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Topic: Introduce yourself!  (Read 36912 times) Print
Lindsay

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 2
Posts: 114

Well, a lot of has to do that its one of the hardest majors.  Not to say that becoming a lawyer or doctor is any easier per se, but at least in Law and Medicine all the answers are basically in a book.  Architecture on the other hand is mostly a subjective major.  One teacher may give you an A on a project declaring it the best in the class, while another will give you a C if you are lucky and declare that you set back the design profession at least ten years.  Last Fall I had a professor give me a C on a project that I did all that was required, worked over 48 hrs straight on the model without sleeping, and did a hell of a lot more than some of the other groups (a lot of them didn't even finish).  When we presented the projects I ended up getting lower grades than some of the students with the unfinished projects.  (to get to know how odd this guy was, he purposely wore his belt buckle off to the side to purposly "throw off symmetry.")  It was a 6 hr class to boot, so it really hurt my GRA at a time I needed it to be high to get into grad school.   Still, I put that project into my grad. school portfolio (you never put the grades you made in the portfolio for obvious reasons), and that project got me two letters of reccommendation from other professors that saw it.  I've been heralded as a good student by some profs, and others have humiliated me in front of class saying stuff like, "You don't know the first thing about design" or "You're not devoted enough to the arch of architecture" (this coming from a prof. after three solid nights of working on a single project with circles around my darks that wear so dark, you might I thought I had on thick rimmed glasses).  And then of course there's the architecture student's that constantly got As on their work.  Usually their "designs" had nothing to do with architecture.  Like this one guy didn't get a haircut or shave the entire year, then set up a publicity stunt in the atrium where he was shaved in public and did yoga afterwards.  This was declared by many of the faculty as a "Great Work of Art" and he was given an A in his studio for doing nothing while the rest of us toiled endlessly on projects that had something to do with making buildings.  ARG!

But...that's water under the bridge now since I got into grad school.  As for your GRE, since you're college says the scores don't really matter so much for admission, I'd say that your target should be anything over 1200.  Oh, and aren't the prices of those courses highway robbery? :)  As useful as they are, I can't believe they get away with charging us $1000 fees on them.  Oh, and another thing about the GRE, it's a "smart" test.  You take it on the computer.  The first five to ten questions each section gauge your abilities.  So after you answer the first few questions and then suddenly they start getting really hard and complex, take it as a good sign that you're doing well.  If the questions start getting really easy, then you're probably doing pretty bad because the test adapted to you getting wrong answers and thus gave you easy ones because it pitied you.

If you've got any more questions on the GRE and the like, I'll be happy to answer.

Yeah, the class is $1149. It is highway robbery, but the last time I took a standardised test, I didn't take any classes or look through any books (I did decently, considering, but still -- could've done better) because my grades were good, my extracurriculars were exceptional, my recommendations were embarrassingly flattering and my essay was very good. I had enough proof to show that I work my butt off and excel beyond what most individuals do. I just freak out when I take standardised tests. I wanted to be admitted based upon what I normally do, not upon what I could study for and learn to beat the system. I've always been insanely ambitious & perfectionistic, so I was proud of myself for not pushing myself on that one. I was put on the waiting list of one school that by all reasoning I should have gotten accepted into (I know three people who got accepted there who... uh... lacked my GPA, extracurriculars, ambition and effort, though their SAT scores were similar), and that kind of sucked, but whatever. That school is in the bad area of a big city and would have been more dangerous. So, instead, I opted to go to Boston. But I'm in a good part of the city. Granted, a few months ago I was assaulted and had my ribs broken, but I still attest that it's a safe area. (I should be their spokesperson!) I got turned down from 2 other schools I applied to, but I knew there was a distinct possibility of that because they were lofty goals. Got accepted to a decent state school, but I knew I would be. I also got accepted to an extremely good school in Ohio and was even given a partial scholarship and invited into their honours programme. Buuut, it was a state school and therefore felt that I was well-equipped to pay the remaining $30,000 each year. (Ha ha ha) All in all, I got into the school that I had actually wanted to go to, so it all worked out. It's just that this time around, I've gotten hypocritical and decided that I'm ok with studying for this testing thing, because I only have one shot at this.

And, ew. I had considered architecture eons ago, but the whole math thing kinda turned me off from it. The only kind of math I like is Statistics, and even then, I only like doing it by hand. And, hey! I've gone a year without getting a haircut. Well, I recently just chopped it all off and now it's fairly short. But to think, all this time I could have done a publicity stunt for it and received praise. The crazy Bostonians would have been all over that, too. Darn. Where do you go to school? Because, uh, that made it sound almost like you went to Oberlin -- er, well, a non-sexual Oberlin.
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The Dark Agent

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 0
Posts: 137

This is The Agent speaking...

I go to Texas A&M, the arch conservative school of the U.S. *waves American flag*.  Still, I can't say the same about the teachers, especially the College of Architecture profs, which 80% of them are cooky to the extreme.  Heck, the teachers in Harry Potter seemed more in touch with the real world than these guys.  As for the guy who grew his hair out, I have no problem with guys who have sometimes have long hair *eyes once long-haired Matt now with short hair*, and he grew this really ugly pointed goatee that looked like pubic hair (he made posters advertising his shaving featuring just the goatee.  If you didn't know the guy personally, you'd a thought it was a picture of red pubic hair, it was nasty!  :x

He was the my 2nd most hated student there and his best friend (who had better hygiene habits) was my most hated person there.  That guy I hated in that the profs. lauded over his designs all the time and he was a big "know it all" that would make lectures drag on and on and on just because he liked to here himself talk.  Profs liked to call him "inventive" in that his buildings didn't recognize gravity.  Not "defy" gravity, they just didn't take it into account.  He designed buildings that floated above the ground and were upside down and people walked through them in the 4th dimension.  So he never did physical models (because it would be impossible to building something like that in the real world), so he used computer models (which he was quite good at), but the interiors were never fully designed either.  So basically he's have this big flashy splash image of the exterior on a poster.  Profs. just loved it.  Of course it didn't matter that his buidling could never be built and he didn't fullfill any of the design requirements. :?  Now in my opinion, what he did would be good for computer graphics in movies or something, but useless in our world where there actually is gravity.

Oh, and I don't know where people thinks there is a lot of math in architecture.  For my school, only two business maths were required.  The major itself was mostly art and design focused.
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Lindsay

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 2
Posts: 114

I thought there was a lot of math in architecture because an architecture student told me that there was a lot of math. Maybe their programme was different. Or he was a liar.
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The Dark Agent

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 0
Posts: 137

This is The Agent speaking...

HE LIES!!!!   Nah, maybe its the program...or maybe its the math that's involved with the Structural Physics classes.  Now that stuff is hard.
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Lindsay

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 2
Posts: 114

HE LIES!!!!   Nah, maybe its the program...or maybe its the math that's involved with the Structural Physics classes.  Now that stuff is hard.

Structural Physics sounds like a migraine in the making, and based in logic. I don't think I'd like that so very much.
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The Dark Agent

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 0
Posts: 137

This is The Agent speaking...

Yeah it is.  It's also my weakest subject.  Not that my buildings would fall down, I understand the concepts and I tend to over compenstate on the structural components (columns, beams) by designing them larger than required (only an act of God could level my buildings  8) ), but as for accurately calculating the exact size of beam I need (as in the barest minimum, which may be more effiecient, but slightly dangerous imho), that's where I usually mess up.  My structural ethic is more along what the ancients did.  Take the pyramids for example.  Just a few tiny rooms and hallways and everything else is just solid rock.  Those buildings aren't going anywhere or suddenly collapse anytime soon. :) 

Now I say my other weak ARCH subject is Systems (plumbing, electricity, HVAC, etc.), since I barely passed Systems I.  On Systems II I still had no idea what was going on, but I got an A nevertheless. :D  Still, to be weak in those subjects is not to big of a thing for my profession.  He just have to grasp the basic concepts of them.  We deal mainly in design...and then we hire engineers and contractors that specialize in these subjects to do all practical work while we're in dreamland and getting all the credit.
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Steve

Group: Administrator
Position: Hiyah-weizen
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Karma: 65535
Posts: 235

Tell me if you ever design a building. I want to never go in it.  :P
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Steve
In  the meadow of sinful thoughts every flower's a perfect one
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Lindsay

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 2
Posts: 114

Yeah it is.  It's also my weakest subject.  Not that my buildings would fall down, I understand the concepts and I tend to over compenstate on the structural components (columns, beams) by designing them larger than required (only an act of God could level my buildings  8) ), but as for accurately calculating the exact size of beam I need (as in the barest minimum, which may be more effiecient, but slightly dangerous imho), that's where I usually mess up.  My structural ethic is more along what the ancients did.  Take the pyramids for example.  Just a few tiny rooms and hallways and everything else is just solid rock.  Those buildings aren't going anywhere or suddenly collapse anytime soon. :) 

Now I say my other weak ARCH subject is Systems (plumbing, electricity, HVAC, etc.), since I barely passed Systems I.  On Systems II I still had no idea what was going on, but I got an A nevertheless. :D  Still, to be weak in those subjects is not to big of a thing for my profession.  He just have to grasp the basic concepts of them.  We deal mainly in design...and then we hire engineers and contractors that specialize in these subjects to do all practical work while we're in dreamland and getting all the credit.

Hmmm. I'm suddenly very glad I didn't stick with the architecture thing. Granted, I pondered that idea for a short while, and it was more so at my father's insistence. (Man's been trying to convince me to do this or that since I was 12. Not kidding. He's still sad that I'm not going to be a lawyer, in particular, a corporate lawyer -- or that I'm not going to be a doctor or a big business mogul.) Instead I went ahead with Psychology (stop laughing) for my undergrad. He was never pleased with that because psychologists don't make much money. The only real money is in industrial-organisational psychology and in children's psychiatry, and neither interested me. I don't want to be in school until I'm 27 to get an MD or until I'm like 25 to get a PhD. I have other plans. Again, my father isn't particularly fond of them but I have every confidence in myself that I can make it work, and I tend to have low self-esteem, so whenever I have confidence in myself about something, I go for it, because it's usually almost always a certainty. I'm switching out of psychology for grad school. It's a rather large switch, but all in all, regardless of how weird it seems to most people, I don't regret any of my decisions and think that it was actually the best thing I could have done. I don't think I'd have done anything differently were I able to go back and switch anything.

I wouldn't be too terribly concerned. It's been my experience that whenever I have had difficulty grasping something that I tend to understand it later on. Sometimes it will be review of it and it will all suddenly make sense or it will happen when I keep staring at whatever it is or repeated exposure or just completely randomly. You might encounter it again in grad school and then all of a sudden all that stuff just clicks and makes sense. If you're around it enough, and I dare say you probably will be over time, it'll most likely come to you. But, like you said, it's all stuff that you can basically get around one way or another... but, uh, you should probably... uh, learn the stuff.

And on an ENTIRELY unrelated note, hee! I get to go see The Simpsons moobie tonight!
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The Dark Agent

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 0
Posts: 137

This is The Agent speaking...

Yeah, on my internship last year I learned that Architects don't mess with all the structural and system details that much either.  They are like indicated on the plans and then set off to the engineers to work it out.  Anyway, the reason why those classes were so hard was because we had to do all of it by hand and memorize all those formulas.  In real life, there are programs that already figure out most of that junk and you can always look up the formulas in your trusty standards books.  The only reason why I could stay afloat in those classes was that I made A's on all the homework and projects.  It was just my exam grades that stunk.

Steve:  :P , I'll be sure not to let you know so you'll always be leery of new buildings.
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Lindsay

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 2
Posts: 114


Yeah, on my internship last year I learned that Architects don't mess with all the structural and system details that much either.  They are like indicated on the plans and then set off to the engineers to work it out.  Anyway, the reason why those classes were so hard was because we had to do all of it by hand and memorize all those formulas.  In real life, there are programs that already figure out most of that junk and you can always look up the formulas in your trusty standards books.  The only reason why I could stay afloat in those classes was that I made A's on all the homework and projects.  It was just my exam grades that stunk.

Steve:  :P , I'll be sure not to let you know so you'll always be leery of new buildings.

Ah, ok. That's slightly less scary then.

He'll be leery enough of buildings, be they old or new, as is due to the fact that they have people in them. Because people can only mean one thing -- a blackhole of stupidity just waiting to unleash itself upon him. I never really have this problem, so I'm thinking that they can detect annoyance and they feed off of it, because it seems that it's always him who gets targeted. Coincidence or reality show in the making?
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Very Sleepy People

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Steve

Group: Administrator
Position: Hiyah-weizen
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Ah, but the greatest encounter rates of the stupidity monster happen on the roadways.

I realized something while running an errand at work a week or so ago. Rochester doesn't have horrible traffic because of a lack of infrastructure (though there are a place or two that could use an extra lane), and it isn't a massive population commuting in and our (as in, for example, Boston, DC, or NYC), but rather simple stupidity.
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Matt

Group: Administrator
Position: Ninja with Hair Loss
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Posts: 441

It's kinda like Pittsburgh.  Pittsburgh doesn't have an infrastructure problem (though 28 south into the city could use more lanes, I guess, and the parkway shouldn't need more lanes, but does).  It doesn't even really have a stupid driver problem; people are mostly pretty courteous out here. It has a civil engineer stupidity problem.  Pittsburgh invented the phrase, "You can't get there from here."  It's a maze.  Find the cheese and win a prize!
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I like cheese.
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Shawna

Position: Reality TV
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It's kinda like Pittsburgh.  Pittsburgh doesn't have an infrastructure problem (though 28 south into the city could use more lanes, I guess, and the parkway shouldn't need more lanes, but does).  It doesn't even really have a stupid driver problem; people are mostly pretty courteous out here. It has a civil engineer stupidity problem.  Pittsburgh invented the phrase, "You can't get there from here."  It's a maze.  Find the cheese and win a prize!
Everything comes back to cheese, doesn't it?  I almost ended that sentence with an 'eh?' - I've been spending way too much time with Canadians... eh?  :)
  I think stupid drivers are everywhere.  When teaching my little sister how to drive, I taught her when to give people the finger - which I don't normally do, but these people *really* deserved it!  They really boil my blood...
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Lindsay

Position: Soldier of Justice
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Karma: 2
Posts: 114

Everything comes back to cheese, doesn't it?  I almost ended that sentence with an 'eh?' - I've been spending way too much time with Canadians... eh?  :)
  I think stupid drivers are everywhere.  When teaching my little sister how to drive, I taught her when to give people the finger - which I don't normally do, but these people *really* deserved it!  They really boil my blood...

I think that's probably a pretty good indication that you've been spending way too much time with Canadians. :) You should watch some John Wayne moobies or something. Must even the Canadian influence out!

Hahah. A necessary inclusion of driver's ed? My own personal method of expressing anger usually just comes in the form of a glare, but if I'm really mad I will flick people off with my ring finger. I cannot bring myself to be so uncouth as to actually use my middle finger (similarly, if verbally expressing anger I will in fact say, "Eff you" or comparative expletive). I did once or twice on accident and ending up gasping out of surprise and then it really just ruined the whole anger thing I had going. I just feel bad using my middle finger, so if I'm really mad or really annoyed I'll use my ring finger. Gets the point across without bothering my conscience or offending my delicate sensibilities. Not many people can tell that I'm using my ring finger because people don't look closely enough, but I know, and it helps me sleep better at night, so that's all that matters. But, uh, that's totally normal, right? 
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Shawna

Position: Reality TV
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This is The Agent speaking...
Steve:  :P , I'll be sure not to let you know so you'll always be leery of new buildings.

You haven't built any bridges right?  Like in Minneapolis?  :shock:
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