What Graduate Degree would you recommend as the best complement to an Undergrad in Landscape Architecture? Pros and Cons?

I’d say it depends on your individual interests and what you want to get out of it. If your undergrad tailored more towards the practical side of the profession then maybe you pursue a graduate degree from a school that is more theory based. If you’re interested in natural systems then there’s always horticulture, urban forestry, hydrology, etc…. that all can complement specific fields of LA. Personally my interests are in the public realm and working at various scales to improve the built environment through thinking about how we design cities, so i chose urban design.

it’s all a personal choice, but there’s probably 50 degrees that immediately correlate to LA, and another 100 or so that can be somewhat related.

Nick,

Hard to tell as of yet if it will give me a leg up on professionals without a MUD degree. I’m about a month out from completing my thesis and really getting into the job search. (I’ve sent out a number of resumes/portfolios so far, but as I’m sure you’ve heard — the market’s pretty slim.)

As for the notion that Urban Design might be something that could be self taught…I’d be a little skeptical. I’m sure you’re smart enough to pick up a number of the ideas/principles that form the ideologies of urban design, but a year spent in academia really really helps the process. The time spent in school and the exposure to the types of projects and knowledge of faculty helps out more than I could ever imagine doing on my own. Being a LA, there was a steep learning curve in urban design because a lot of it has to do with architecture and how it balances with the landscape, networks, systems, transit, codes, planning, etc…. that I imagine would be difficult to really grasp on your own.

If academia doesn’t work out my recommendation would be to find an urban design firm (or even an LA firm that does real urban design projects — not just projects in “urban” settings and calling it urban design ) and getting some real world experience that way. While not being a professional degree, it’s still a really complex understanding.

If you’d like I can get you a list of books you can check out that are really good that may help you if you’d like to read up and see how well you can teach yourself. Best of luck.

I would love to have more background in civil design.

We do alot of ‘community planning’ (ie subdivisions) and larger scale site and landscape planning/design and in all those types of projects I would like to have a stronger background in civil. That said, I don’t think I’d want to dig into all the minutiae of civil engineering — stromwater calcs, grading, etc.

I am particularly interested in urban design and planning, more specifically ‘urbanism’ and wish I had a better understanding of real estate and financing. I have met quite a few urban designers/planners with secondary degrees in Real Estate, as well as MBA’s. I haven’t many many with civil degrees or even enviro planning.

Thinking about it–I’d say your personality is going to dictate one or the other along with your chosen career path. I am interested in the nuts and bolts of design, while others Imight be interested in the ‘facilitation’ of a project. Two different peronality types in my opinion, and it’s rare from what (little) I’ve seen to find a person that does both well.

In my opinion, you dont really need an MLA if you have a BLA, unless you plan to teach. I would suggest architecture.

I was not thinking about what might be the most employable post graduate degree, rather one that compliments landscape architecture. I have also found that having some background in architecture, in my case by work experience has been very helpful in my career and in my business. Do not expect any pay increase from an MLA unless you work for the government.