The following is an expanded version of the position article I wrote, which was published in the March 1999 edition of the ACADIA Quarterly (vol.18 No. 1), eds. Wassim Jabi and Shailesh Jain, published by the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture. The original version was shortened to 450 words for inclusion in Murali Paranandi's "Education Column," which featured a pair of articles debating whether architecture school should require their students to buy computers. My article argued against such a requirement. Below is an expanded version of the article:
In North American Colleges and Universities, particularly among schools of architecture, there is an increasing tendency to require students to purchase their own computers. This is sometimes hailed as "the wave of the future." For me, this calls to mind a passage from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Upon being shown images of the future by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, Scrooge asks, "Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?" (Dickens 1998, p.89). I hope that mandatory computer ownership is a thing that May be, only.
I must point out that whether students should learn about computers is not the issue. Of course students should learn about them. They should learn fundamentals about how they work, and learn firsthand how they are beneficial or even indispensable for various architectural and scholarly activities. This is not the issue. The issue is whether they should have to buy them. Buying them is neither a cause of, nor a prerequisite for, learning about them. Neither is it a substitute for instruction. Requiring students to buy their own computers, without making them an integral part of courses throughout the curriculum, would be hollow, hypocritical, and irresponsible. It would be an attempt to shirk the duties of instruction, while forcing students to waste money on unnecessary machines.
However, integration into the curriculum raises other problems. A number of basic programs run on multiple platforms, but much software, particularly more technical or specialized software, does not. Platform independence is a wonderful ideal, but the reality is that you will have a hard time finding a recent version of AutoCAD that runs on a Mac, a version of Form•Z that runs on a Unix box, or a version of Radiance that runs on an IBM. If a school requires a particular platform, some instructors may be prevented from using the software they want in their courses. If the school requires only that students buy any one of an approved variety of platforms, then the school must be prepared to make alternate platforms available for students who chose the wrong one for a particular course. If the school does this, how much money are they really saving?
This is one of the main arguments for requiring students to buy computers - that it saves the school money. But much of this savings is illusory. The school may still need to provide alternate platforms as mentioned above. It will certainly need to provide workstations with larger monitors, more memory and computing power, and expensive graphics software for rendering, photo manipulation, animation, and other uses that are compute-intensive and/or involve large graphics.
This results in a computer-to-student ratio greater than 1.0. It should be obvious that having more computers than students is not an efficient use of resources. Hardware, software, and maintenance are all expensive, and some schools must resort to making their students pay for computing resources. But if this must be done, the school is obligated to at least spend student money responsibly.
Instead of making every student spend $2000 on a computer and software, a school could impose a $100 a year computing fee. For a department with 400 students, this would generate $40,000, enough to buy 20 of the same machines per year, which would keep a lab of 80 machines in operation, assuming machines were retired in 4 years. Or even better, the school could buy 16 new $2000 machines and 16 $500 upgrades for 2-year old machines, keeping a lab of 64 more up-to-date machines in perpetual operation. This should be adequate for 400 students, especially given that a significant number of them will choose to buy their own machines, anyway. Similar arguments can be made for cheaper or more expensive machines, more or fewer students, or for maintenance costs.
It must be remembered that students spend a significant portion of their time attending class, reading, sleeping, eating, and even recreating. They only spend a fraction of their time at the keyboard, so unless they all select the exact same fraction of the day, different students can use the same machine at different times. The College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan currently operates with approximately the 64:400 ratio of school-owned computers to students mentioned above.
If a school must pass the cost of computing off on the students, mandatory computer ownership is not a good way to do it. It presupposes a level of integration for which the policy is unsuited. Platform dependence causes serious problems. Making each student buy his or her own machine is just not an efficient way to allocate student money. Assessing a computing fee, while providing means for students to use their own machines if they wish, is a much more egalitarian and fiscally responsible way to solve the same problem.
In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge demonstrates that he is able to change his ways, avoiding the fate that had awaited him. I hope responsible schools will realize that imposing mandatory computer ownership is similarly avoidable.
Dickens, Charles.1998. A Christmas Carol. Ed. Andrew Lang. Originally printed 1843; reprinted by Chapman & Hall, Ltd., 1897; reprinted on-line at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgibin/browse-mixed?id=DicChri&tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/eng-parsed by University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center, last updated December 1997, as viewed Nov.12, 1998 (page numbers are present in on-line edition and apparently refer to 1897 printed edition).
Last update: May 13, 2003
Scott Johnson (sven@umich.edu)