How to Get a $15,000 Scholarship

College is expensive, sometimes really expensive.  Fortunately for me, my costs of attending UT for my undergraduate was only about $8k, and most of that I probably could have avoided if I had been smarter with my money and lived frugally.  This low cost of college was due to my success in knocking off two years of college while serving in the Air Force, and then using the GI Bill while going to school as a civilian.

Unfortunately, the cost of attending the University of Pennsylvania for graduate school is on a whole other order of magnitude and my remaining GI bill will only cover a fraction.  The annual cost of tuition for a Master of Landscape Architecture degree at UPenn is over $43,000 - and the program lasts three years!  I was counting on receiving the Yellow Ribbon Program scholarship offered to veterans, which would have covered much more of my tuition.  Unfortunately I found out at the last minute that I did not receive it.

It would have been easy to simply lower my head and despair, but instead I took action.  With about two weeks remaining until the start of the semester, I contacted the other universities that I had been accepted to and informed them of my situation.  I asked if there was any possibility that I might still be admitted to their programs if things did not work out with Penn, either this year or next.  Within 24 hours, every school I contacted responded with an offer to admit me this year with no problems.

I let Penn know that I had other options, and included the responses from the other schools in my email.  Within a matter of hours, Penn increased my school scholarship by $15k, and also let me know that I would be eligible for a TA position in my second and third year ($2k per year).

If you're heading to college, you need to be ready to fight for your scholarships.  Once you have been accepted, you know that the school wants you and has chosen you over hundreds of other applicants.  And if you are accepted to multiple schools, then you have increased bargaining power.  For this reason, I would suggest that anyone applying to top schools also apply to some less prestigious schools, simply because the more schools you get into the more bargaining power you potentially have.  I don't know the minds of financial aid and admission department administrators, but I would imagine that they would appreciate individuals who show this level of tenacity in requesting scholarships - it speaks to one's character.  And it works!

How to Get Accepted to a Top Landscape Architecture Program

Are you interested in pursuing a career in landscape architecture but don't think you have what it takes to gain acceptance to a top-ranked Landscape Architecture program? Do you feel limited by your age, academic background, professional experience, or mastery of certain software or artistic skills? Are you unsure of how to go about creating that all-important application design portfolio or scoring well on the GRE?

If you have answered 'yes' to any of these questions, then you have come to the right place. In the following articles I will go into detail on how I gained acceptance to three top-ranked Master of Landscape Architecture programs despite an unimpressive academic background and virtually no experience in design. I will explain how, with hard work, patience, and dedication, you can overcome limiting beliefs and turn perceived weaknesses into strengths that application review boards will love. Bottom line – by applying the information provided in the following articles you can vastly improve your chances of gaining acceptance to a top-ranked Landscape Architecture program.

A Little About Me

I was raised in the suburbs of Houston, Texas, a place so overrun with concrete and asphalt that few residents even know what type of natural landscape their city was built upon. I did not fall in love with nature at an early age - as far as I could tell there was no nature to interact with. In high school I was a mediocre student, and though I was interested in architecture I did not believe that I had the grades necessary to gain acceptance to my choice school, the University of Texas (or any good school, for that matter.) Instead of settling with a subpar college, I decided that after high school graduation I would enlist in the U.S. Air Force and become a fighter pilot like my grandfather.

Long story short, I ended up becoming a Korean linguist in the Air Force instead of a fighter pilot. Within this role I was placed in a wide variety of challenging situations and given responsibilities that I had never anticipated. By the time my six-year enlistment drew to a close, I had gained a unique skillset and perspective on life, but I had also realized that I needed to pursue what I was truly passionate about – design. I applied to the University of Texas as a Liberal Arts student majoring in Asian Studies because it was in line with my experiences in Asia and military training. However, I had a plan to transfer into the architecture department as soon as possible.

I worked hard in my first few semesters at UT. I had a high GPA and things looked good to transfer into the architecture department. However, after consulting with Larry Speck, a respected faculty member and former dean of the architecture department, I decided that it was in my best interest to finish out the remainder of my undergraduate degree as an Asian Studies major and then apply to a Master of Architecture program after graduation. While completing my Liberal Arts degree I changed my minor from Physics to Architecture to get a solid foundation and to learn as much as I could, but in the end the most important thing I learned was that I was not destined to be an building architect – I was destined to be a landscape architect.

Unfortunately, I was still a bit uncertain of where to focus my energies at this point in my life, and I was not especially interested in my chosen major of Far East Asian Studies. This led to my GPA falling to only mediocre levels; by the time I graduated I had an overall GPA of 3.4 and an upper-division GPA of 3.0. Not bad, but certainly not competitive as compared to the 3.8+ averages of those applying to top-ranked Master of Landscape Architecture programs. When I took the GRE I scored in the 56 percentile in math and the 72 percentile in writing. I had also tried getting a job as an intern at two landscape architecture firms, but the principals of both firms said essentially the same thing: “We like you, but you just don’t have anything to prove you could be valuable to us.”

So in the year after graduating college I worked two customer service jobs for low pay and thought anxiously about how my life was not on the trajectory I wanted it to be. I knew that there was no other option but to take matters into my own hands and to do whatever was necessary to change my reality. I rented a small one-bedroom apartment to isolate myself from distractions, and each day I came home from my 9-5 to work relentlessly on my graduate school application. I ended up applying to three schools – the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, and the University of Pennsylvania. I was accepted to all three schools.

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Stay tuned for the follow up article – How to Focus Your Energy When Developing Your Application.

Accepted to PennDesign

Yesterday I confirmed my acceptance to the University of Pennsylvania's three-year Master of Landscape Architecture program.  I travelled to Philadelphia last week and attended Penn's open house, and was very impressed by the faculty and organization of the program.  Although I am sad at the prospect of leaving my beloved Austin, I am excited to study under the likes of James Corner, Laurie Olin, Anuradha Mathur, and others.  Arriving at this point has been one of the great journeys and challenges of my life, and has involved more than a little stress, anxiety, and sacrifice.  It is my intention to revamp this website in order to better document my future experiences in landscape architecture, and I am also working on a video series entitled "Gaining Acceptance to Top MLA Programs".

"The best is yet to come." - Sinatra

Plant with UT Colors

Goldfish Plant (Columnea Gloriosa)

I purchased this plant yesterday from The Great Outdoors as a gift for a teacher who wrote me a recommendation letter.  I like the rich coloring and shape of the small leaves, and it should do well both inside and outside.

GROWING REQUIREMENTS:

Light: A brightly lit spot away from direct sun is just right (near bright east or south window).

Temperature: 55 to 85F. Can tolerate 50 degrees without damage.

Water: The Goldfish plant likes to be kept moist but can get a little dry between waterings in winter. Leaves enjoy frequent misting if possible. 

Humidity: High to very high.  (I am going to place a tray of pebbles and water under the pot to increase humidity in Austin's dry climate.)

One Week at a Garden Center

It has now been one week since I began working at a plant nursery, and my body is tired.  Tired, and happy.  My job involves a lot of manual labor, moving heavy objects and carrying countless bags of soil, but the weather has been pleasant so far and the work is fun in its own way.  My days are filled with activities that might seem terrible to other people but I find them interesting and enjoyable - at least for now.  Planting a flower bed, learning to drive a forklift, sucking up fountain sludge with a high powered shopvac, drilling holes in ceramic pots, converting a boombox and speakers to a planter display, etc.  And above all, I have been learning a lot about plants by observing and asking questions.

It seems that my decision to pursue this job was a very good one, it's only too bad that I didn't start working with plants earlier in life.  I remind myself, however, that it is a waste of time and a hindrance to progress to dwell on the past, and also that my current passion will help me advance quickly.

-Tom

Getting a Job at a Garden Nursery

Yesterday I began my first day at The Great Outdoors, a fantastic locally-owned nursery in Austin.   I took this job to learn about more about growing, selling, and installing plants, and to add to my resumé as a landscape architect. There is no doubt that this job will involve tough manual labor out in the sun and rain, but working with plants is something that I've wanted to do for a long time. I actually attempted to get a nursery job last year, but missed the hiring season due to my own ignorance. This year I was much smarter about it, and for anyone attempting to get a job at a nursery I would offer these points of advice:

1.  Craft a decent resumé. This should be a no-brainer for any job-seeker, but I feel I should mention it because these jobs can be more competitive than you might think. I used a resumé template with green font that came with MS Word for Mac to create a very snazzy looking resumé.  (The green font looks more professional than it sounds.)


2. Know the hiring season. Selling plants is a season-driven business, and employees are typically hired in groups before the growing season begins. In Austin this hiring season is mid-January to mid-February.


3. Know your local plants. Nurseries and garden centers like to see that you have some very basic knowledge of plants, and that you are somewhat familiar with the species commonly sold in your area. I was asked multiple times about this stuff, and studied up to make myself a more competitive applicant. Some universal questions you should know the answers to include:


• what are the primary soil nutrients that plants need?
• what is the difference between an annual and a perennial?
• what are some plant species you commonly find in gardens in your area?
• what are common pests in your area?
• what can you add to soil to adjust pH balance? - etc.


4. Follow up! After you've turned in your application with an attached resumé, wait about a week and then call to follow up. Say something to the effect of, "Hi, I applied to XYZ Nursery last week and am just following up. Is there a convenient time I might come by and introduce myself to the hiring manager and offer a written resumé?" Note that this means you'll be giving them your resumé twice, which is good.


5. Arrive early.  If you're offered an interview, plan to get there at least thirty minutes early to ensure that you don't get held up by traffic.  Sounds like another no-brainer, but consider this - I arrived at my interview early.  Of the two other people that were supposed to interview with me, one didn't show up and the other was 10 minutes late.  Guess who got offered a job.


6. Talk about what you can do for them.  Although you might have your own motives for working at a nursery or garden center, understand and convey during your interview that you are there to make the company money.  The nursery is not a school to teach you about plants or to let you frolic amongst the roses all day.

Huge News!

I haven't been keeping up with this blog much in the past few months, primarily because I have been going through a time of great transition, risk, and uncertainty.  I originally began posting as a way to document my road to becoming an architect, but with the recent situation I feared that I would not succeed in my attempt and therefore had no business writing a blog about it.  Sure, the blog might still serve purpose as a source of "what not to do," but that would not be fun to write.  Yesterday I received notification that I was accepted to the Master of Landscape Architecture program at Texas A&M University, and now feel that I can (and should) resume my postings.

This news marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life, a point at which I have turned off the well-traveled road and found myself walking deeper into a mysterious wood; Nothing is certain except the I knowledge that I am just where I need to be. Stay tuned and I will explain how a guy with an atypical background and relatively low undergraduate GPA succeeded in being accepted to one of the top-ranked landscape architecture programs in the country.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

Master of Landscape Architecture Application Process

As is typical, I'm here at a coffee shop in Austin working on my application to grad school.  I feel that I'm pretty close to finishing up my statement of purpose, although it seems like I've been 'pretty close to finishing' for quite some time.  I really need to wrap this up so that I can start working on my resume and fire it off to UTSOA by the December 15th deadline.

I have realized that it was an important move to resign from my job last month.  The application process has been time and energy consuming, and trying to produce creative work after coming home from a stressful day at the office would have affected my application's quality.  Plus there are so many little necessities of life that come up each day that it is often challenging to work on the application even without a job.  Moving out of my apartment, for instance, which I'll be doing for the rest of the week.  And too much is up in the air right now to sign another lease, so it looks like I'll be staying on a friend's couch for at least a few weeks.  This is not all bad though - my friend is an architectural designer who can probably offer some pointers on my portfolio ;)

“Nothing happens until something moves.” 

- Albert Einstein

Dick Pierce's Permaculture Design Course

Today I attended the first class of Dick Pierce's Permaculture Design course here in Austin. Permaculture is a way of designing with nature to create self-sustaining farms at varying scales, and I've become so interested that I actually shelled out $600 and all my Saturdays from now to December to learn about it. I don't recall when or how I was first turned on to permaculture, but I believe it was when I came across the "Permaculture Pack" video collection while searching for Landscape Architecture materials on a torrent site a few months ago. 

From what I understand so far, a Japanese man named Fukuoka became critical of destructive Western farming practices imported to his country following WWII. He reacted against these new non-traditional methods by forming his own farming system centered around working with nature to do as little work as possible. Fukuoka's insight and success was paralleled by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, who in the 1970s worked to develop and popularize "permaculture," a system of organizing nature's naturally occurring systems to foster self-proliferating soil fertility and yields. This type of farming has been expounded upon by highly successful small-scale farmers such as Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, who was featured in the critically acclaimed book The Omnivore's Dilemma (one of my all-time favorites.)  

Permaculture seeks not only to create self-sustaining farms for personal and community use, but to begin reversing the damage being done by humans to the planet's ecosystem and to ourselves. It is also focused on developing a more harmonious and fulfilling human lifestyle and has ethical considerations at its core.  I realize that this all seems a bit hippie, and being hippie in any capacity is not something I've ever been much interested in.  Yet permaculture has strong scientific backing and empirically measurable successes, and to me it just makes good common sense. Why should we create an ultra-complex system of petroleum-based farming that is costing us billions of dollars and exploding our rate of debilitating disease? Does the sun not provide enough energy already? Can we not use the hard-won fruits of our intellectual evolution to organize natural patterns into a highly efficient system while at the same time eliminating pollutions and wastes? 

We can. If we can develop a new iPhone every year then we can figure out a way to feed ourselves sustainably, and permaculture offers a path towards that end. Ultimately, I would like to utilize the knowledge gained in Pierce's Permaculture Design course to create a sustainable farm on my father's modest acreage in Montgomery,  as well as on future clients' properties as a Landscape Architect. In the shorter term, I hope to use some of the designs I create throughout the course in my MLA application portfolio.

Book Review: Becoming a Landscape Architect by Kellean Foster

Earlier this month I read Becoming a Landscape Architect by Kelleann Foster, RLA, ASLA.  The book is essentially a compilation of excerpts from interviews done with landscape architects and students from around the country, and provides information about job opportunities and the skills needed to succeed in the profession.  It provided me more insight into the key skills I should try to develop and emphasize as I work on getting my foot in the door at a firm, and offered motivation and inspiration through personal testimonies.

I enjoyed how Foster points to the diversity of backgrounds in the profession.  Due to my age and my current lack of experience in landscape architecture, I keep a keen eye open for instances in which an architect has overcome a non-traditional background to become successful in landscape architecture.  One such architect profiled in the book is Douglas Hoerr of Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects in Chicago, who "wrote a cold-call letter to the most famous gardener he had heard of in England" and gained real-world experience over eight years.  He went on to become a registered landscape architect and now partners a successful and respected firm.

Also inspiring is the fact that almost every architect questioned about the axiomatic qualities a landscape architect should possess gave essentially the same responses; creativity, artistic skill, the ability to empathize with people, personal charisma, a passion for the natural environment, and a love of learning.  For years now I have craved the opportunity to develop these exact qualities within myself, but have felt constrained by the lifestyle I obliged myself to.  My six years in the military, for instance, made me a much more effective leader but did little to promote my artistic talents.  The idea of being able to use and develop these skills as a landscape architect adds fuel to my fire as I pursue this career transition.

Does Foster's book actually lay out step-by-step avenues one should take to become a landscape architect?  No, not really, and I must confess that this is what I had hoped for when deciding to purchase the book.  The book does, however, provide a wealth of raw, first-hand information about what is important in a successful landscape architect, and allows the reader to read between the lines to interpret how he or she might go about developing these skills.  This allowance for interpretation is perhaps more valuable than a cookie cutter recipe for becoming a landscape architect, because (as expounded upon in the book) landscape architecture is anything but a cookie cutter profession.

Learning Photoshop and Building Design Portfolio

Learning photoshop, little by little.

From Wikipedia:

"John Claudius Loudon (8 April 1783 – 14 December 1843) was a Scottish botanist, garden and cemetery designer, author and garden magazine editor.

Loudon was born in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, Scotland to a respectable farmer. Therefore as he was growing up, he developed a practical knowledge of plants and farming. As a young man, Loudon studied chemistry, botany and agriculture at the University of Edinburgh. When working on the layout of farms in South Scotland he described himself as a landscape planner. This was a time when open field land was being converted from run rig with 'ferm touns' to the landscape of enclosure which now dominates British agriculture.

Loudon was instrumental in the adoption of the term landscape architecture by the modern profession. He took up the term from Gilbert Laing Meason and gave it publicity in his Encyclopedias and in his 1840 book on the Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture of the Late Humphry Repton."

This Giraffe has absolutely nothing to do with John Claudius Loudon.


...or does it?

GRE Vocab Study

Book Review - Holy Shit by Gene Logsdon

Today I finished Gene Logsdon's Holy Shit (2010) as part of an ongoing effort to education myself on sustainable farming, which I intend on incorporating into my designs as a landscape architect. The book was entertaining, and provided both philosophical and practical advice on the handling of manure from various sources (cow, pig, man, etc.) I appreciated the author's tongue-in-cheek humor throughout the book, which helped make it an easy read. I also appreciated the short but concise chapters, which suggested to me that Holy Shit was formatted to be read in short sessions in which the reader had some, ahem, quality time on his hands.

The book was especially interesting to me in that Gene seems to be someone who has 'been there' in a way that I have not, though I wish I had. He provides real-life examples of how manure was used and managed during his childhood years as a farmboy, and the imagery is both pleasantly and inspiringly nostalgic. I would love to implement some of the suggestions from the book on my father's few acres in Montgomery, such as using chickens and goats to rejuvenate the soil and building a part-time use outhouse to produce additional compost.

For me, one of the book's most important contributions is the author's support of my ever-growing belief that Landscape Architecture (which often involves creative solutions to ecological problems) is a profession truly and deeply important to the stability of first world countries like mine. I immediately recall Jared Diamond's Collapse as I read Gene Logdon's comparison between the agricultural management practices of ancient fallen civilizations and those of today's first world countries:

"But why did these civilizations fall? Although much more evidence awaits discovery, from this new knowledge of prehistory emerges an unmistakable pattern. Invariably, at the root of every collapse was an agricultural mistake."

And also:

"Societies, becoming successful - that is, being able to dominate their environments to suit their own comforts - lose sight of the vital connection between their daily lives and farming."

Holy Shit provided me knowledge, ideas, and entertainment regarding organic waste recycling practices, and I recommend it to anyone interested in small-scale organic farming. I see it as an important addition to my small but growing personal agricultural canon, and it inspires me to continue my education on the subjects of permaculture and organic recycling.

Windfalls on the Sea of Change

After speaking with staff and faculty at a few colleges and consulting with one of my most trusted friends, I am now leaning heavily towards pursuing an Associate of Applied Science Degree in GIS at ACC in Austin. It's much cheaper than any MLA program and geared towards providing the skills that employers are looking for. It also saves me from having to exhaust the last of my GI bill, which I plan to use for a Masters of Landscape Architecture.

The more I look into GIS, the more I get the sense that this is an extremely valuable degree to have. The skills can be applied to exactly what I want to do in the future, but also to a myriad of jobs and projects that I may find myself interested in or needing under unforeseen circumstances. I also like the idea of its versatility; such a degree would enable me to live securely pretty much anywhere in the world within just a couple years :)

Window Shopping

I've beed doing a lot of soul searching these past few weeks. My plan to live in Austin and apply to MLA programs has been unfolding essentially as I had conceived, but the realities of job hunting as well as talks with architecture school graduates has placed some doubts in my mind as to the job security of architecture.

Recently, I have been tossing around the idea of pursuing an online masters degree in Geographic Information Systems from USC or Penn State. Jobs in GIS are plentiful and will be so for the foreseeable future. Also, while in the Air Force I used GIS programs and could add that experience to a GIS job resume. An online degree would allow me to continue working at my current job, plus the knowledge and skills learned would apply to Landscape Architecture and look good on college application portfolios.

I still have many questions that need answering before I make commitments. Today I am taking a trip to A&M to find out more about Landscape Architecture and future options. Hopefully I will return to Austin with a greater perspective and more prepared to make my next move.

Summer Courses at UT & Landscape Architecture

This summer I am taking four classes at UT. The first two, The Human Body and Campus Architecture & Planning, began at the beginning of this month and have been fun so far. I really need to make As in these classes in order to have a competitive GPA for grad school application, but it's tough to stay focused during the summer. After dropping a hint to my Dad, I now have a short-term incentive to make all As as well - a new camera! I made an A on the first test so we'll see how it goes.

I am now seriously leaning towards landscape architecture as my future profession. Ideally I would be accepted to the Master of Landscape Architecture program at UT for the fall of 2011, but I haven't even begun to assemble my application portfolio (in fact I don't even know when the deadline is). I need to get smart on both landscape architecture and the application process at UT if I want to stand a chance of getting into that program next year.

And you may have noticed I also updated this site ;)