Code of Ethics

In theory class, we talked about the obligations, responsiblities, and expectations we have as architecture students. As a class project, we were to determine a code of ethics for our school. When discussing as a class what the School of Architecture's code of ethics could be, these thoughts came to my mind:

What do I expect of others? What do I expect of myself? What do I see as valuable within the school to hold it as an attainable value for future, prospective students, not just my current peers? As architecture and interior design students, we should be able to not only talk about our world views, our studio culture and its values as designers, but we should be able to talk about our standard of excellence. The relationships between students and other parties, such as other students, teachers or even the facilities of the school, is the basis for having an ethical statement and a conversation about what we expect and also what we are responsible for.

I believe we have obligations to ourselves, to our university, to our community as our environment, and to our profession.  We have an obligation and responsiblity as students to learn as well as to have expectations and hold obligations toward the School of Architecture and it's academic resources.

First, we have an obligation to ourselves to take advantage of all the resources around us. And in doing that, we "push the envelope" on our quality of work. After my first year at Tech, my motto was as follows:
To the measure of greatness I put in is how much I will get out. 

Also, we have an obligation to our university. Should architecture students have the responsibility to apply their education to the campus' physical environment, like a journalism major publishes a piece of writing? I believe that to a certain extent it is a valuable lesson of humility and reality.

I believe the university has the responsibility to give us an ultimate vision on what they think an architecture/interior design student should acquire to be, besides just guidelines to drafting and AUTOCAD skills.Don't get me wrong--I believe we have an obligation to the university to learn and absorb the vernacular and the educational skills required to work out in the field one day. But, ultimately, more students would stay knowing that this program is more about our ambitions to others, to the university as a whole, to something bigger than themselves than just gaining all the best computer software skills because you want to make good grades. There should be a balance, I think.

Also, I think we have an obligation to our community and its well-being. We are probably not the only major who studies on improving the "world around us", but I wouldnt' know. I had an engineering class this quarter and I gained another perspective; I had a environmental psychology class, and I gained another perspective. Who wouldn't want a well-rounded student working with them? I know LA Tech would be proud to have them represent the school.

The Ruston environment is our back yard. The community of Tech and of Ruston should be our study, research and application on improving the environment, whether its green implications, landscape and site studies on how to preserve as much original "earth," or becoming the go-to for professionals or business owners on how to apply a greater shopping experience so their profits go up. I don't know, we should have the opportunity to come up with what part of town we would make connections with and maybe what city events we could volunteer for. All in all, our responsibility to our profession won't seem so separate from the previous obligations stated. I mean, we shouldn't we blur the lines between those and what is expected of us in our community, in our school, in our classes (to ourselves) be the same for the profession??


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8dSQE74uL4 this video is in two parts and it's called The Good The Bad. it's about the difference between one student who follows the code of ethics and one that doesn't. (after the first couple of minutes, i think you get the point...the music choice is hilarious!)

http://www.grewdesign.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=17 this is a blog by a licensed architect. in this entry, he talks about ethics in the architecture profession. I found it very interesting!