school rant, advice plz

[applesauce]

I can't see myself as an architect. I really can't. I can't see myself finishing architecture school. I just don't think it is going to happen.

I just don't enjoy it, and I really don't think I would enjoy being an architect. I think I would be largely uninterested and very frustrated. The lack of control would frustrate me most, I think, but I see the biggest problem being the fact that I am more tangentially interested in architecture: that is, I am interested in pretty much everything related to architecture, but it seems that the things most relevant to architectural practice interest me the least of these, and those which interest me the most are least relevant to practice, and are much more relevant to other, much smaller fields. I am frustrated here-- I enjoy the environment immensely, but get very little fulfillment from school itself, which is certainly not what I had expected. I could really see myself enjoying a career on a planning board, zoning commission, or in elected office (locally, obviously), or perhaps even in the development industry...but I really just don't think architecture is for me. I'm also not a fan of how the curriculum is structured. There's just so much technical knowledge required to become licensed that the entire curriculum is laser focused on that, and the very little that it does stray is for some reason, to antiquated techniques and concepts (hand drafting, visual training) rather than tangential fields which are much more interesting and useful. Honestly, why would a school spend its very limited extra time in a technically-heavy curriculum on outdated technical training?

As of right now, I am registered to take an architecture course and a computer science course this summer, and in the fall I am registered for about 50% architecture courses and 50% urban studies courses. Thankfully I have enough AP credits to allow me to do that. I really want to go meet with someone at the UIC school of Urban Planning...

Sorry for the run ons and lack of coherency. Comments appreciated.

[burzumfan420]

take the summer courses if u dont like reschedule your fall class

[snoorkel]

Just do what you want, take courses that will actually give you good knowledge you want to know, not necessarily for anything in particular. Don't worry about the degree/major, try to develop some project/knowledge of your own and use that to find your way into a paying field you actually like. And definitely transfer to a school you actually want to be at.

It took me almost a year to figure out that I shouldn't go to college to rehearse things I already know well and study/do in my free time anyway, like writing, business, other pointless liberal ed majors I considered... now I'm going back (to CA) to study something I've always been really interested in conceptually, but never had much technical knowledge to use (physics as the case may be). I figured if I'm actually going to complete undergrad education, I'm going to at least use it to learn something in depth that I wouldn't be able to really learn anywhere else (you can practice reading and theorizing about ideas on your own time, I'd rather pay $35000/yr to learn some complex body of knowledge which is significantly harder to self-absorb)

last part not specifically about you but in general.