Project Management is neither an emerging field nor a business career. It is a quick road to alcoholism though.

Multidisciplinary design firm is a code name for a company that does architecture, furniture, footwear, lawn ornaments, etc... all equally poorly.

So you liked Columbia's sales pitch on an overpriced degree? Good on you man! My school also produced graduates that went in all kind of professional directions. And that was despite the crappy education! All arch. schools will concentrate on 10% of the skills you will need to actually be a productive member of the profession.

If you are not devoted to the profession, don't worry too much about it. Some architects will claim that this was their professional calling in life since the first day they swallowed a crayon. If so, judging by the quality of built work, 98% of them are complete failures.

You will need a healthy dose of self-hatred and ability to mock anything to make it through. Your school days will be filled with lots of busy work. Your professional career will revolve around a question 'Why do horrible things happen to decent people?'.

Onto your BIG question: How versatile is an architectural degree outside of architecture?

You want to perform abortions on the side? Do some Matlock style courtroom heroics? Or are you more modest? Every architect is also a professional photographer and a graphic designer. If you know how to use Dreamweaver you are also a web developer. Easy as that.

Back in real world, if you have only experience in single family residences, you are essentially useless to a bigger office. A health-care architect will dismiss most of your non-health-care professional experience. The level of specialization within architecture is so absurd, talking about a lateral shift into anything else is silly. Other professions have just as complex pecking order as this one does. You may be able to jump into something else as soon as you graduate, but that window of opportunity is tiny. Noone will want to hire a 40 year old architect with 15 years experience for an entry level industrial design position. You become a flight risk with diminished ability to learn. Why bother...

I'm not trying to sound negative, but it's a tough world out there for the ADD crowd. Sure, B. Franklin invented newspapers, electricity and USA back in his day, but things have gotten a wee bit more complex since then.

Arm your self with a good sense of humor, and, if nothing else, prepare yourself for an adventure (disclaimer, said adventure may include up to 100% sitting in front of a shiny box).

On to THE question:

Is the degree's marketability negatively affected by the high number of m. arch graduates relative to job opportunities in the architecture field?

Absolutely no! Awesome things happen when supply far exceeds the demand. Back in the '50's, in order to combat the complete price collapse of coffee beans, Brazil government decided to burn the remainder of its coffee supplies and carefully control the production from that point on.

Join us here next Tuesday when we plan on having an architect surplus burning bonfire party.

Hope that helped :)

steelstuds, you should have written the "So you want to be an architect" script. Your descriptions are much more amusing... and depressing.

LaFamilia, don't buy that crap. Whoever told you to earn a M.Arch degree for the purpose of applying it to something else is probably some uber-positive, closet narcissist completely lacking in financial perspective. You are making it way harder on yourself than you need to. Sure, I've know plenty of people who have gone on into construction management. But first they had to put in their 10 years to gain enough experience to learn enough how construction even worked. If you wanted to go this route, for example, just get the C-Mgmt. degree and you'll be a lot happier. The same goes for whatever direction you choose. You need to narrow it down, man! Grad school is no place to be finding yourself. You should already know what direction you want to take before you enter the program. A M.Arch is not all that flexible, if you ask me. Sure, there are people who spread their tentacles into something else, but you don't necessarily need an M.Arch along with all the debt and 3-yrs. of your life for an irrelevant degree to do that. Plus, for every former architect who succeeded, there are thousands who are still stuck in their little cubicle daydreaming of a way out. The only reason all those little "alternatives to architecture" presentations exist is because academia feels guilty they're leading all their little architecture lemmings into the abyss. So they throw them their proverbial bone. It makes them feel all warm and fuzzy for a moment. Then they retreat to their homes and soak themselves in gin. Go to biz school and study product development or capital investment or something. If you must design, find something that can be mass produced. Architecture is definitely not for the half-hearted, if you want to be happy anyway.

beekay: I think you've beaten me on the 'depressing' front. Ha!

I agree with everything you said though. From cubicles to gin.

I do thing, however, that architecture can be a fun path for the less dedicated. God knows we need less psychopaths in the profession. The key to it (and I can't stress this enough) is having a wicked sense of humor about all of it.

maybe the flexibility they're referencing at the gsaap sale pitch has to do with the uniqueness of a design education - because in that they're right!

if you've had your undergrad in something completely different, an m.arch in design/architecture can increase your skills and give you different ways of looking at things. i'd probably recommend to most to do it the other way - undergrad design, and then another field - but...

there's not much to compare to a foundation design studio. it's hugely valuable, no matter what field you pursue. steelstuds and beekay31 have developed a cynicism because there are other things taught in architecture school which cause us to raise our hopes too high about the impact we might actually have on the built environment or that the larger public might care what designers have to say about things. keep your humility, learn/absorb everything you can, and i think you'd be served well by an immersion in studio education.

Steven, how much is your cut on this sales commission? I want some of that sweet, sweet Colombia money.

"immersion in studio education" is ultimately an exercise in 'not getting pregnant/not getting someone else pregnant' before you are done with your studies. Fun? Sure. Beneficial? Depends.

I'm afraid you've been so far removed from formal education, you have no idea how cost prohibitive architectural education is. When did m arch become de facto standard of the profession? At this point most students are looking at 7 years of post-secondary education before they can enter a profession they are poorly prepared for. 5 years used to be an overkill.

Keep in mind the original question boiled down to overall versatility of architectural education. Yeah, studio will open your mind, dude! I dare you to search for remotely relevant job posting that even an entry level architect could apply for. That entry level graphic design position? Yeah, they want you to be familiar with a whole bunch of production techniques noone here has ever heard of.

Your best bet is to be happy with the forced decisions you had to make before you knew anything.

i have no relation to columbia at all. my comments aren't specific to columbia, either. the benefits of foundational design education that i see could from most of the architecture programs with which i'm familiar.

i did my b.arch (the traditional 5 yr) in the late80s/early90s. after 12yrs working in the profession, i went back and got an m.arch because i realized that there were things that could only be explored in the academic environment - the school environment affords one the necessary time, resources, and sharing of information/ideas. after completion of my m.arch, i taught for a while and i continue to spend a lot of time at the college of design, whether for lectures, reviews, or charrettes. so, no, i'm not removed from formal education.

m.arch became a 'de facto standard of the profession' when almost all schools jettisoned the b.arch in favor of the 4+2 - when m.arch became the common threshold for registration. (you know that, don't you?)

...all of which are simply answers to your attempts to argue against the relevance of my opinion.

the point is that design education is not a waste of time and - while it's fun - isn't just for fun. in a time when business schools all over the country are shifting toward a model of 'design thinking' and ceos are learning from daniel pink and bruce mau, foundational design education is valuable both for personal enrichment and as part of a marketable skillset.

wow, only a handful of posts so far, but already so much shit to wade through...

Some of the posts make the authors out to be a miserable, cynical people. The sooner you stop viewing yourself as a victim, the better.

A degree (in any field) isn't a guarantee of anything. You have to take what you've learned, apply it, make connections, continue to learn, and above all take ownership of your situation. Nothing is going to just be handed to you...Certainly not because of a piece of paper you earned from some Ivy-league school.

And I know many former architecture students who parlayed their basic design education (gleaned through arch school) into careers in landscape, construction, sustainability/energy consulting, graphic design / branding / identity, web-development (if you know dream-waver and have even an iota of business savy, then yes, that really is all you need to get started), think-tanks, NGO's, product-design, film and stage design, art curation and publication, real-estate, historic preservation... Hell, one girl even "constructs" ridiculously complicated digitally designed, CNC "fabbed" wedding-cakes (seriously).

So yes, there really are opportunities out there. You just have to actively pursue them and make things happen... you can't just wait for things to materialize out of nothing. And you know what? You'll be more satisfied for it. It's The ones who trapped themselves with a prison of their own construction who feel helpless and miserable. Conventional practice is really only one small fraction of the greater world that is architecture.

Steven's last paragraph above - about design thinking infiltrating the business world - is right on.

I had a nice conversation this weekend with a developer who has a BArch from a state school and MArch from... which Ivy? I can't remember now. Anyway, I think he would argue that his understanding of design thinking has served him very well - he's very successful, and well aware of how he used his architecture training to veer into development.

That said, the cost of an Ivy MArch in the early 80s was probably significantly less by comparison to what is it now. My first line of advice would be DON'T get yourself into 6-figure or even high 5-figure debt to get a degree. If I can be extremely reductive and try NOT to turn this into an Ivy vs. non-Ivy argument, state schools offer the design studio environment and knowledge, but not the Ivy connections - but if you're not interested in practice, you might not need *those* connections anyway.

Also, an undergrad degree in art history can probably only be helped by a Master's in a field slightly more related to business.

My suggestions are:

1) Look into dual degrees. MArch+ whatever you MIGHT be interested in... I'm not talking about the MArch+ MBA ad nauseam.Believe it or not there are other combinations exist (gasp!).I even saw one school offer MArch + computer science.

2) (My favorite) Decide whatever the heck you want to do and then apply to grad school so that you wouldn't have to worry about the "versatility" of MArch.

Hope it made sense.

Well, the OP owes me a can of beer for turning an ignored post into a disco party.

Steve, I wasn't trying to discredit your opinion. Clearly you enjoy the academic discourse enough to be continuously involved with it. Do keep in mind that it's not for everyone, and tacking on an additional year to formal education helps very little.

M Arch used to be a degree offered to those who wanted to eventually teach. Now it's a bare-bones minimum education one needs to acquire in order to eventually get registered. The M part has lost all of its original meaning. To the new wave of students M means 'accredited'. When I asked 'when did that happen', it was a rhetorical question.

The upcoming education bubble is very real. Last year alone, student borrowing jumped by 25% over the previous year. Since 2001 the debt has tripled. It's soon to surpass a trillion dollar mark. These numbers are insane. You may choose to downplay them, and until this is all sorted out I am treating all institutions of learning as suspect.

My old boss became an architect by getting a mailroom gig at an architectural office straight out of high-school and then spent a better part of the decade working and going through night school until he became registered and eventually opened his own office.

Such liberties are not afforded to the new generations. Schools of architecture have entrenched themselves so deeply into the process of becoming an architect while at the same time maintaining the same old level of irrelevancy. Gah.

I strongly recommend to anyone entering this profession to look at the negative aspects as well. My version of the story is not THE TRUTH, but it's worth a consideration.

in the next decade we will see wholesale changes in higher education. i feel this is maybe the last generation of youngsters who will go through the sausage maker of academia. high costs and the lack of employment after gaining a degree will cause fewer students to choose fields like architecture. many may just not go to college at all, although it continues to be the best place to get high and get laid. face it six figure debt just to get a job in some office that doesn't really require anymore than a ba is not sustainable and the word is getting out that architects don't drive porches and wear armani all that often. and guess what? the recovery? it already happened. architecture is still contracting as a profession and the sooner everyone admits it and goes to nursing school the better off everyone will be.

Vado: I really wish I could agree with you about things changing in the next decade. But what would facilitate such change? Loans are all but guaranteed by US government. Banks have successfully lobbied to make student loans not dissolveable under bankruptcy. Education halls have little incentive to keep costs down. It's a license to print money for both the banks and colleges.

Students will continue to flock into schools because the alternative is unimaginable.

Students coming from rich families will have an instant leg up on those staring at 20 years of debtor's release-work programs. The gap between haves and have-nots will continue to widen.

It will take an entire generation of college grads to go bankrupt and forgo concepts such as property ownership or retirement savings before you see anyone in power try to do something about the issue. Even then, such turn of events will be favored by some. Shackled underclass is capitalist's wet dream.

LaFamilia: This discussion of cost of education may appear to be off-topic, but it's really not. It's 2007 all over again and you are about to buy a grossly overpriced house with money you have no way of ever repaying.

That's a really sharp horn.Does the unicorn have a GSAPP March degree?

The other thing is can somebody explain how people can get 40k+ loans per year? As far as I know the government doesn't allow students to take more than 35k-40k in stafford loans per year and to qualify for a private loan shouldn't people have a good credit history? I don't understand how people can get such huge loans..

"The other thing is can somebody explain how people can get 40k+ loans per year?"


Paradoxx, The federal government does not allow students to take more than $31,000 in Stafford loans in a lifetime on an undergraduate level.

On a graduate level, the lifetime maximum is $138,500 (so, masters + doctorates and so on). Even with the $138,000 maximum on graduate students, most graduate students should be capable of finding work within their universities to offset, break even or actually make extra money in school.

The way this is done-- like my previous school-- is that they offer loan packages.

And it depends on how they are structured-- your loan package can consist of subsidized, unsubsidized, public-private and fully private student loans.

And one little trick is that using cosigners, a relatively clean credit rating and a few other things... these companies will loan out dozens of tiny loans rather than one large loan (it's easier to qualify for a $2,000-5,000 loan than an outright $100,000 loan).

And then all of these little small loans are bundled post facto into a larger debt load. This debt load is packaged with lots of other loans and they are shopped around on the market-- i.e., a lot of loans originating from a well-to-do school with a lot of graduates entering the field will having lower risk and a higher ROI than other schools.

It's really just another form of financial speculation.

Paradox: The wiki page on student loans is a pretty good starting point.

Limits on borrowing are $23,000 in subsidized and $34,500 in unsubsidized loans. This is total amount, and not per year. You can max out both which would be $57,500.

Current fixed interest rate is 6.8% on these loans.

If you plan on taking 10 years to repay this loan your rate will be $668/month.

A study published in the winter 1996 edition of the Journal of Student Financial Aid, “How Much Student Loan Debt Is Too Much?” suggested that the monthly student debt payment for the average undergraduate should not exceed 8% of total monthly income after graduation. Some financial aid advisers have referred this as "the 8% rule."

In order to pay $668 a month under the "8%" rule, your average salary would have to be $100K in the first 10 years of your career.

Let's try to take 20 years to repay the $57K loan. Your monthly payment becomes a mere $439/month. Take the "8% rule" again and your average salary over the course of 20 years will have to be $65.5K.

Definitively doable, as far as 20 year student loan-death sentences go.

And that's more or less round two-- higher education reforms that lead to this kind of loan market were win-win.

Students get what they want with 'easy-to-pay' loans that allow them to break class barriers and investors/bankers/financiers get free money to play with to make more money.

However-- I will get a lot of shit for this... so let's not turn this into another over-politicized bullshit "school sucks" thread-- that system is beginning to slip.

I would say fail but failure in most circles means "total" or "systemic" failure-- i.e., a true failure in a government system is when a super majority (66.7%) perceives a program to be failing. Education right now is at a tipping point of barely being accountable-- successful but not really-- and accountability really only requires a simple majority (51%).

So, our education system is not necessarily successful but is still somewhat accountable-- i.e. slightly more than every other person benefits from it. That's a sad benchmark?

Well... because this is such a huge free moneymaker and for decades it was relatively low risk, a lot of companies, governments and so on have benefited from it. The product however is not considered as valuable or secure as it use to be.

And that's really where the big push from more education comes from-- higher demands for higher returns (despite the fact that most knowledge is superfluous for the simple products being produced).

Also what unincorn said. I was hoping for a pictorial explanation though.

Thanks! I see for independent students graduate or professional annual limit is: $20,500 but the lifetime limit is $138,000.Geez it really hurts my head thinking about this.I have 20k in loans (19k now).I'm paying 204$ per month and it is enough of a struggle to pay that..

One should really consider all options before enrolling to grad school.Do you really need the degree? Equally important thing is what is the ROI rate? I think it is best to work full time and go to school part time unless you have a rich uncle.I learned that the things you shouldn't mess with in this country are loans and credit cards.

I'm wondering when the education bubble will burst...

According to this chart average debt in the US is still between $15-25K. My guess is when all states start going over $25K, you will start seeing the hissing of the bubble. Give it 5 more years...

Keep in mind, U.S. mean income for a family is $44,389. Using the math I used above, the upper limit on student loans for a 10 year term would be just around $25K for this mean, mean US family.

Unicorn score!

I'll start the bidding war on that masterpiece with $23K. Loan approval pending.

According to ARCHCareers.org --

The education you will receive may also prepare you for many occupations:

Architect - Principal
Architectural Journalist
Architectural Historian
Corporate Architect
Draftsperson
Architectural Engineer
Art Director
Banker
Building Contractor
Building Inspector
Building Researcher
Carpenter
Cartographer
City Manager
Civil Engineer
Computer Systems Analyst
Construction Manager
Construction Worker
Creative Director
Facilities Manager
Fashion Designer
Furniture Designer
General Laborer
Graphic Designer
Illuminating Engineer
Illustrator
Industrial Designer
Industrial Engineer
Landscape Architect
Lawyer
Management Analyst
Marine Architect
Materials/Products Sales
Mechanical Engineer
Photographer
Physical Plant Inspector
Professor
Public Architect
Real Estate Appraisers
Real Estate Broker/Analyst
School Plant Consultant
Set Designer
Specification Writer
Surveyor
Technical Illustrator
University Architect
Urban Planner
Writer, Technical Publications

IamGray, while I may be miserable and cynical (you got me, but cynical humor is a requirement of the profession, no?), I feel the need to address your last sentence, "Conventional practice is really only one small fraction of the greater world that is architecture."

No it isn't. The "greater world" is in better focus under scores of other disciplines. It may encompass various aspects of architecture but it's not concentrated on it. However, there is a more direct route to getting there than an M.Arch degree. Architecture degrees are not the answer to all of life's problems. That is the point I am trying to make to LaFamilia. See that list above Dr. Architecture posted? The majority of those careers either require no degree at all, only a paid apprenticeship or similar (e.g. carpenter, contractor, real estate), a 2-yr. tech. school degree (e.g. a surveyor, draftsman), can be had with a less intensive degree route (e.g. studio arts/ art history for all historian/ curator/ creative director type careers), an entirely separate, highly-intensive degree meaning an M.Arch would be a giant mistake and waste of personal resources (e.g. Lawyer, Planner, Marine Architect, all Engineering careers listed, Banker) or are based on only a marginally-related skillset (e.g. Photographer, Graphic/Fashion Designer... we get it, you're creative... doesn't mean you have the right tools). Business-related? You can get that with any field you choose. In other words, a M.Arch degree would be skirting your desired field, not targeting it.

Cartographer? I have a minor in geography and I'm not seeing the technical nuances taught for map making. Maybe landscape covers it better. Seriously, banker? I wouldn't trust an architect with my piggy bank, much less savings or investment accounts. Laughable. Love the "general laborer" item. Sure am glad 7 years of school and $100K of debt prepared me how to sling spackle....