Facing the Challenges of Architecture School in Malaysia
The life of a student in an architecture school in Malaysia is NOT EASY. Candidates must have interest, be 100% committed, have passion and constantly exercise their creativity in order to succeed in their study of architecture.
That is the assessment of one student who recently wrote about what it takes to be an architecture student: What Should You Prepare For An Architecture Course Admission Interview?
Many students QUIT and change course midway because they feel that the program doesn’t suit them. The work load of studying architecture is heavy and remains constant as you continue with your studies then work as a professional.
The life of an architecture student is demanding:
- You will need to be creative, resourceful and inventive. You don’t necessarily have to be original in your solutions. You just have to show growth in your designs over time. That’s the point of building up your portfolio. Design is an evolutionary process which means that it is a work in progress. Your work has to show that you’ve learned certain lessons as you’ve completed one project after the next and demonstrated signs of competency in the skills required of an architect.
- Be able and willing to stay up late at night to finish the project or worse, MISS sleep altogether. Unless you are able to work fast and efficiently and effectively. Good design is immediately obvious to everyone who sees it and so is bad design. Good design can seem so easy but it usually takes a lot of hard work and trial and error which takes time and a lot of caffeine and sleepless nights.
- Course schedules and project assignments are full and demanding. Don’t fool yourself. If you’re serious about your study of design, you won’t have much time to spend on other things like parties and family functions. Some students for financial reasons will need to work a part-time job. We applaud you, and encourage you to persevere. You will be better off for it.
- You’ll be spending most of your time with your course mates, which is a good thing. You will form close bonds maybe even lifelong friendships, which means you may not get to know people from other courses because you’ll be busying with your assignments.
- You will have to learn how to cope with stress, pressure and fatigue. There is a lot to be said for time management as a skill that many should learn while in college.
- Here is a big one: you will need to be able to accept criticism from professionals – lecturers, other designers, and architects themselves — without getting defensive and argumentative. You need to just sit there and listen to the comments being made without interrupting or making faces or getting upset. The criticism is about your design and execution. It’s not personal which means it has nothing to do with you as a person or as a human being so don’t lose your cool. Instead show some class. Wait for the speakers to finish their remarks, then simply thank them for their remarks then sit down. You’re done.
- J.E.T. stands for ‘just enough time’. You will have just enough time to get your project into some sort of presentable shape, somehow survive the project review, catch your breath, and then move onto the next assignment. The pace of work will seem too much at times, but besides being a place of learning school also serves as training for the real world. Instructors and professionals want to see if you have what it takes to be allowed to move onto the next level. If you’re a quick study, efficient and skilled in your execution, and an effective communicator, then you my friend, are worth gold!
- It’s not easy to get an ‘A’ in architecture — even if you think you’re the living incarnation of Frank Lloyd Wright himself, back from the dead and here to finish your last great masterwork. It’s true enough to be said there are aspects of architecture which are abstract, and it certainly is a subjective field. It may be that lecturers by habit only give a maximum grade of a ‘B’ and reserve the ‘A’ for the Taj Mahal.
- People are entitled to their opinions. Opinions are like your buttocks: everyone has one. Something you might think is nice, others might see as garbage. What can you do? Nothing, so remember the earlier point: let the speaker finish, thank them for their opinion then move on.
- Here is another really difficult one, and unfortunately it can really twist your pride and sense of artistic rightness to a place where the light of day never shines. Let’s say you have spent tireless days and nights on a well-thought out solution, your execution is flawless and your presentation is stellar. You have scored the winning goal! But then from out of nowhere, just as you are basking in your moment of glory, a sudden, last-minute change has come in and your work will need to be re-done. Maybe not all of it, but certainly the best parts. It can’t be helped. It could be a change request, a team mate’s work has to fit in with your work, new instructions from the design committee, whatever. You’re so mad you could scream. And guess what? It gets worse. Wait until you see how rough office politics gets and the slimy things clients, contractors and competitors do to cheat you, but that is business and life in the real world. Right now, you’re still in school so you have to take it as a lesson learned, and move on.
Here is a very good piece of advice Jyphoon passes on. He went and sought out the input of his seniors to find out how their experience had been. “Initially I was very determined to do architecture, I even planned to switch my course to it. But after I got advices from my seniors, I found out that it’s not that I do not have interest or cannot accept the lifestyle, I just do not have enough creative ideas to be squeezed out from my mind every week.” He urges that you be “very clear of what you want, so you can make a wise decision and do not [later] regret [your decision].”
Good point. Some people have the good fortune of having had a family member introduce them to the profession early on, and when you’re a kid, all the plans and drawings can seem hypnotic and fantastic. The color and cleanness. It seems somehow futuristic to a child, and that is part of the wonder and attraction of architecture and design. It can be a magical world of creativity and imagination, seeing new possibilities and building new spaces and environments. So let that thought move you to consider applying to an architecture school in Malaysia.
Jyphoon leaves us with one final recommendation to visit the PAM offices. They are located at 4 & 6 Jalan Tangsi 50480 Kuala Lumpur. They have a library worth visiting.