Architect, a good career?

S

Spic-N-SpaN

Active member
I'm sort of curious about, since I was little I liked designing things, mainly I'd draw up the ultimate BattleBot (prepare for nostalgia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo3zWxO3yYs) then make it out of legos, and other things like that, not so much buildings.

However, I do feel like I have a good sense of how a space or place should be. I live in a growing small town and constantly get ideas about how we could make our city cooler, but this sounds more like city planning, not architecture.

I don't know, sound like it could be a good fit?

Any Architects out there or people thinking about it as well?

I asked my dad about it and he says its not a very good career just because of the lack of jobs, how far off is he?

Any other advice or if other people are in a similar spot I'm in, feel free to post.
 
Architecture as a career is a bit better than painting. It's art. If you're naturally good and work hard then you might get a big break. But otherwise you might struggle to find a solid job. I mean, consider how many genius architects there are, and how many less crazy buildings to be built there are. Work could probably get pretty competitive.

I might be %100 wrong though
 
A frame on NS is an architect. He may reply to this and give some insight.

My mom was an architecture major but got her masters in landscape architecture and is the senior landscape architect for the city of Seattle. She has worked there for 27 years and she has always loved it. If you get on with the government or something similar its pretty stable-- otherwise your options are to join a firm or start your own I'm pretty sure which could be challenging.
 
my pops has been a architect for around 20 years or so now and he loves his job. It can be lucrative and rewarding if you are good at it. He does mostly commercial/industrial work and specializes in pharmaceutical buildings, which is very cool work, not to mention he gets to travel the world. He started out doing freelance work and then joined a firm and worked his way up. He mostly oversees and leads projects now and isn't a grunt on cad anymore. The firm he now works for an international company and he has a pretty stable job there, except the past few years had been slow and they had to trim the fat at his office, but things have picked back up. Its also a great lifelong skill to have because you can have a much better understanding of structures and it opens doors to new hobbies. Like recently he has started to design boats and build scale models of them in his free time... but anyway it's a tight job if your into that kind of thing and the job outlook is growing faster than average.

also expect to design houses and renovations for friends and family.
 
I was planning on doing architecture since I spent a lot of my youth sketching buildings and drawing them in CAD. But when I looked into A-school it was a lot of art, and not much functional design. I also learned that architects don't make much at all, and the field is pretty competitive. Most architects I've met suggested that I do engineering instead.
 
I'm in my 4th year of a 5 year B.Arch program. The course work is really challenging, and incredibly time consuming. It's not that I don't have any free time, but when I do have free time, I either want to sleep or consume adult beverages. That being said, it is far and away some of the most rewarding work that I've had the pleasure of producing. Unfortunately the only time you get to see any reward is when you ACTUALLY complete something.

"Philosophers can write, mathematicians can develop virtual spaces, but architects are the only ones who are prisoners of that hybrid art where the image hardly exists without a combined activity."

As with a lot of creative professions, the starting pay is generally complete shit. Especially because you have to complete the approximate equivalent of 3-4 years of interning (generally after graduation, although in most states you can start earlier) before you can even think about getting a license (which most architects don't get since a firm only needs one licensed architect to stamp drawings. Although having a license definitely increases your pay scale. Also having a masters degree helps. So there's another 2 years of paying college tuition. Some architects do make bank though. I have a professor who comes to class in nothing less than $300 jackets, and another who commutes to New York from Vienna, Austria every other week.

But pessimism aside, I absolutely love what I am doing right now. And I feel like an architectural education has allowed me to learn a design process which is incredibly useful, and applicable to multiple disciplines; be it graphic design, industrial design, etc...I would encourage anyone to try it, if it's not for you, you'll know pretty quickly... Most people won't waste more than a semester in an architecture program that they don't like because it is so demanding. And in most cases, my friends who dropped have had enough time to make up credits and graduate on time. After three full years of architecture school, I can't picture myself doing anything else, and design has actually become very cathartic for me. Like I said earlier, it's easily one of the most rewarding work I've ever produced, it's just that the work I produce requires double digit number of all-nighters a semester and a lot of stress.

http://vimeo.com/63420535

The guy in this video who looks like Steve Jobs is Thom Mayne. Start worshiping him if you like good architecture.
 
Montana State has an excellent 5 year masters program in architecture. The friends that I know who have gone through it all really like it, but every single one will also say it is extremely challenging. If you make it through the job placement is very good.
 
That's a good summation of it. It's really rewarding when you finish a project--the amount of work that goes into it is truly astounding. the amount of theoretical work that goes into a good design blew my mind and I really surprised myself with some of the stuff I came up with.

It's very competitive and 98% of people start their careers very slowly; it's not like engineering when you start making pretty good money right away. But it's also an art, not to detract engineering for not having an artistic side, but the ability to design beautiful spaces that also perfectly serve their function is really cool.

If you're unsure, take the first year design fundamentals-type class as an elective and you'll know for sure if it's for you or not. also, check out www.architizer.com for some inspiration.

This lil piece is a really cool video showing some iconic buildings:

http://vimeo.com/7809605
 
Im a freshman in university of Idahos Architecture program. Yes its a competitive field.... but sint every job market a competitive field? (yes minus a couple weird tech stuff...) Its the same as every thing.... you have to work hard to get some were.

As an architect you will always be needed, thats the biggest plus. On top of that the field is super open, there plenty of options once you get a architecture degree.
 
This.

Surprisingly, architecture is a major that apparently is hard to find work in. I don't speak from experience, I just recall my professor last semester reciting an article from Yahoo news that discussed a few majors that were no longer recommended. It was an archaeology course and that was one of the majors listed, along with architecture and a couple others. Take from that what you will. Perhaps look into engineering? That seems to be a pretty fruitful major.
 
I wanted to become an Architect when I was in school but decided to become a construction manager instead.

Both can be good careers although they are both very demanding and there is a lot of work that you have to do that won't involve your creative side. For example, writing specifications for door fittings and hardware is about as dry as you can get and takes a long time. So be aware that it's not all going to be cad work and designing nice looking buildings.

Also be aware that Architects cop a lot of crap. They design cool stuff but most have no idea about how things are built and what things cost. As someone who costs buildings at the development stage I can't count how many times I've had to tell an Architect to change a design because they have designed something far outside the clients budget or have designed something that just isn't possible to build without ridiculous cost.
 
My dad is Assistant Architect of the Capitol in D.C. and he hates it. Got his masters from UF and UCF and he thought he'd be designing actual buildings in shit but really he's just facilitating properties on the National Mall. Back when he used to design branches for banks, he hated it even more.

Choose wisely
 
Currently in my first year at MSU in the arch. program. Couldnt imagine myself doing anything else but its not for everyone. Only a month in and ive already spent 2 all nighters in the studio. lots of time consuming work, and lots of late hours. I think as far as a career, it is going to depend on how you work it. There are many ways you could go with an arch. major and its going to be up to you and how much work you put in to getting a job you want.
 
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