Three Disciplines, a Common First Year: Beginnings and Other Thresholds
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Corbin, Carla I.
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Abstract
This paper uses surveys to investigate what entering freshman students know about the three environmental design professions, and how students choose which to pursue at the culmination of a common first year. What influences the decisions they make [officially] at the end of the freshman year, when applying for entry into one of the professional programs? What are the ramifications for the design of the first year curriculum? Is it a foundation of what is common to architecture, landscape architecture and planning, or is it a 'trying-on' of each of three hats, in order to make an informed choice? These are questions being addressed by a series of surveys that are the beginning of a longer study at the College of Architecture and Planning at Ball State University. The first survey was given before the first class meeting of fall semester. The second, follow-up survey of this group given at the end of fall semester, asked about current levels of understanding of each of the professions, and about the status of the decision on a major. A third survey was made of second-year students at the end of their first semester in one of the degree programs, asking how satisfied they were with their choice of major. There are many good reasons for related disciplines within a College that share content and borders - both in education and in the world of professional practice - to share a common year of foundation design education, taught by faculty from all three programs. This investigation asks questions about where, in such a curriculum, is the best place for students to learn what they need to know - either to understand how the disciplines work together, or to make a good choice for themselves.
Sponsor
Department of Landscape Architecture, Office of Academic Assessment and Institutional Research
Date
2008-03
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