Post Professional Degree Warning

[Jason T. Radice]

For those of you who do not have a subscription to LAM, I want to share an article I had written and have gotten published this month.

 

The topic is the various types of post-professional degrees available from different universities, and which type is better for the professional with substantial experience and/or licensure. I wanted to share my experiences so those of you considering a Masters do not make the same mistakes I did. Save yourself some time, money, and mental anguish. Here is the link:

 

http://www.zinio.com/pages/LandscapeArchitecture/Dec-10/416146777/pg-134

 

I would welcome any feedback as a reply.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Hi Jason, Is there any way to see the page more clearly? I’ve zoomed in but it only gets more pixelated. Maybe I’ll just have to wait to get my issue in the mail…

[Mandy]

Hi Jason, I recently came across your article.  Very insightful!  Too bad it’s placed at the very end of the magazine…

[Jim Del Carpio]

I was surprised to find this fair critique on P.P.D in LAM. In my opinion there is nothing new or revealing regarding the lack of depth in MLA programs for any experienced L.A. Albeit, the few non-LA practioners, who read LAM would find the information useful. The one useful point the article brought up is, ” why don’t more schools offer an individual or professional development programs for experience LA’s” I think those programs are there but one has to look deeper into the School Dept. programs to find it.. For example, Harvard has a Master’s in Landscape Arch.II, and a Master in Design Studies, both are 1.5 years long that one can tailored it to their interest. I’m know there are others out there. One just has to look deeper.
That’s all folks.

jdc

[Boilerplater]

I get an error when I try to zoom in!  Do you not want to post the text here due to copyright issues?

[Jason T. Radice]

Those having issues reading it online, I apologize. I didn’t know that the link supplied by zinio (the online publisher) wouldn’t just take you right to the page. Try this:

 

http://www.zinio.com/reader.jsp?o=int&pub=396773952&prev=su…

 

This will take you to the digital magzine as a demonstration sample. You will need to go to the last page to read the article, and you get a few zooms to read it, but that is it. I bought this copy and I very much hate the Zinio format for digital magazines. I do not want to supply a PDF due to copyright issues and because this is a pay-service and magazine, and it just came out. (I didn’t get paid, though).

 

Be patient, this this viewer takes time to load the digital mag and flip through it (there is a grid-view of the pages, its one of the buttons on the lower right).

 

Thanks!

[Jason T. Radice]

Thanks Jim. I know that some schools offer options, and some are willing to work out an ‘individual’ course of study for post-prof, but I was shocked to see how many don’t. Since writing this, I have found one or two schools who are adding MSLAs to their programs in the future, but not mine, and it is a major university center. It should come with the LAAB accreditation rules of the MLA that the school offer an MSLA for post-prof.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Insightful article. Thank you for sharing your experience, doing the research and saving some of us from the pitfalls of the various MLA programs. The 1.5 year MLA II program sounds like the way to go, if at all possible.

[Boilerplater]

Well-written & researched, what with the percentage types of LA programs and all.  Reminded me of a news bit I saw earlier today about how student loan debt is now greater than credit card debt in the US.  We all need to be very careful about the debts we get ourselves into.  I’ll be interested to hear the feedback you get from your professors.

You weren’t kidding about zinio sucking badly.

[Anonymous]

Jason,

Excellent article! I’ve recently been looking into getting my MLA and you’ve made me take a closer look at what I might be getting myself into.

 

I appreciate the eye opener.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Great eye opener! Will you be posting your list of schools that go one way or the other?

[Jason T. Radice]

The list is not in publishable form, it is a mess of notes and markings. I also have about 1000 PDF files, one for each program, one or two for each program. I could see how that would indeed help and I will consider doing just that (it would take another month or so of research to contact each program director to garner any changes to the programs and the nuance of each.)

 

The entire list of schools can be found on the ASLA website. I had done an inventory of the official programs available and any additional clauses with regards to flexibility that are readily available on each school’s website. I know some can alter their programs, but do not list it as such, while others will not stray from the advertised curriculum. To be accurate, I would contact the individual school to determine their options if they do offer an alternate path. Give them the opportunity to explain why or why they do not offer a post-prof research degree that does not involve a retread of a BLA.

 

If you would like my research of an individual school, please send me a message (not a wall post) and I will share my research.

[Theodore Tegen]

Jason,

Your article was an interesting read, although a bit of a depressing look at professional education in our industry.  Your critique of the “combined programs” is a first-hand confirmation of what one ASLA Fellow once told me in response to my question about returning to school for an MLA.  He basically told me that while the MLA would hone my skills, it would probably not advance my career in any meaningful way.  He was referring to the MLA at the University of Minnesota specifically, which in my estimation is a “combined” program.

 

On a different note, have you ever thought of offering consulting services to individuals looking at MLA programs?  It sure seems like there are quite a few on Land8 at the very least.

[Jason T. Radice]

This article isn’t necessarily aimed at you in particular. You are in the right program since you do not have an accredtied BLA. Why I went back was to do targeted research in a two subject areas within landscape architecture, and refine my area of practice. Become an expert with degree to back it up. I had also anticipated that the studios being at a graduate level would have been far more advanced than they were, or were made out to be. Part of the issue was that the course descriptions in the catalog were very vague, and in my case, were not relevant to the actual course they described!

While LA schools generally serve the industry by pumping out future LAs/draftspeople, my point in the article is that most do not serve to forward/refine the profession by means of a targeted program. I cannot get into arch school without spending 3 1/2 years to get an accredited degree (I tried to get into an MSArch), and planning is not at all where I wanted to go. The option? An MSLA with no (or one very advanced) studio requirement. I had inquired about official statistics with regards to graduates and and was told that there are none. Another main point is that most wth a BLA do not go back because there are not programs that accomodate their previous education or experience.

 

Thanks for your feedback and good luck with your program.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

It sounds like you did a lot of work. Your response makes a lot of sense both to be fair to the schools as well as it being a lot of work. The big benefit of your article is that it makes more people aware of something that they can easily research once they know.You don’t know what you don’t know, as they say. This makes more people know something they may not have before.  … very helpful.

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