Requirements To Become An Architect

Within the United States, a person who is interested in pursuing a career as an architect must first complete all the acquirements within their respective state. A separate registration board is used to watch over each state and oversee that states licensure laws. The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards was created in 1919 to help promote parity between each state’s rules because they often conflicted with each other. Each of the 50 states contain registration boards which are NCARB member boards. While the stipulations for registration varies between each different jurisdiction; education, experience, and examination are three of the common requirements for registration.

The education requirement is usually met with a professional degree awarded from a school that is accredited by the NAAB. These degrees are known as a B. Arch or M. Arch degree. The Intern Development Program is what is normally required to complete the experience requirement. The Intern Development Program , or IDP, is a joint program of NCARB and the AIA. The IDP creates the framework for the courses the intern-architect will have to go through. The intern-architect is required to go through 16 categories and earn 700 training units in each. Each training unit or, TU, is equivalent to 8 hours. California is the only exception to this ,since they require a C-IDP.

Each of the jurisdiction use a course of nine computerized exams gave out by the NCARB. These exams are known as the Architect Registration Examination, or ARE. There is a certificate awarded to those who meet the NCARB’s model standards. Which includes a NAAB degree, IDP, and ARE passage. This certificate allows the person awarded it to be accepted should they want to move into a new jurisdiction. Every architect that is officially licensed by their state have a professional status of RA, or Registered Architect. There are three separate type of degrees available to all architects. These degrees are the Bachelor of Architecture, Master of Architecture, and Doctor of Architecture, respectively abbreviated as “B. Arch”, “M. Arch”, and “D. Arch”.

The non-professional degrees available are Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (BA), Bachelor of Science in Architecture (BS), Bachelor of Fine Arts in Architecture (BFA Arch), and Bachelor of Environmental Design (B.Envd). The non-professional degrees usually take four years to complete, while a Bachelor of Architecture takes 5 years to obtain. These degrees may be finished out later with addition schooling. Usually with an addition of 2 years and person with a BA can have a Masters. There are also courses available in certain schools that combine the education process with the experience process. This allows the students to take their licensure exams as soon as they graduate instead of having to work for years in the field. Sometimes depending on the different polices that each registration board for the states require, it is possible for a person to become licensed as an Architect in other ways. For example, a reciprocal licensure for architects working overseas and working under an architect as their intern for an allotted amount of time.