Private sector’s expectations on landscape architecture undergraduate education and newly graduates

This study investigates the private sector’s expectations on landscape architecture undergraduate education and newly graduates in Turkey. Data was gathered through a web-based questionnaire survey, answered by 77 private sector firms in the field of landscape architecture. The questionnaire survey consisted of three parts; firm profile, sufficiency of the education and the private sector’s expectations from the graduates and undergraduate education. Responses were analysed through frequency analysis, reliability analysis, factor analysis, chi square test and ordinal regression analysis using IBM SPSS Statistics Base 22.0 software. Content analysis was conducted to evaluate open-ended questions. The most outstanding outcome of the research is that undergraduate education, particularly practice component was found to be insufficient by the private sector. Moreover, evaluation of the acquired knowledge and abilities on different fields of landscape architecture differed for the firms which were specialized in different fields of landscape architecture. On the other hand, one of the basic problems for the education sector is the increasing number of students enrolled in landscape architecture programs and the insufficiency of both academic staff and the physical conditions required. Besides, the peculiar and diverse character of the different practice fields in landscape architecture also limits the quality of education. However, it should be noted that as stakeholders of landscape architecture discipline, both education and private sectors should work in co-operation with each other in order to overcome the problems faced and to enforce the discipline