JMU's Architectural Design program. If anyone is interested in studying Architectural Design at JMU, please take the time to read this comment; you may want to reconsider your field of study at this university. The current program is in dire need of restructuring.

The majority of ARCD classes (the required studio class for the major) are spent randomly cutting and gluing pieces of chipboard together, creating meaningless structures that serve no actual purpose. The class places a heavy emphasis on philosophy, and because of this, directions for assignments are left incredibly ambiguous. Some professors come in without lesson plans; every class is an "open discussion" or "critique" where the professor gathers everyone in a room and talks about just about anything to kill the time. As a passionate student who looked forward to learning about architecture, I felt completely unengaged for the majority of my time spent in ARCD classes. There were even days where we did Yoga as part of the class and I feel that this is completely unacceptable.

Grading is also very subjective; if you disagree with the anything the professors say, it results in a negative impact on your grade. This forces students to mindlessly agree to everything, which in the long runs hurts both the students and the university.

Seeing some of the works of friends of mine from other schools (such as UVA and Tulane) absolutely blows me away. They create actual models of what could be turned into full scale buildings while we just cut and paste scraps together until we find a form that the professor thinks is aesthetically pleasing. I can't help but feel that I have wasted my time, money, and effort.