Study of Bachelor Architecture’s Curricula from the viewpoint of Graduates

The purpose of this paper is investigating the effectiveness of the two current Bachelor Architecture’s Curricula (presented by the University of Tehran and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad) based on the views of graduates. ​The main question examines the degree of satisfaction of graduates with the quantity and quality of three main areas of courses including "design", "history and theoretical foundations" and "building technology".

To achieve the purpose of the research, a qualitative approach and a questionnaire and semi-structured interview methods were used. The statistical population of the study consist of 76 graduates in architecture, from 18 universities in the country, 1999 to 2014.

According to the results, in terms of quantity, the fields of "design" and "construction technology" have the highest (with a high score of 27.8%) and the lowest (with a high score of 24.04%) scores, respectively, and the "history and theoretical foundations" field is in the middle, having a high score of 24.75%. In terms of quality, the "design" field with a score of 32.65%, has the highest degree of desirability, and the fields of "construction technology" and "history and theoretical foundations" with scores of 18.42 and 15.95%, respectively, are the next. Therefore, the highest score of quantity and quality together, is gained by the courses in the field of "design", and the score of the other two fields is almost similar to each other.

The results showed that there are the highest and lowest levels of satisfaction in the area of "architectural design" and "building technology", respectively. Based on the revelation of the Null curriculum as the missed subjects in the courses “Application of Computer in Architectural Design", "Cartography" and "Building Cost Estimation", their removal from the curriculum of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad is open to question. But it seems that the transfer of the "Historic Conservation" course from the main courses to the optional one in this curriculum was a right decision. ​This study reveals that regardless of which curricula is implemented, it is necessary to change the approach in architectural education and integrate the teaching of the three mentioned areas to improve the quality