You dropped the subject when you lost 10%, but have you consulted the course moderator yet? But since you have decided in dropping, stop yelling and start focusing. You might have the advantage of lesser subjects, giving you the absolute focus on design. If I were you, I'll take all the LAN subjects and clear it up before the next semester.

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Added on March 1, 2009, 4:03 amSimple, if you know how to trace from a photograph. But I won't call tracing cheating either- since emulating is a method of learning to draw.

This post has been edited by yangsquare: Mar 1 2009, 04:03 AM

As far as I know, Wins art is a good dealer- so don't worry and try reach them later.

what does the part I exam really tests on? I can only imagine part III is on architectural practices and management.

I'd suggest you not to take the diploma course, take the degree instead. here I find out most diploma holders lose out in terms of both cultural knowledge and presentations in 2nd year.

the degree programme is awesome, they have great lecturers in design. and our head of school is determined to aim for the part I blanket accreditation, and there lies a great future ahead of us since he was the pam president in 70s.

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Added on March 15, 2009, 2:56 amnope, you must have pre-u education to enter local public universities.

you can always get a job with a degree in architecture, you will be expected to intern in firms, help drafting and such. but of course to open an office you'll need pass all the LAM exams. lol, before continuing on part 2 you need to pass part 1. hence you need to know your results of part 1 before taking part 2.


This post has been edited by yangsquare: Mar 15 2009, 02:56 AM

yeah I'm a LKW student. check my works at yangsquare.com

to be honest, I felt pity for diploma course students- they dont really get the best stuff, since the degree programme is the faculty's main priority. try to get discount in the fair, if you have good spm results they might cut you some slack.

If I were you, I would take RMIT. RMIT is superior in design rather than UniMelb. But if you need the facilities, well UniMelb is for you.

Well I suppose RMIT have a better grip in RAIA student biennale in the current years. Plus I've heard reviews from peers here and there- though not perfectly accurate but that gives you an idea of how that school is. In fact, I am biased to look only at the steep side of the curve bell, so as an assumption the best architecture student might be in RMIT but the rest of RMIT students are just average, anyway who knows?

there will always be stereotypes which are at least partially correct like;

1. Unimelb has the best facilities, good performance in overall and design is much more pragmatic than rmit.
2. rmit emphasizes more on architecture than unimelb, so there might be some idealistic thom mayne-like geniuses hidden inside rmit. facilities suck, but what do you expect from a metropolitan school?
3. deakin has the best studio environment and occasionally produces little renzo pianos.

heck, in fact malaysian architecture schools get stereotypes too.

1. utm similarly has the best facilities, always produces good performing students.
2. usm always come close to utm but never did.
3. um is great for master thesis stuff, heavy on research.
4. uitm is the soon rising star, building great relationships across the arch. community.
4. taylors have good lecturers so they have all-rounded students. much more pragmatic than lkw some say.
5. limkokwing is overrated, sometimes produces little delusional zaha hadids and hyped as the highest % of failure in design.
6. ucsi is new, small so the management is well executed.

but what matters is not really what school youre studying in. I believe every school has at least one impressive design lecturer that you can at least tutor with. like in my college we have the reputed mr faisal from utm, Im sure azarimy knows him very well. it really depends on your confidence on going through all these obstacles, if youre the type that gives up easily - architecture is not really for you.

btw, I keep wondering schools like uitm and taylors, who is your greatest design tutor?

This post has been edited by yangsquare: May 17 2009, 06:38 PM

Exactly, Taylors did not twin with Melb U, they only do course moderation. You get Taylors' certificate while in LKW you graduate with Curtin U's certificate. I'm pretty sure both certs can gain you admittance to most Part II courses in Australia since several seniors of mine continued their study in RMIT. Therefore locally LKW's cert is valued more than Taylors- but none gets you exemption from Part I, so both are basically worthless. To graduate with Part I & II guaranteed, go to accreditated local unis or go overseas directly.

Moderation is basically a review visit by a team of professors from the main university. In LKW, our final grades are lowered/increased according to the judgment from the moderation team- so some might get higher marks even after the local lecturers graded our works. Not sure about Taylors moderation though.

This post has been edited by yangsquare: May 22 2009, 08:32 PM

No private Bsc Arch courses in Msia gets exemption from LAM's part I. You will need to submit your portfolio for review, so portfolio is actually your utmost important asset. Not sure about Part I's exam though.

Dont confuse with the term accreditation, there are two things you need to differentiate. An accreditation from MQA or LAN basically means the course is recognized by the Msian government, which most courses have that, Taylors and LKW included. What matters in an architecture education is the accreditation from LAM, or board of architects, which as I said, no private courses are exempted from that.

You can always have credit transfer from the first degree to the second one in public universities. However I'm not sure about how many credits can be transferred, you need to ask azarimy for that.

Are you sure about that? I always thought they have to submit their portfolios.

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Added on May 27, 2009, 10:05 pmApparently LKW have a degree now instead of the old diploma now.

This post has been edited by yangsquare: May 27 2009, 10:05 PM

What does the accreditation team usually look for in the quality of the student works? Is it design adhering to building codes, drawing specifications or even the ability to design well conceptually? I know it is done according to the requirements for Part I, but what Part I looks for specifically?

you might want to check the article on my blog

I beg to differ. Both workstation and gaming cards does add performance to 3D apps, limited however to display/navigation only as long as they support opengl. On the other hand both workstation and gaming cards do not matter in 3D renderings, it is solely depending upon your CPU capability. Since workstation cards are mostly coded in opengl rather than direct3d, it makes little use for gaming.

In the end of the day, computer is just a tool- no matter how powerful your equipment or how beautiful your 3d renderings are- it won't get you good grades if your design is not up to par.

get one with screen bigger than 14", so that you wont be stressing your eyes out doing cad all the time. go for an external hard disk and max out your ram. and a dedicated graphics is a must. I guess a budget around 2.8k can get you that.

brand does not matter, as long as youre confident with their service/warranty.

I think that is good enough for your venture. now go brush up your photoshop skills.

btw, it is not appropriate to say that nvidia is better than ati. both works good in sketchup. however, for now I recommend ati since nvidia's image has dropped since the mass nvidia powered graphics laptop failure.

AA is probably one of the best architecture schools in the world. Rogers, Hadid, Koolhaas and Ken Yeang graduated from AA.

I think Ill have to disagree with you on this one. Architecture is hard, there is no doubt about that. If you compare other courses for example, architecture is guaranteed to give you sleepless nights; regardless of your work is good or bad. compared to benjamin, I had 2.5 years in architecture; and I've seen my coursemates fail year after year. In fact, if I were to count back how many friends from the first semester that are still remaining with me, I can count them with my fingers.

Most take easy way out with graphic design, photography and interior design if they are still wondering if they're supposed to be in architecture. Like benjamin said, you can do only sufficient work to pass your design rather than excel, but the next semester demands double amount of effort of what previously. For example, final project of semester 2 will be designing a residential house; the next semester you'll be designing a house for the first project and a series of pavillions for the final project.

That is only scale of the projects growing bigger and bigger. The amount of skill levels (drawing conventions, scale/proportion, modelmaking, graphical layout) also doubles every semester - using back the same skill level of the previous semester (just to pass) will surely fail you in the subsequent semester. That is where the books become important- not as reference or inspiration - but more to increase the level of thought you put in design.

Some of them really did their best, but still gets really harsh criticism in reviews- while some are naturally talented. Unlike other courses that you can memorize your way through the exams, in architecture we spend only few hours cramming whole semester's scope in exam. Regardless of how good your structural calculations or your knowledge in building science, people still rank you in terms of your design skills.

The workplace becomes another issue, you'll wonder why architecture take so much effort and money to graduate yet your future salary will be lower than those 4-year licensed professional engineers. After all, what takes you to pass all through these challenges is the passion of architecture. If youre that kind of person, you'll do your best and appreciate your works even though the financial payout is low. As students however, you must learn to love exposed concrete and understand why- or else you'll just graduate and work as draftsman, complaining why you take architecture in the first place.

You better be sure with the decision you are taking. by going with diploma in unity youll need to take 7 years (3 years in unity and another 4 in utm) to complete your B.Arch. and ASSUMING you will be accepted into second year of utm. that's a big risk to take. I'm not sure but if youre going for diploma its much safer to take utm's diploma directly, which will take you 6 years into b.arch assuming you pass all the semesters.

but if I were you, I will take the degree (w/ foundation) whether if its ucsi, taylors or lkw, degree in either way is still better than a diploma. with a degree in your hand, at least you can apply into 4th year in public unis to patch your way to a part II, is that correct, azarimy?

I'm a bit confused in terms of the course period here;
assuming one gets out from o-levels

diploma (3 years) -> second year B.Arch (4 years); totalling 7 years
foundation (1 year) -> Bsc Arch (3 years) -> B Arch ( 2 years); totalling 6 years

As far as I know, graduation for Bsc Arch is in the decs; and if the intake is in june then there would be 6 months for part I exam, isnt it?