Getting an MLA without professional experience

I would think that having real world experience would help inform your masters. How do you know what you want to concentrate your masters in if you haven’t practiced? What can you bring to a masters program without having first explored the profession?

School and work are much different… to the point that I question how significantly a masters would change your experience in an office. If you’re doing cad, you’re doing cad. Who cares if you’ve got a BSLA or an MLA? I tend to believe that you can either design or you can’t. You can study design and gain a better understanding of what others have done but it won’t neccisarilly make you a better designer. There is a big difference between knowing about precedents and being able to apply that knowledge. And if it’s been done before by someone else, why would you want to do it again?

It does seem that many firms are requiring masters degrees for even entry level positions. I don’t know if there is any practical justification for this. My gut tells me it’s just a relationship between businesses and schools. Education is a business and by requiring masters degrees for entry level work they are ensuring that the education system makes more money. There is an emerging trend toward eliminating undergraduate programs and only having MLA programs. This would truly ensure that a masters is required if you want to practice LA. The students are more indebted, making them more dependent on the employer (indentured servitude). You’re not going anywhere if you’ve got $100,000 in loans hanging over your head… especially if you’re making $40,000 a year… heck, even if you’re making $80K. Try living in NY or LA on $80K while paying student loans… or starting a family. 

So, yeah, I’m skeptical of the MLA, especially with little real world experience, unless you can figure out a way to make it pay for it self… The last thing you want to do is end up with a heap of debt and no job… or a low paying job…

Agreed I would really look at something that will broaden your horizons over redoing your undergrad in grad school.

I would agree with what everyone else is saying…get a masters in something related like planning, urban design, architecture, ecology…depending on what kind of work you want to do in the future.  I got my bachelors in community and regional planning and am just finishing up a dual bla/mla degree.  Would have preferred just the BLA but Iowa State was not offering that option when I began.  Its not a bad program though, granted I could be a doctor now had I gone to med school, but when I’m done I can be a doctor of the land ;p.  I was lucky enough to have been working in various positions around the university as I finish school, several GIS positions, a couple research assistantships in LA, and currently working as a landscape architecture intern for the campus landscape designers.  If you do go the school route, try to find some of these opportunities on your campus, great way to stay involved both professionally and academically.