Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
Pratt Institute
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Kansas State University
Thinking of quitting Architecture and starting Business School.
I am desperately looking for some help with my situation. I am 20 years old. I have just finished 2nd year of the part 1. I have two options:
1. Finish my 3rd year and gain the Part 1 Qualification.
2. Leave now with nothing, and start a 4 year BA from the Business School (Scottish University) from 1st year.
3. Complete my Bsc Hons (another 2 years) and try and get into a MSc business related degree, although there is a risk I would not be accepted as Architecture is not a numerically based Degree as supposed to Maths, Engineering, Business Etc.
I am becoming increasingly alienated with Architecture. I did well last year and achieved 80% which means I am now eligible for the exchange semester next year which would be a great opportunity.
My problem is that I don't feel as though I want to spend my life staring at AutoCAD. I have the advantage ( or disadvantage of having two parents who are Architects ). Having talked to them over the last couple of years about professional practice and asking questions about the difficulties that arise in professional practice, I just feel as though my time would be better spent studying something else.
My day goes like this: I go to lectures and tutorials and spend my time colouring up these wonderful renders and seeing all the amazing projects that are pinned up on the wall. Some of the projects are amazing and they are graphically excellent. However I cant help thinking after talking with my parents and other Architects that professional practice is just not like this.
The bottom line is that I want to go to work in future knowing that my time spent working will pay off. I do not want to be a CAD monkey amongst hundreds off other CAD monkeys.
I remember I did a weeks placement at an office a few years ago and one of the girls working there said something to me which has been ringing in my head over the last couple of months, " Don't do it for the money " I have been thinking about this. Well if I'm not detailing up this standard box house for the money, what the hell am I doing it for?
Since I was young I have always just assumed that I would be an Architect as that's what my parents did, however I am now feeling as though it is a terrible business and I am having trouble letting go of what was once a certainty in my mind.
Peter Eisenman once said “unless you are really committed to being an architect in the true sense of the word, its a terrible business and I wouldn’t recommend it for anybody, unless you need to do it for some personal reason, I would say go into business, go into law, medicine, but don’t be an architect.”
Should I finish my 3rd year or should I cut my losses and start from 1st year again at the business School.
Please could current students or qualified Architects working in the industry help.
for starters, i would say never bother with anything eisenman says
one year in the greater scheme of things is not all that much time. you're almost done, so i would think it would be more valuable to get the degree. if you can spend that last year in an exchange program, i think it would definitely be worth the experience
turn your attention to the business degree after that year, and try to get as many credits as possible to count towards your next degree.
is Trump University in Scottland yet?
The bottom line is that I want to go to work in future knowing that my time spent working will pay off. I do not want to be a CAD monkey amongst hundreds off other CAD monkeys.
There is no certainty that any job will pay off... anytime.
I bitch at my other professional friends about my architecture work, but they are absolutely riveted and in awe of what I would consider to be extremely boring tasks. Once after talking about the process of designing a loading dock, a group of accountants and business junior execs told me it was more interesting than anything they had done all year.
Well hell, we should bring those guys in to do door schedules.
Work isn't fun. That's why you get paid for it.
If I was an accountant and were looking for a creative outlet, I'd apply to the Olson Kundig Residency Program and basically say, "just let me sit in a corner and paint for most of the day, and I'll do all your door schedules for you."
If accounting is half as bad as they say it is, it would be a win-win(-win).
Listen to your parents. Architecture is hell, it is just staring at a computer screen day in and day out, then add all the over time work that usually doesnt pay since you're a 'salaried' employee.
Also, that comment that the girl said to you is bogus, which it seems you know. You will hear the slaves of the architecture industry murmuring this kinda BS all day.
Like you said, "why am I detail bathrooms all day if its not for the money".
The slave mentality is rampant in the architecture industry. Get the fux out while you have the option.
My problem is that I don't feel as though I want to spend my life staring at AutoCAD
so you would rather spend the rest of your life looking at Excel and outlook?
^And actually make a living...
I don't entirely share DeTwan's negative view of the profession - I actually enjoy my job - but it definitely isn't right for everyone. It takes longer than many fields to reach the level where your work will actually involve leading and making decisions with meaningful autonomy. And many architects will never break through to that role.
You've clearly been thinking about this for a while and your view isn't just the reaction to a bad review or tough studio. So I think you're right: get out. The things you learn in an architecture program aren't easily valuable outside design even if you love that way of thinking. You don't, so waste no more time - move on.
Is business just a fall-back though? Do you have some specific idea what you want to do? If not, take some time to look into that. Maybe your family can connect you to developers or planning agencies and you can talk to see if either of those fields would better suit you. Your inside knowledge of the industry would give you a bit of a head start in knowing what to look for in those related tracks.
why make a living if you are not living?
DeTwan,
Listen to your parents. Architecture is hell, it is just staring at a computer screen day in and day out, then add all the over time work that usually doesnt pay since you're a 'salaried' employee.
Also, that comment that the girl said to you is bogus, which it seems you know. You will hear the slaves of the architecture industry murmuring this kinda BS all day.
Like you said, "why am I detail bathrooms all day if its not for the money".
The slave mentality is rampant in the architecture industry. Get the fux out while you have the option.
Design a model design for a gas station with a convenience store and an adjacent small restaurant.
Site location, Sweden. Pick a vacant lot for a project site. Time for you to get creative. You are the Arkitekt. At this stage, you just need to do some preliminary design. You choose your medium for design. If you like to follow through the design for a permit drawings or intermediate DD level or CD with multi-site configuration so the plan is adaptable. If you do so, you should read through the English translation of the National Building Codes and the Eurocodes and other applicable regulations but you have to research this stuff for yourself.
I have to do it myself.
It doesn't have to be just doing a bunch of bathroom details.
You are DeTwan, Arkitekt.
Get to work. Have fun.
balkins
what
the
actual
fuck
BWTAF
Hmm....
Dangermouse,
Read DeTwan's post and you'll understand. I do agree with what midlander said to the OP. However, I'm not pushing the OP.
DeTwan's story: Date: Sep 21, 13 11:36 am
I actually just left the profession. After graduation in May of 2006 I was off to a so-so firm that had hired me right out of college in Dallas, TX for $36,500 annual. I learned tons, more than any school can teach, then the recession hit in late 2008. I was let go after the 2nd rounds of lay offs. Only middle management and the freshest and cheapest Cad monkeys where kept. I looked and looked for 3 months but nothing. Started serving food at a 24 hour diner for 4 months. Moved to Hawaii with the girl I was dating. Found a job working for a local architect that did high end homes, though this is great! Then his Japanese clients started pulling the project's plugs. Tried selling Kirby's & solar panels to ppl's front door steps, Caught my girlfriend cheating on me. Left Hawaii immediately. Now I was really LOST. Back to Texas and surrounded with friends, apply at the last minute for my M.Arch just to keep myself busy and in the industry. I find job doing Section 8 work at a local firm in Ft Worth, Tx. I get accepted to the masters program at UTA. Graduate at the end of 2010 with my maters and still working for $16 an hour at the Section 8 Firm. I notice that all the older guys at that firm, which there was only five of, never made more than a little over $40k and their skills where antiquated from not pushing themselves when they were younger. I left to see if the grass was greener in Colorado, where I was born & raised. I moved in to my mother's basement and tried to do a start up with an old HS friend that has been a licensed contractor in the area for 6 years. This was at the beginning of 2011. End up mostly doing manual labor and a few construction details here and there for the business. Then my business partner broke up with his GF and wanted to leave Colorado Springs to go to Vail and escape his past. Great, whatever. Now it is the middle of 2012. Completely feed up with the dead ends I had come to I just started blanket mailing my resume and a well crafted cover letter (explaining how I was a single individual w/o kids willing to move to wherever they where) to every architecture firm in Colorado. Archiplanet listed about 600. Yep, I sent out roughly 600 emails, 1/3 of them sent back to me due to them closing their doors. Then I would say about 12 ppl email me back and said your stuff looks great but at the moment we are not hiring, and the rest I never heard from. One firm did send a psychical letter in the mail, ONE. As I waited to see if anyone would bite I flip'd a house for my family which took 6 months, and lived in it while doing it. Then finally a local hiring agency called and said, "we found a job for you at a IT company using Revit @ $14 an hour for 4 months!) YEAH! Four month came and went, and so did my $14 an hour, as I lived in my mother basement now that the house I flipped was rented out. Then with luck I picked up another job with a local architect in town. He was young (37) and did stuff I liked architecturally. Again I was feeling really good! Hired me on for $21 an hour and we worked on a new house design that would go into the Waldo fire burn area. It was great for 7 months until he ran out of work to keep me aboard. So he said he'd have to let me lose. Another blow to my very bruised architecture ballz. Then miraculously a month and a half later I get an email from an architect in Denver asking if I'm still looking for a job... why...YES I AM. I go do the interview, and get an offer for $14 dollars an hour. At this point (the end of 2012) I really start to roll my eyes... $14 an hour with 8 years of industry experience.... really. In actuality I just shouldn't have taken the job. I write back that I would only do it for $18 an hour. We settle on $16 an hour with the promise of a 'performance assessment' review 3 months in, and if I do well I'll go to salary. So 4 months go by at this firm, and at my review he low brows me and basically says that "all you're good for is drafting". So be it, but this was the kick! He wanted my salary to be $2750 a month before taxes and all the shit. And my apartment was $750 a month for a 450sqft place. And then insurance, food money, gas money. I wasn't even about to make ends meet. So at that review I asked if the $2750 a month was negotiable? He said "yesss?!). So I asked if he would be willing to raise me to $3000 a month. That is a super modest request for someone that is 30 year of age with 8 years of industry experience, that isn't even $36,000 annual. He was stupid enough to reply with a smile that, "he didn't pay anyone that in the office", not even the guy that has been working at the company for 6 years, that you laid off in 2008 only to rehire for pennies on the dollar. I was very DISCUSSED.
Luckily I have a friend that has been making art for the past 3 years traveling all over the country to art festivals to sell his art. I quit that job 2.5 months ago, and moved in with my friend to make art. I'm am leaving for Florida in 3 months to sell my stuff as a sole proprietor, and I am not certain how I will fair, but am at the point that I am willing to try anything to get out of the redonkulus rat race in architecture.
Sitting in a cubicle all day, and then the strife of no ladders to climb, and the dismal building economy has only made me feel like a loser in life. Just now am I getting out of this grave I have dug for myself... do yourself a favor and don't dig one!
.....
STFU R-B
sameolddoctor,
When are you and others ever going to learn that I don't takes orders from you or anyone?
Balkins you are genuinely retarded.
walkr –
Like someone above stated, make sure you have researched the business sector and what working in an office looks like. I have a degree in finance and have been staring at excel worksheets for the last ten years of my life. I will be starting my first year of the M. arch program in August, on the 3.5 year track, more than ten years after receiving my undergrad.
Work is work. Not everyone is lucky enough to be passionate about a career, but many people exhibit absolute dread at work (myself included). So try to find something that makes you happy, or at the least doesn't fill your heart with dread. I don’t have any particular insight as to why you should stay in architecture if it makes you miserable, but make sure to vet the career you see for yourself - even if it means taking a step back and some time off to do so. A business career for me has entailed moving meaningless numbers around and being dreadfully bored.
Good luck with your decision.
Olaf,
Despite having jobs, DeTwan got himself into a chain of jobs that just sucked. Employees always get the shit work. If you want to be an architect and do architecture, you got to stop being a subordinate and be the one or one of the ones on top.... the owner or co-owner of an architecture business.
At least he did some stuff. Plus he sent out about 600 more resumes than RICK BORG did.
JeromeS,
I already know, being an employee is always going to be shit boring work because the employers/owners are going to keep the interesting work for themselves to do. It's how it is.
This is a profession of egos, after all.
Sending resumes for shit work.... fuck that.
When you are self-employed/sole-proprietor of your own business.... you do not send resumes to clients. You are not their employee.
Rick get the fuck out. This is a serious thread about a young man's future, go do something useful and stop sprouting nonsense. OP, I suggest talking to your parents as they are architects too. Surely you have observed their lives and see how they live? You are in the best situation to know what you want to do because you have architect parents, are they happy? Do you want to be like them? Just do what you like/interested in, if you are good at it you will make money.
You guys need to stop telling people how to live their fucking lives. You don't have legal accountability to the person's future.
PS: I don't take orders from anyone. Not even God or Allah.
^
Also, LOLZ
Josh,
Oh geez, how fucking creative. Find a photo of a geek and use a memegenerator to overlay a meme.
Actually I Googled. Guess your own medicine is a bit bitter.
STFU Balkins. Not an order, but an impassioned plea.
If you ignore it, it goes away.
sameolddoctor,
Alright. If you rephrased to a more polite form other than STFU would be better.
Archiwutm8 started off his response wrong. Part of a polite request means to not use curse words. Try a better and more sincerely and polite request without personal attacks, character attacking, etc.... would get you guys a lot further.
Just saying.
PS: I do have better things I could do with my time.
PS: I do have better things I could do with my time.
That's the understatement of the century. But when are you going to do them?
I first encountered you years ago on another forum, when I was still in architecture school. Back then you were certain that you knew reams more than I did about the practice of architecture, on the dubious basis that you had been old enough to sign contracts for longer (how many have you ever signed?), and owned a business (how many projects has it done since?). You said then that you had "better things to do" than to look for jobs or go to architecture school - and that if you ever did go they would take one look at your experience and put you right into the masters program. Where have those "better things to do" gotten you? In the years since I've earned 2 degrees, become licensed, worked on hundreds of built projects, paid off my loans, started my own business, signed some contracts, all that grownup stuff. In the meantime it seems like all your "better things to do" have gotten you is... nowhere. You're still saying the same exact things, making up little fantasy project challenges that you've never once followed through on, living in the attic, penniless, with no more knowledge or experience than you had 10 years ago. What have you got to show for the last decade, other than literally tens of thousands of ill-informed web posts?
...well shit now I'm just sad for him.
BOTH your parents are architects and you're having second thoughts.. GTFO of this profession already! xD While most of us will always think of excuses why we can make it in this profession even while being broke/jobless, you'll always think of excuses why you'll be better off elsewhere. Perhaps that is what happens when one's parents are established in this industry already.
Heres for some real advise. Finish up your Part 1, and then quit architecture. It seems, from your post, that you are already disillusioned with something you thought was a great idea (thru your parents)
This said, doing a business degree with no background is not a good idea. Finish your Part 1, and you could then do the biz degree with focus on real estate.
You're only 20. If your having second thoughts, now would be the time to act.
Thanks very much for the advice and help. I have three weeks to decide as of today. I'm worried about delaying quitting architecture for another year however I can see that finishing the next year and gaining the part 1 might be a good idea. Some part of me just wants to cut my ties now and start at the business school since I have the offer.
Anyway, thanks.
Have you thought of the real estate development business? Study the career of Roger Staubach, not Donald Trump
Volunteer, Yeh I've been studying Investing and finance on my own whilst in Architecture School and have thought about real estate/property development as a possible career path. I've read dozens of books on finance/ investing over the last couple of years, barely read a single thing on Architecture. I just feel as though I could commit myself far more to this than I could to architecture.
When I'm sitting down with my tutor discussing my project and he/she asks me what material, colour etc the door or handrail is going to be, I honestly don't give a sh**t. My mind is elsewhere. Is this normal, Did anyone else feel this way when in school?
Walkr that last comment is your answer. You don't like it. And you like something that will enable you to have a better lifestyle, save and experience travel and other things you can't when barely able to pay bills. If you dont care now you never will, the amount of dedication needed to just work on average projects is unreal with the current sluggish economic growth. Honestly go work for a builder or real estate investor. Why not? What you described is how I felt in school, and trust me I wish I'd switched to business, or worked for a builder right out of school. Dont let people tell you are quitting or not worthy of architecture, they are just trying to justify their own reasons for staying with a dead profession. Do it! Switch to something useful and that you care about.
The down side I experience: you will meet up a lot of shitty ppl, they change your design, client will change your design, by a lot of reasons, contractor will fucked up your design, the building will be keep changing not until the last moment, you need to coordinate with those changes. In the end being a architect, not start architect you will frustrate through a lot of problems when a building from the paper to a real building and that's normal. You are not a star architect, you get minimum control of your project. And you will frustrate all the way through till its built and you will so happy it is built. By the way you get paid realitively less compare to other profession, in general a construction worker on a governmental project will get paid more than you. They also doing hard work.
A friend s friend talk question about this profession I want to share with you, she is in finance industry not like a high roller but just couple years after school she got paid what she deserves. She said i know how tough architecture as a profession, I don't understand after all the hard work, and architects don't get 100%control on what he good at, then why you still want to do it? I have no answer. I have to say I am just a normal architect, try to do my job and make it good, but the industry is falling, and in future not so many ppl need the architect anymore. You may say I don't have a dream. But I have to say, that is the reality.
I've read dozens of books on finance/ investing over the last couple of years, barely read a single thing on Architecture. I just feel as though I could commit myself far more to this than I could to architecture.
It's pretty clear where your interests lie, and it's not architecture. That's totally normal, and even healthy. No one is going to care whether you finished a degree in a subject you are openly apathetic about. This isn't boot camp or something people will respect you for just because you survived; most people doing it actually kind of enjoy it. What potential benefit do you envision getting out of your part 1?
Since you are in the good position of knowing basically what interests you - move on, commit to it. A business degree with a focus in real estate is both valuable and flexible; you'll have plenty options to refine your interest with experience.
Midlander, "What potential benefit do you envision getting out of your part 1?"
I have the chance to do a semester abroad in Europe - from January to May next year. So that is making my decision that bit harder. I'm sure it would be a great experience to study abroad for a semester but at the same time I'm thinking I should just get started at the business school. I'm afraid of turning down the opportunity to go and live/work in Europe for a couple of months and later regretting it. I appreciate the advice by the way.
You can do architecture with a business degree (you can actually do it with no degree). You can't do business with an architecture degree.
do it.
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