I'm looking forward to seeing what people have to say on this as well. My situation = same.

You know, they warn you and warn you, but nothing is quite like losing your innocence in an Arch. office.

First off, see this thread in which Our Hero beta ruminates on how renovating a house is teaching him that even as a registered architect he feels that he knows little about the proper way of getting a building together.

Then see any number of threads in which Steven Ward, liberty bell, and many, many others discuss how one of the exciting things about practicing architecture is that every day presents another opportunity to realize how little you actually know.

Then stop worrying about it, enjoy the time until graduation, and go into the working world to start slowly learning those things. I sincerely doubt that you are "tricking everyone", if your dean felt there were significant gaps in your knowledge that would have been raised in your critique. Your statement The more I learn, the more I realize I don't have a clue. is evidence that you do in fact have a clue about how much knowledge there is to be synthesized in this field. Your concerns are common, and the fact that you are worrying about it at all gives me confidence that you will do just as well as all the rest of us in finding your way through this process of becoming a knowledgeable architect.

Watch your cornhole man

yeah, seriously

you'll be fine... this is life in general isnt it?

i dont think its so much a question of growing older, learning and becoming confident...its a question of growing older, learning and becoming comfortable. there wont ever be a day you tip the scale... when you know more than you dont know... but you might hit a day where you think 'fuck it... i know what i know... i can work with it'

then again... im 24...what the hell do i know

join the club.

I'm hanging on archinect right now because the more I work on these CD's that have to go out tomorrow, the more I realize what hasn't been worked out yet. In other words, the more I work on it, the more work I find/create in the project so I'm better off not doing anything. How's that for logic?

good 'tude lletdown, I learn from people like you, even if you are 24.

words to live by

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juCehCLO4JM


gotta be yourself

you gotta

B
E
L
E
E
V
E
!!!

Oh for god's sake vado!!!!! Now that song is stuck in my head for the next month and I had just barely recovered from beta's final Sopranos thread!!!

Actually, the Chordially Yours one was pretty, though it seemed like a slightly sexually-charged pillow fight was going to break out at any moment.

Eisenman dont know shit either

It might be time for everyone to read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" -- again.

It's going to be all right. The ones to watch out for are the ones who think they have it all figured out. Stay loose.

mdler-just so we're on the same page, I completely agree. I was just saying that he brought up some interesting points about what us students aren't learning.

vado-that's awesome. My mom is actually a member of an award-winning women's barbershop quartet. Great job on the number of finds, as well.

lb-thanks for the good advice. You're advice always reminds me of what my mom might say if she were an architect and not an interior designer.

evilp-Hey Peter Man, check out channel 9!

the breast exams are on

i am very thankful that my renaissance architecture history class included more than the usual slide lecture. we had to redesign our architecture school building in a renaissance manner and explain the decisions. great project that helped me learned what mattered - and helped me learn how to keep learning similar lessons about stylistic things that i might never otherwise learn.

you could always take an architecture survey course AFTER graduation. if it's just for fun - no pressure - you might retain and learn to use it.

warning, though: i got GOOD at detailing traditional styles, despite having very little interest in them. if you're good at it, guess where you get to spend your time?

My goal is to be successful by age 90.

I'm dancing with fire....and rain...and earth....what a project.....more to be written in the Novella....

Yeah, my studio 3 prof said that Architecture was an "old man profession." Every day I understand that more and more.

thats a great idea steven but which renaissance and what period of that renaissance?

period was our choice and we focused in italian stuff.

Architecture may be an old man's profession, architecture from the business standpoint. Old Men design does not back up their professed knowledge. So what knowledge are we talking about, Codes, Bull Doging your project through the city approval system... that is architecture? My secretary does half of that work and she has a degree in home economics from Texas Tech.

haha cf -I'm sitting in the Human Development and Family Studies building at Texas Tech as we speak. Oh, and we don't call it Home Economics any more. We call it an MRS degree.

I guess I just don't get much in the way of design principles or how to implement them. And I don't know how the hell a building goes together. Damn it I know codes. I've had a few professors who hammer that incessantly.

SW- that does sound like a great project. Concerning your warning, I suck at detailing. That's kind of what helped spark this whole thread. It seems I don't know my ass from a whole in the ground. Guess I won't have to worry about getting stuck doing details, right?

An MRS degree is for the nice young lady who goes to college to land a nice young educated man to be her hubby. (I have a dual Architecture/MRS degree...)

As I read this thread, I keep thinking about the interview I had with Stanley Tigerman for Archeworks. We were talking about studying architecture, and he stated saying how everyone who comes out of arch school these days are glorified mechanics. They can run a workstation, or make nice models, charts, and fancy graphics, but when it comes to having a complete architectural thought they don't know where to begin. He then proceeded to start yelling at his whole office that they are mechanics.

Obviously this left me horribly scarred. I still think about it.

These days I'm thinking about it for a similar reason to rfuller -- many of my classmates show up to class without having read and digested the discussion material, or they use some fairly obscure theory to justify what they think they are doing. One or two can actually do a Yeoman's job at it, but others can't even use a handsaw to cut a block of basswood to dimension for a site model.

Now I dig the idea that we all keep learning, and that having a happy life means keeping loose about things. But, an architect has to get dozens, if not hundreds of people to work together to make something awesome (Stanley would say it has to have Aura). Don't you owe it to those people to have some idea what you are doing?

So if you know that you are full of shit -- and I don't mean just feel full of shit because you have the blues, but actually KNOW that you don't understand the things you are talking about, do you really want to do this? As several folks have pointed out here, Real Estate Agents make better money, and everyone knows they are frequently full of bull.

(*)

1 st year of architecture school:
you don't know anything but you don't know that either.

3 rd. year of architecture school:
you know somethings but your instructor won't let you do what you know.

graduated young architect:
you have a considerable male ego built (even if you are a woman) and you continue to inflate yourself.

first job:
reality hits. you don't know much but you consider yourself more better than everyone else who are working at the firm anyway.

few years later:
you are trusted with title blocks and ordering office supplies. you can ask serious questions to pm.

5 th. year at the firm:
you realize you have burned a lot of creative energy on hotel fixtures or on restaurant table layout. you don't read eisenman anymore and you drive a new mitsubishi that looks like a fake german car.

a few years later:
you say fuck it and quit your job. reality hits. you start to grow back your hair. start to go to architectural events again. your shirts and pants gets greasier as your hair and you sell your car for a few months rent as you walk. people from your old office ask you how you are doing when they see you at the grocery counter and notice you are only buying liquor. even they say "great" they think you are a loser.

important break arrives:
you win a well publicized competition and get a hair cut for the mug shot.

later:
you have your own office which you always had but this time with real projects. you hate losers and register with professional organizations. oh, you already have a family which forces you to take less than ideal jobs. you drive a european suv which your wife also drives the same but different color. you get cards on international bosses day.

later:
you wear great suits, your hair is gray but has a touch of richard gere look. you don't feel hugely creative but your pictures with other famous architects guarantees you some etiquette.

you retire (retire?) and do small projects on 200 acres of land you bought. life is good but you have nothing to worry about.

* something like this is pretty wide spread. it sounds good but it ain't. watch it!

this thread just became brilliant.

Nice Orhan, real nice.

great Orhan..
an architect's life .. you never know what's gonna happen next week -

i'm in the midst of the 5th, 6th, and 7th step right now...