[CJ Cho]

It’s nice that you found out about landscape architecture and am considering getting a masters in it later. I found out about it later in my undergrad and am doing the masters now.

I know landscape architects who get their MBAs later and have specialized more on the business side of things and others who work mainly with the design or other aspect and hate doing the business side of things. That isn’t to say a landscape architect needs only business or only the conservation side. Design can’t survive only by itself, but one of the strong things about the field is strong ability in the sciences. 

I guess what I’m saying is, it depends on what you’d like to study and spend these two or so years left of your education. I have classmates who have studied economics, or a hard science, and they seem both well suited. 

If it’s possible, maybe you can contact some program heads at landscape architecture schools to see what they think. Or talk to local landscape architects. 

Let me know if that helps or it it just muddled things up more.

[CJ Cho]

It’s probably too late to reply to this post now, since you probably already decided where to go. I’m in the program now and lived in the student housing.

Housing in Old Town Alexandria and in the neighboring areas is high. The campus is in the middle of a city and 10 minutes to DC, so you can’t expect it to be very cheap. The student housing is generally offered for one year and the price is much lower than the average rent options. However, the MLA program is generally two to three years so you want to take that into consideration. I think if you want to live at the Gallery, you most likely can. I’ve only known of a few people who weren’t able to get into the student housing, but this was because they applied for the housing very late, like close to Aug.

You can message me if you have any more questions.

[CJ Cho]

This is a very good question to ask. I’m glad you took the initiative to find a place to ask it. I didn’t know about these websites until after I started my MLA. 

After going to school for a while, I think I would have liked to know the following:

– Does the program require you to do a thesis in order to graduate? A thesis can be a semester or a year long project. Or can you take studios all three years? You can go in depth on one topic for a thesis but if you would rather do many shorter different projects, you would pick studio.

– Faculty backgrounds. This ties in with thesis a bit. Is there someone whose research or built work you are interested in? Chances are the studios and classes taught will be around the professor’s interests.

– Different areas of the US. If you are interested in arid landscapes, going to an area where it is like that would help a lot or if interested in urban areas, picking a program in urban areas would have more opportunities in urban areas. 

– If you can talk to current students (via skype or email). Do they seem happy there? What’s the average class size for each graduating class? Retention rate?

– What part of the college or university is the landscape architecture department located in? Is it in the College of Agriculture or College of Design or College of Natural Resources? Sometimes that shows how the program is more aligned with. Natural Resources probably is a bit more technical or nature oriented than probably an urban focus. 

I hope you find a program you like. If I think of anything else, I’ll write more later.

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