University of South Florida

School of Architecture & Community Design

USF College of Design, Art & Performance

Admission Requirements

SACD UNDERGRADUATE PRE-ARCHITECTURE ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

First-time-in-college students, current USF students, and transfer students, who do not meet the SACD Graduate Architecture Program Admission requirements below may apply to USF and/or choose the General Studies – Architecture area of study.

SACD GRADUATE ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

For admission directly into the graduate architecture program (i.e. ARC 5361 & ARC 5371) of the USF School of Architecture & Community Design (SACD):

All prospective students must meet the following prerequisites:

1.     Earned an overall minimum grade point average of 3.0 in previous coursework (strictly            enforced).

2.     Completed an undergraduate course in Calculus (with a C or better)

3.     Completed an undergraduate course in Physics (with a C or better)

4.     Completed an undergraduate course in CAD – Computer Assisted Design (with a B or         better)

All non-bachelor degree holding prospective students must also meet the following prerequisites:

1.    Earned a minimum of 60 semester hours of college credit

2.    Completed the State of Florida General Education Requirements: State Mandated Core (15 credit hours) and State Required Communication and Computation (6 credit hours); and the USF Enhanced General Education Requirements (15 credit hours)  

All prospective students who have not earned an associate degree in architecture must also complete the following courses:

1.   ARC2211: Introduction to Architecture (with a B or better) - 3 credit hours

2.   ARC2131C:  Introduction to Architectural Design/Graphics I (with a B or better) - 4 credit          hours

3.   ARC2135C: Introduction to Architectural Design/Graphics II (with a B or better) - 4 credit          hours

4.    Creative art or design studio courses* (with a B or better)- 3-4 credit hours

* Examples include: Architectural Freehand Drawing Methods (ARC 2112L), Concepts and Practices I (ART 2201C), Concepts and Practices II (ART 2203C), Beginning Painting (ART 2500C), Beginning Drawing (ART 2301C), Beginning Printmaking (ART2400C), Beginning Sculpture (ART 2701C)

SACD LAPTOP REQUIREMENT POLICY
SACD requires students to have their own laptops when they begin the graduate architecture program. Due to the high volume and hardware demands of digital design work, the laptop must be able to run the advanced architectural design software used to complete SACD coursework. Please refer to the SACD Required Laptop Policy for information on minimum requirements.

  • When students begin ARC 5361 Core Design 1, they must have documentation that they own a laptop.
  • The laptop must meet or exceed the minimum requirements of software listed in the required laptop policy. For this reason, SACD recommends not purchasing the laptop until Core Design 1.
  • All students will be expected to use Autodesk's Revit (free to students) for studio work – Revit does not run on Apple laptops – Parallels is not an acceptable solution.
  • All laptops should include three to four years of on-site, next day service and either crashplan.com or carbonite.com to automatically backup studio work.

External hard drives are discouraged due to the high number of drive failures experienced by our students.
 
QUESTIONS

We are happy to help with any questions you may have! Architecture Advisors, situated centrally in the USF College of Design, Art & Performance, assist prospective and current students with individualized academic planning. 

Prospective students can make an appointment with Architecture Advising through USF Escheduler. Architecture advisor offices are located at FAH 120.

Architecture (Pre-Architecture and Master of Architecture) Advisors may be reached via e-mail at  architectureadvise@usf.edu .