When Layaan Al Haidari, a third-year student, arrived at Northeastern, she was certain of one thing: she was going to be an architect. Inspired and encouraged by her family members, some of whom are in the field, she felt prepared for the workload, but did not anticipate how often she’d need to buy supplies. 

The estimated total cost of completing an undergraduate degree on Northeastern’s Boston or Oakland campus is $90,250 before financial aid, according to the undergraduate admissions webpage. Of this total, $2,800 is attributed to estimated “indirect costs not billed by Northeastern University,” which includes supplies like books and technology. For architecture majors, these indirect costs can climb quickly. Between the various materials and specialized equipment the program requires, some students say they did not anticipate the price tag that comes with architecture-related majors. 

At Northeastern, the architecture major offers a studio-intensive curriculum designed to prepare students for licensure, while the architectural studies major provides a more flexible, interdisciplinary approach to architectural education without the professional licensure track. 

In their first semester, architecture students are highly encouraged to purchase art kits that provide the basic supplies needed for their classes. Many students said that these kits include materials like rulers, paper, a notebook and pencils.  

“These personalized kits have been created by your instructor and contain the required supplies for your class, at a discounted price,” reads an email sent to students taking Fundamental Architectural Representation, taught by associate teaching professor of architecture Mary Hale, at the start of the fall 2024 semester. 

In all-caps, Hale wrote in an email to her students, “Choose this if you want to have all the recommended supplies, brand new. Save up to $30 when you buy this kit vs. buying your required items individually!” The price before tax is listed as $152.18. 

Second-year architecture major Eden O’Malley said her kit came out to around $160, a hefty price tag considering the kits did not include many of the materials students are expected to purchase to complete assignments. 

“[Many students] felt it was kind of a steep price,” O’Malley said. 

The following week, at the start of the fall semester, students were expected to buy foam core, a material that consists of a foam center sandwiched between thin layers of paper or plastic. Additional costs included blades, which needed to be replaced every five to ten cuts. 

O’Malley said she made around two models per week in her first semester, with each model costing around $50. For all of these projects, students would largely be responsible for procuring their own supplies. In addition to the price, acquiring these materials in the first place is an inconvenience, students said. Blick Art Materials in Fenway, a local retailer where many students buy supplies, is about a 20 to 30 minute walk from campus. If materials there are out of stock, some students resort to going to a Blick in Cambridge, a 50-minute walk or two swipes on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority system.

The long commute, coupled with financial strain, pushes some students to improvise. Some students use scrap materials left by other students in the studio’s bins for their projects. 

“For bigger projects, obviously, [scraps] won’t work out as much. But if I’m doing a detail like windows, I know I can count on the scraps,” she said. “Sometimes you’ll find bigger pieces that people overbought and didn’t use.” 

Al Haidari, who has used scraps for models, says it is also an effort to prevent waste. Many projects, especially the models that first-year students work on, are discarded when the semester is over. 

“[At] the end of last semester, after finals, we all had to clear our desks and everyone just threw their models away,” said Kaitlyn Truong, a second-year architecture major. “They’re super, super temporary.”

While students spend much of their first year doing hands-on projects, as they progress through the program, the curriculum becomes increasingly digital.

“In the first one to three studios, it’s pretty standardized in terms of the projects everyone is doing. They’re kind of building the same models,” said Amanda Reeser Lawrence, associate director and undergraduate coordinator for the School of Architecture. “Once you get into the upper studios, it’s more varied in terms of the different sections and what they’re doing.”  

Beyond taking on more complex and individualized projects, upperclassmen begin working with a wider variety of materials.

“Foam core isn’t that expensive, but seniors use wires, wood materials and acrylic, and that gets really expensive when you start to add it up,” said Ian Levine, a second-year architecture major. 

In addition to materials, technology proves to be another challenge for some students. Professors advise students to have particular laptop models that best support the required 3D programming platforms like Rhino, AutoCAD and the Adobe Creative Suite without crashing. While the university provides these platforms to students for free, those who didn’t have the laptops to support the software struggled. 

“For this semester, I had to get a whole new computer because I just could not take it anymore. I knew I could not learn on my Mac. I was always just a step behind everyone,” said Chandler Morris, a second-year architecture major. She attempted to use her laptop from high school in the first semester but it kept crashing.  

Suggested computers must have at least 16 GB of RAM and adequate storage, according to the syllabus for Fundamental Architectural Design. These can typically range anywhere from $900 to over $2,000, depending on the model and brand. Dell models are a popular choice for many students. 

“I bought mine for $1,300,” said Elliott Mattison, a second-year architecture major and member of the School of Architecture Student Advisory Group. “It’s worth a lot more than that, but because I bought it used, I was able to actually afford it.” 

Levine justified his purchase because he predicts he will use the laptop for many years. 

“I bought mine with the expectation that it was going to be an investment I was going to have for undergrad and grad,” Levine said. 

All students at Northeastern are also allocated a $120 printing allowance that they can add money to but it is only automatically renewed yearly. For architecture majors, printing pin-up boards — where designs, sketches and models are displayed for feedback and critique —  requires large-scale prints that aren’t covered by the printing allowance. Each of these prints — often several feet wide — costs around $12. 

O’Malley hopes to see the field and university programs become more accommodating. 

“Since it is an added cost a lot of other majors wouldn’t have to worry about, it definitely becomes a barrier, because you are unable to have the same level projects if you can’t get access to the materials you need,” she said. 

In recent years, the architecture department has made an effort to reduce some of these burdens. CAMD’s Student Emergency Support Fund, for instance, is intended to “help students who are facing temporary hardships that impact their well-being and ability to continue their education,” according to their website, and can be used to pay for supplies. Lawrence said the department has also tried adjusting the curriculum to require building less models. 

“We apply for external grants so that we actually can provide shared materials to students,” Lawrence said. “I know we’ve also been phasing [foam core] out and encouraging students to use more cardboard as well for some of those models.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated Sept. 20 at 3:30 p.m. to clarify information from Al Haidari’s interview.

Correction: Because of incorrect information provided to the reporter, an earlier version of this story misstated that Al Haidari’s father worked in architecture.