Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
Pratt Institute
Tulane University
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Temple University
University of Oregon
Cranbrook Academy of Art
Those "no internship" blues
Its that time of year--your classmates are landing spots at dream firms, summer plans are being made, career goals are being achieved.
Save for you, dear friend, who has nothing but a string of rejections to show for countless applications submitted, interviews performed, and portfolios mailed.
Anyone else going to spend the summer "researching" - i.e. working at Whole Foods and lying about it?
Should have tried harder or set more realistic goals.
Aren't you just a ray of sunshine
Architecture is a long profession. Summers are few. There's plenty of time to work in an office.
Thanks for the perspective, Donna. I wouldn't mind a chill job, festivals and a little pot mixed in. Maybe pursue a personal project on the side.
LOL....You people....you are so like me...in a very few ways....lol. I need to read some how I got started on my own stories. I can't wait to hear the stoned laced flashbacks.
Danger - Wait a min., are you not a GSD candidate? How are you not getting placements?
(Purely out of curiousity)
As a first year student you're at the bottom of the pile for placements. There are a stable of firms that hire GSD students on the reg, but once you step outside that bubble / move in from coastal cities, you have a stigma (fair or not) to overcome; namely, you're either considered to be a poor culture fit, damaged goods (why aren't you at a bigger name firm), or flighty (I have classmates who reneged on offers when they got something 'better').
There is also the entirely realistic possibility that my portfolio is currently ass, and it also doesn't help that my prior professional experience is for small firms on the other side of the country.
Appreciate the level-headed response. Bummer on the stigma, perhaps your cover letter should do more to address the social stereotype. As for your portfolio, it's entirely plausible it is skewed toward the academic instead of the practical hence smaller firms find it hard to gauge your actual ability to draft details but I'm sure you're already aware of that.
Don't underestimate the valuable life skills you can learn at a minimum wage job. Plus, you'll probably make more money that your interning counterparts.
I agree, everyone should work a minimum wage job at least once in their life. I have a lot of construction experience I could fall back on, but I'm trying to take the jump into an office setting.
Well, how about construction work as house-building season is here?
Maybe work on a historical preservation project where a grant has made some money available. Some are in the National Parks and funding may be loosening up.
Work as a guide at a historical home like Monticello, Popular Forest, Montpelier, ect.
Do ecological restoration projects like beach replenishment or work in different ecological surveys.
Some are long shots but each will get you outdoors.
I put all my eggs in the "office internship" basket and thus have missed the funding cycle for a lot of the positions you've described. I can fall back on construction / landscape labor, but I'm really trying to escape that gravity well.
I didn't land my first internship until early July. There is still time.
Dangermouse, what city / region are you trying to find an internship in?
Are you Graduate or Undergrad in your education so far?
Got your IDP Started? some firms see this as a sign of commitment to the profession, if you are eligible.
GSD students have a solid reputation on the east coast but does your portfolio match the kind of places you are applying to?
Firms are still looking for workers and as you said some people back out of offers some don't even bother to show up and that can ruin things for others who follow from your school. I think you could benefit from taking spring break to rebuild your portfolio and go at it again, you can also look for less daring firms that do large volume of work but are not always looking to get published.
Also get your Revit skills up to speed as best you can and try to make a set of construction documents on the software for a very small project if you do not already have construction document experience. The problem we are all facing in the profession is many academic programs are not teaching how to prepare construction documents and the firms no longer have the money to spend training the next generation basic things that were once part of the academic curriculum a decade ago.
Try to build a portfolio of technical abilities that compliments your design portfolio. As your design portfolio grows and evolves try to maintain an evolving and growing set of construction documents that effectively communicate design intent.
Ultimately keep going at it something will eventually stick.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Thanks Peter. I'm a graduate student; I think my portfolio wasn't great given I didn't give much time to assemble it, and it doesn't include technical work from previous professional positions. I like the suggestion of building a technical portfolio as a compliment to the design portfolio.
Donna is right, architecture is a long profession,
Get out there and do other things, I used those non internship summers to work for local sawmills/arch supply wood shops, and travel. Taking photos of everything so I could fill the portfolio with other types of work.
In our market, firms are struggling to find summer interns. The architecture job market is very hot, and I would question the job-searching skills of anyone unable to line something up for this summer.
Cool, well perhaps your experience can help elucidate where I went wrong:
-Reach out to alumni in January via. feeler emails. Basically, "What is your timeframe for internship hires? To whom should I direct further questions?"
- Follow through on instructions provided, send cover letter, resume, and portfolio
-Two weeks later (or thereabouts) follow up expressing continued interest
-Receive rejection e-mail.
Based on the above, you may want to review your portfolio and resume with your advisor in the arch. program as well as the career services office. If you are not getting called in to interview, there are possibly issues with the written and visual materials you are sending out.
I agree, I need to meet with my adviser to get a different. Resume and portfolio are career services vetted and approved, unfortunately.
I will add that there is still time, however. Smaller places may not hire until May or June. God bless those giant firms that hire summer interns in January, but not everyone can comfortably forecast their staffing needs and workload that far out.
Yes, I agree with the above commenters that many of the really interesting small firms here in NYC don't hire interns until May. I recently graduated from school here and there was one summer where I had 0 offers on May first and by the end of May I had 4 offers from some really cool firms. Three of them didn't even interview me, and I had sent my materials to them 2-3 months before. Another note is that if you haven't worked in an office before, you probably won't get an internship at a good office. My first internship was at one of the most boring firms on the face of the planet, but over time as I built experience I kept stepping up into better and better offices and now, 3 years down the line am in the top tier of firms here in NYC. So don't worry if you end up interning at a garbage firm at first, most people start there, and you won't stay there for long, especially with that GSD degree.
Thanks for the kind words. I have three summers of office experience from undergrad, but that was at small offices in the rural mountain west. "You're from where?!?" is a common question I get the pleasure of answering. I'm still holding out on some smaller firms; good to know that people still get offers through May.
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