Maybe it’s boredom, or maybe it’s a midlife crisis. Either way, I’ve been pondering the idea of going back to school and getting a degree in architecture. I’m more interested in residential then commercial designs. The problem is, I really don’t know what a fresh-out-of-school architect does. At 40, I’m not sure I want to spend 5 years doing back office work copying other peoples drawings, if that’s what a newly minted architect does.
So, if anyone is familiar with the field. What would a new architect, with 15 years of unrelated professional work history, be likely to do at a first job?
The architecture students I hung out with during grad school used to joke about spending years in the studio, only to find themselves doing “door details” in the real world.
The joking wasn’t that far from the truth. Most found their first jobs with local firms that don’t have a national reputation, on design teams for simple projects like basic strip plazas and low-rise suburban office buildings. Some may work for national homebuilders or chain stores, modifying stock building plans to conform with the character of a region’s built environment. "Hey, Joe, can you take the elevations for the Highlander, and throw some stucco and Mediterranean features on there for the Vegas market, stone and hardy board with some arts-and-crafts details for Denver, brick and a steeper roof pitch for New Orleans, vertical siding for Kansas City, columns and a plantation look for Charlotte, and vinyl with lots of gables for Detroit?
As they advanced through their career, architects will get more opportunities to exercise their creativity.
I’ve recently bought my first house, and I will move there this December. The house needs some work, and I’ve wondered if it was worth some architect’s time to make a design and advise me a bit. But I doubted if I could afford a real architect.
Then I had an idea: I e-mailed the architecture academy in my hometown. I enclosed some pics, a rough description of what I had in mind, etc. I asked them to forward the e-mail among students who wanted to build a portfolio or who needed a study-project.
I got two students who were very happy to do it, and who seem good for the job. I offer them 500 dollars for a design sketch. The great thing is, they will get supervison from their teachers, who I suppose know what they are doing. Both students talked about starting a business while they were in school.
I am not an architect, but I would guess that as a newly-minted architect (but presumably not an Architect, since you would have not yet passed the licensing exam), that you could go the CAD-jockey route (if you have good CAD skills) or the project manager route (if you have any past experience in running projects). In any case, I gather that you’d have a lot to learn post-degree (same as for any degree, really), and the career path would depend a lot on your aptitude and the firm into which you hired. You’d be too expensive to work as a copy-guy (gal?).
In 1989 I started Architecture 101 with 300 students. In 1992 I graduated in a class of 30 with B.S. Architecture degrees.
Bad time to graduate. Firms that consisted of a few licensed architects and 8-9 entry level new graduate drafters were changing over to a few licensed architects and one Auto-Cad drafter.
I would make cold-calls to firms just to get a foot in the door and talk to anybody. A lot of guys in the business would tell me “I hope you like working for free and live with your mom and dad.”
After searching for a job for 2 years unsucessfully I went in a different career direction.
A lot of my peers did the same or those that did get in left the business within a few years. A lot of them work in some aspect of construction, property assesment, survey, real estate, etc. I actually don’t know any of them that became licensed architects.
My brother’s roommate is an architecture student. He has another year of school before he graduates, but has an internship somewhere now. He told me he spends most of his time designing stairwells.
To become a licensed professional architect in the USA, one must (at a minimum) earn a bachelor’s degree from a NAAB accredited professional architecture program, then work for three documented years under the direction of a professional architect, and then pass several exams administered by the NCARB. Some college curriculum programs allow students to work and gain experience while still enrolled in school; this scenerio is less common.
Getting into most undergrad architecture programs is difficult and requires portfolio submission, entrance exams, awesome grades in high school or other prior education, and/or high SAT scores, or any combination of these criteria depending on the school. It’s a long and rough road to graduation, after which the challenge is to find a firm willing to take a new grad under their wing for a 3-year apprenticeship. If a grad is fortunate enough to become an apprentice, then he/she will do bitch-work for the architect possibly including CAD work, some construction supervision, taking photos of construction sites, speaking to the lesser important clientele, basic surveying, performing cost analysis, making calculations related to structures, running errands, and whatever other work the architect firm boss(es) feel(s) like distributing to the new grad. Typically, the pay really sucks for someone who spent at least years in college in a difficult field of study.
I would NOT recommend that anyone pursue a career as a professional architect unless he/she had an absolute passion for it.
About me: IANA architect. What I know about the profession comes from working for an architecture firm on and off (on right now) since May 2000 while I was still in high school. Additionally, I am well acquainted with several former and current architecture college students; one of them was my roommate for 3 years. As I stated above, it’s a really rough road that requires much desire for the work according to the many architects and arch students (former and current) who I know personally.
I considered entering college as an arch major after getting accepted into a program while still in high school, but I decided against it and studied engineering instead. Back then, I felt there was not much demand for new architects. I still feel that way today.
Furthermore I would add that being a 40-something in a very intense masters’ program with a bunch of 20-somethings who are ‘discovering themselves’ would not be a whole lot of fun. Architecture school is a lot like art school socially.
IANA architect either, but I am a building designer. I need no license and may legally design residential buildings of no more than two stories as long as they are of wood frame construction (Nearly all homes here in California meet these criteria). I cannot use the words architecture or architect anbd make sure my clients are aware of my legal limitations.
Often the building departments require I use a structural engineer to determine the structural integrity. This cost is just passed onto the clients.
My academic background is a couple of years in community college drafting and architecture technology classes. I did not get a degree, as I had a chance to start working for small scale developers and contractors instead. I soon opened my own business and have been doing this for thirty years or so.
I am not rich, but I have had a good life doing the kind of creative work I enjoy.
This all came about after I had failed the California Bar Exam twice and had to admit I really didn’t want to be a lawyer.
I’m sure Hampshire could tell you also that architecture school is very time-consuming.
My best friend aspired to be an architect and went to get his bachelor’s at Kent State right out of high school. I remember in his first year he would be in the studio every hour he was not in classes, working on projects. He’s very good at math so I don’t think the concepts were the hard part. Just the amount of work he had to do was amazing.
He quit after his first semester and put his math skills towards something more useful - computer science.
Unless you are willing to totally give up your life for 4 years to go to school and do architecture…yeah, this isn’t the best sort of thing to quell a mid-life crisis.
Most engineers look at architects as wannabe combinations of Contstruction Engineers - Artists that are unable to fill the bill on either side of the aisle.
As many have stated, there are related fields that might satisfy the feelings you have. One of my best friends is a 3D artist and spends his working time creating digital buildings in Maya for real estate developers. The biggest problem in any creative field is that generally you have to be really good at it and the competition is really fierce. He spends ALL his time working at the computer and has since he was 13. He does his work stuff at work and comes home and works on side projects. He doesn’t own a television, doesn’t workout, and doesn’t have much of a social life. 3D is his passion and he would simply rather do that than anything else. If you don’t have that kind of passion, you are unlikely to make it in any creative field in my experience. I supported myself as artist for 10 years. I worked 18 hour days, six days a week to make less money than I get working 8 hrs a day five days a week selling industrial automation equipment.
My recommendation to anyone wanting to make a living in any art realted field is to take a class at a local college. If you aren’t the top student in the class after a month, and if you don’t love it so much that you would be willing to do it for barely a living wage, then forget the whole business. Many are called but few are chosen.
There’s a ton of former architects and architecture students in the urban planning field, too. On the graduate level, architecture and urban planning programs are usually together in the same school at a (US) university. There’s a lot of overlap between the two fields; both deal with the built environment, but architecture is more “micro” while planning has a “macro” outlook. While the architecture student scene may resemble that of an art school, on the planning side it will seem like a very liberal small-town New England college.
With the increased prevalence of architectural design standards in land use regulations, New Urbanism, and form-based zoning, planners are finding it necessary to increase their architectural knowledge and vocabulary. As a planner, I have to have the knowledge to critique a project as thoroughly and brutally as an architecture professor would. I’m not just looking at building design, though, but also urban design - how a project fits into the greater built environment.
Another field to consider is landscape architecture; in a nutshell, it’s design of elements and features in the built/urban environment such as landscaping, hardscaping, public plazas, parks, streetscapes, and the like, but not buildings.
Very true. While I do have my degree but never worked professionaly in the field I still keep it as a great hobby and interest. I visit a lot of architectural landmarks and take tours when traveling around the country and overseas. I design and build a lot of projects around my home (multi-level deck, kids tree house, built-in bookshelves, etc.)
I think I find it more satisfying designing “the ultimate tree-fort” for my kid than it would be designing “strip-mall emergency exit stairwell”.
Thanks for all the suggestions of related fields. I’m going to take a look and see if any of those sound interesting. The thought of the schooling doesn’t phase me. My BS is in Chemical Engineering. Math and science don’t scare me. It’s the idea of spending years designing stairwells that is putting me off. I’m afraid that after a couple of months, I’d be designing stairs to rival Escher
FWIW, the only architect I’ve ever met was a middle-aged man who gave it up to be a jazz musician, complaining that he was spending his life making “ugly and useless buildings that don’t do anybody any good.” I guess not everybody finds museum and skyscraper commissions…
