In this episode of What a Week, Dave Stutzman, Steve Gantner, and Elias Saltz dive into the ongoing gap between architectural education and the real-world need for specification knowledge.
1. Specs in Architecture School? Barely.
All three hosts reflect on their own academic experiences—most of which included little to no exposure to specifications. Specs were treated as a late-phase task, mentioned only briefly in professional practice courses, if at all. Even today, many students graduate without understanding how buildings actually go together or what a spec is.
2. Drexel & WashU: Small Steps Forward
The team highlights two promising efforts:
Drexel University now introduces professional practice (including specs) earlier in the 3rd year to align with students entering co-op positions.
Washington University (WashU) invites Steve and colleague George Everding to teach four hours of specification fundamentals, including CSI’s CDT concepts, Uniformat, and MasterFormat—giving students a real crash course.
Despite these efforts, reactions vary. Some students are intrigued—like Tucker Beach, who sees specs as a potential “architectural-adjacent” career—while others still see specifications as a mysterious backend process.
3. The Bigger Problem: Education vs. Reality
The hosts agree on a major systemic issue: architecture school overemphasizes design and underemphasizes constructability, documentation, and how buildings actually get built. This leaves graduates unprepared for the 50% of the job that involves producing construction documents.
4. Learning the Hard Way
Dave shares how he entered the field with almost no specs knowledge—writing energy retrofit specifications on his very first project while literally asking, “What is a spec?” His real training came later through a night course taught by a practicing specifier.
Steve echoes the importance of experience, recalling being told early in his career: “You don’t have enough experience to write specs yet.”
5. Growing the Next Generation at Conspectus
Conspectus is actively training new specifiers—some with architecture backgrounds, some from completely different paths (English majors, roofers, FedEx drivers). They use “digital green pen” markup reviews to teach young professionals how to read drawings, structure specifications, and avoid duplication—cementing fundamentals the students never get in school.
6. Multiple Paths to the Profession
Specifying isn’t limited to architects. Practical construction experience, detail-oriented thinking, and strong writing skills are all valuable. As Dave notes: “There aren’t enough specifiers to go around,” so welcoming diverse backgrounds is essential.
7. A Career Pitch to Future Specifiers
The episode closes with an invitation: if the blend of construction knowledge, problem-solving, writing, and technical precision appeals to you—specification writing might be a fulfilling specialty. Pros, cons, and realities included.