...and they have earned that min$ and title. Arch school is not even a minor-league sports compared to that profession so stop it with the bad analogy.

There is zero costs to referring to someone who has completed a five year course in architecture from an accredited school or obtained a graduate degree in architecture from an accredited school an architect. No costs. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Not doing so is saying your schooling isn't worth.......anything.

the cost is paid by those who made the real effort in passing the exams. Until you can pass those test, you can call yourself whatever else you want, but you're no architect. Simple, those silly snowflake kids can go cry elsewhere. Your schooling is worth a design degree. Proper work experience is worth a professional title. See, very simple.

Lawyers then?

People who have finished law school but not passed the bar put LLB (Legum Baccalaureus) after their names. So is architecture a profession or not?

Is your argument that graduates who have not yet received their license deserve to be poor?

My argument? No. Just the opposite. I think people with accredited degrees working in the field should be referred to as architects and paid accordingly. I know a lot of engineers. Many have their PE license, many haven't. I have never heard the point made that the unliscensed engineers are not engineers.

Not failing design school is not the same as graduating Law or Med school... not sure why this is such a hard concept. I work with plenty of non-licensed engineering folks. They call themselves electrical/mechanical designer or something like that. No shame.

I agree @Volunteer, I know a lot of MD residents and I would say that they are at the same level in doctorhood coming out of med school as an architecture student coming out of grad school. AND, they make important decisions right away that impact patients. Don't go to a hospital in July.......

My responses in this thread have been to Non. I agree with you, Volunteer. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

It's weird, Non, that you're focusing on the prestige / shame of a title in a thread about payment. The doctor / lawyer / engineer comparison is about the fact that they expect fair compensation for their work, while architecture interns largely go un or under paid.

^I admit I'm not putting in much effort today, got a few things on my mind, so faulty logic is probably to be expected. Regardless, not inheriting the title architect does not mean fresh grads can't get decent living wages... Nor does having the title prevent you from working for shit $ either.

A title provides agency.

Okay it sounds like we mostly agree then? Unpaid internships are bullshit and we as an industry should shun the firms that perpetuate them.

tduds, yes.

Engineers have to pass the FEs (typically while they're in undergrad or right after) to be called E.I.T.s (engineers in training)... then after the PE test, they're engineers. I've been calling our young ones A.I.T.s for a hot minute now (2 years?) but it hasn't stuck.

For anyone who screams "that's illegal cause it has the A word in it"... um, no one will ever get confused whether you're registered or not if you call yourself an AIT

I'm pretty disgusted with the dean and professor swapping that goes on at most schools, given that most have no critical thought, built, or research works worth a damn. Just exhibit, crib student work, publish, rinse and repeat.

You must not know many med students then.

You have a very high appreciation for the medical field Non... I personally do not. They make more mistakes than I'm allowed to while still staying in practice. You must not know many nurses, because a coffee and a chat with any nurse will enlighten you on the worth of those fresh MDs

I could, but I won't.

I very much doubt that

Your assumptions are incorrect and you've significantly discounted the value and intelligence required for med school by your previous comment thus you have no credibility. Arch school is not difficult, nor is the typical work-load. Some (most) have this notion that they are special because they work countless hours doodling over and over. That's not the same thing as training to be a surgeon or emergency dr.

then make it difficult and license with graduation - this dance over what's more deserving is just smoke and mirrors to keep scamming, arch programs don;t have to be 4 years and then masters, you could do 5 years plus 1 year final project and professional practice, take the exams and be done. But I bet many "architects" would oppose.

Yeah, my sister and I lived together while she was in med school and I was in my BArch program. We worked equally grueling hours. She graduated FAR more prepared to practice medicine than I was to practice architecture.

Thanks for proving my doubts correct. Assumption? Which ones are you referencing? At no point did I discount the intelligence required for medical school - as I said the challenge of med school is getting into school which is not comparable to acceptance at an architecture program but significantly harder. I contested the ideas that medical school is challenging or that med school graduates have earned some min$ while arch grads haven't.....more importantly maybe you can clarify how you've come to the conclusion that architecture school is not difficult, especially considering the hours, the subjectivity, and intensity of academic programs..it's routinely ranked as one of the toughest majors based on those factors, not specific knowledge like it might be in organic chemistry or neuroscience....finally training to be a surgeon or emergency dr. is typically something pursued in residency not medical school but I'm sure you knew that.

JLC:  "then make it difficult and license with graduation"

Yes, that's the correct way.  Make the schooling actually difficult and more in-tune with real world conditions and allow graduates to write the exams immediately after graduation.  

Red Herring. NCARB and North America subscribe the the education plus experience model, this job is in Japan. People looking for a license here can't even get very few hours anymore working in a foreign country. This behavior (by the firm and interns) isn't about a license, it's about exploration and (for the interns) access to other
opportunities.

If the bar for licensure were lowered you'd just end up with more licensed architects working as unpaid staff for "exposure"

Then why do so many firms build into their practice a pay jump upon licensure?

well, not having a license precludes you from deciding your own compensation.

I'm sorry - what I meant was that the criteria for licensure are not the main factor driving unpaid internships. I was talking about the existence of compensation, not the amount.

I feel like I'm particularly misunderstood in my comments today...

Sounds like your trying to defend these firms in Japan that don’t pay interns with other academic nonsense, and because you got suckered into working for free. Yea it sucks ohh well for yo

lol ok buddy. i turned down paying internships in the states to 'work for free'. i knew the conditions, accepted them, and worked on incredible projects.  i don't regret it.

if you think a description of academic exploitation is nonsense, then you're just another jingoist who thinks free labor is bad in japan but good in the usa.

Have you considered that maybe we think it's bad in both places?

"fabrication lab staff and ta's do enormous amounts of heavy lifting and are totally erased from the project credits. we don't recognize the custodial staff for setting up the rooms and cleaning up the ungodly piles of garbage left over after the review."

I am described here, I love you for saying this, and it makes my job 1000% easier from hearing it.

Where would that extra money to pay those higher wages, simply because of a title change, come from? It’s not like the fresh grads are suddenly better with billable skills.

People who want to improve the position and public perception of their profession are idiots?

when you get in an accident, the paramedic that arrives on scene makes an average salary of less than $32k per year. (2015 dollars)

Sometimes they are volunteers.

The paramedics. My hometown had high school kids working as EMTs. I did the training but never rode the ambulance.

But who designs the hospitals?

How is attempting to have a civil discussion a 'rant'?

No, idiot, they are referred to as MDs after completing medical school.

Is it wrong to call cultures that still tolerate (encourage) slavery terrible degenerate wankers?

Don't think so, but what if one chooses slavery voluntarily? If you can afford to study architecture you usually can afford to work for free for a while, hell, the entire architectural competition system is about working for free, unpaid, unless you're the lucky s.o.b. that wins. I still think it's wrong obviously. But there might be some nuance here, maybe.

Isn't it kind of racist to assume other cultures are "less advanced"?

Nope, that can be easily and objectively measured with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and/or anecdotal evidence, any culture that doesn't meet the requirements is simply less advanced and/or inferior. Or perhaps that advocate of the devil is just a racist asshole, also possible.

On the Kardashev scale we are all type 0. On the Kardashian same is true.

On the Kardashev scale we are all type 0. On the Kardashian scale same is true.

But did Kardashev pay his interns, that's the $64,000 question!

I'd love to make $64,000 as an intern.

No that’s socialism. You make money with your own labor in capitalism, unless your stupid.

If you're dumb enough to give your labor away for nothing, then you are only enslaving yourself.

cap·i·tal·ism noun: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit

"trade and industry" includes labor. Like the unpaid interns discussed in this thread. That is most assuredly NOT socialism.

Making money from someone else labor via taxes, socialism.

The business owners I know generally put in the most hours out of anyone in the office. Of course unless we are talking about the few who inherited their money and quite literally made all their money off of someone else’ labor and live in the Hamptons.

Socialists shouldn’t have an issue with working for free...why all the butt hurt?

"Making money from someone else labor via taxes, socialism."

Please explain the mechanism whereby private profit on labor is generated by socialism. 

Forced labor is a feature of communism. Stolen labor is a feature of socialism. Free labor has nothing to do with Capitalism. No one would work for free unless a) they were forced b) they were persuaded by govt regulations or cultural expectations to believe that experience was compensation.

Capitalism allows for the freedom to form contracts consenually. If a person wants to work for nothing who’s to stop them. The idea that this is tantamount to “Slavery” is ridiculous and insensitive to actual victims of Slavery (which is always backed by govt authoritarians) Slavery in the south was not a feature of freedom...it was a feature of govt authoritarianism that subjected one class to benefit another. To suggest that free markets result in Slavery is hilarious since the greatest violations have been almost exclusively by socialist/communist states...The Hamptons don’t have gulags as far as I know, nor do Japan...

Socialists are simpletons that believe govt, by virtue of name, is somehow more moral than the rest of society...the mechanisms to rise to the top are in and of themselves corrupt, then a reasonable person should assume that the cream is spoiled. The socialists, rely on a false notion that the results of democratic selection are more moral than the individual components that form the electorate...which goes against every thing we know of human nature. As Jordan Peele said “The scariest monster in the world is human beings and what we are capable of, especially when we get together.” (US was a great flick by he way..) The group or tribe is always more dangerous than the individual...

Because it can’t be. Because authority is required to make it work....which is why you always end up with authoritarianism.

Capitalism is imperfect, sometimes brutal like nature, but it usually allows for enough dynamism and freedom to keep the monsters from getting complete Control...but with increased technology that may not be the case for long...

Socialism means the workers own the means of production. One profits from ones own labor.

No it does not. A company can be owned by its workers in capitalist system. Nothing stops 1000 people from owning a corporation together. Socialism means that the state limits private property rights, controls the means of production (impossible in a complex modern society) and redistributes profits. Inefficient and everyone ends up poor...not “I can’t afford that new Zaha apt” poor but “um that dog doesn’t taste too bad with enough salt” poor

"Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management, as well as the political theories and movements associated with them."

.

How do you redistribute the ownership to workers without govt force. I have a business, built it with my skills and labor, you can’t have it. Now what?

Your naive ideas assume that people will simply obey. Obedience requires coercion and force. Do you want the state to have expanded police powers? If so, in a “democracy” how do you ensure that a tyrant won’t abuse that expanded power that gives power to cease property and control labor markets?

Jla, a very successful craft brewery in my city turned over ownership to its staff a few years just as the big beer companies were snapping up craft brew joints left and right. The staff room door at their brewery reads "owners lounge".

I can't debate you honestly until you figure out what the definitions of socialism and capitalism are, and perhaps then you'll realize they aren't mutually exclusive silos but extreme ends of a spectrum - on which any reasonable system must exist somewhere in the middle.

I'm not here to try to prove you wrong, just popping in to point out that the premise of this reply is based on an incorrect understanding of the two economic systems (which are economic, not governmental).

I’ve said before, social programs can exist within the framework of capital-is

*capital-ism, but capitalism cannot exist within the framework of socialism. Socialism cannot exist without a government dedicated to enforcing it. Nordic countries are not socialist. They are market economies with good social safety net programs. If we have people proclaiming the dangerous mantras of socialism, and being dishonest about its perils, it’s history, then we cannot have a conversation about the degree of social programs that we want to include while maintaining a devotion to freedom, liberty, property rights, etc. I agree with some kind of universal healthcare in principle, but we can’t pay for it with mechanisms derived from the flawed philosophical roots of Marxism. We should look for creative and modern solutions to modern problems while embracing free enterprise that has advanced societies around the world.

As well as liberty, limited govt, and the things that have advanced our civil liberties.

*individualism, limited govt....

You're just claiming that any tenet of socialism that might be good is not actually socialist.

"I agree with some kind of universal healthcare in principle, but we can’t pay for it with mechanisms derived from the flawed philosophical roots of Marxism." 

What mechanisms are these? Be specific.

+++ tduds

Also kudos for having the patience to use fools to make your point.

Actually, I’ve made my point. Have fun working for millionaires in the Hamptons though while pretending to be a Bolshevik.

Have fun wrongly assuming my reality to sustain your smug sense of aloofness.

Monday outrage.

That learning isn't something you can get paid to do. The pay comes later. Look up the marshmallow experiment. If you can only operate in a 'right now' mode, you don't grow. 

Thinking that interns are only learning and that they don’t have anything of value to offer to the office is the first problem. A certain amount of training is expected when starting out in any profession.

yes, ideally, you get paid and learn. My first job was for a contractor and engineering firm and I did about half my day "working" and half my day learning but was paid for all. I think that's super rare though.

In contrast, fresh interns in architecture firms are 96-100% "billable".

The intent of the NCARB internship, whatever they call IDP now, is to force that, isn't it?

Intent? Perhaps. But reality is not intent. If I earn IDP points under someone who is incompetent, it's not really the right type of learning. Carry on though. Have fun pretending.

I'm not trying to suggest the world is perfect or anything, but their heart is in the right place. If there is a way to make it better we should do that. If people in general are horrible, not much you can do.

Thank you for supporting slavery.

It lets that firm undercut others with their fees, because their operating costs are lower, due to their illegal practices. That in turn eliminates jobs in other firms, because they don't get the projects they need to sustain their business, because this firm steals.  Did the other firms consent to that?  Did your "wiped out" graduating class consent to that? It sets clients' unrealistic expectations about professional fees, perpetuating firms' motivation for exploiting slave labor rather than hiring employees. And when you list that firm on your resume or tell anyone you interned there, it forever brands you as dishonest and willing to prostitute yourself. Is that why you're proud of it?

Unpaid internships create an apartheid system in architecture, only rich kids can afford to work for free at starchitects and can jumpstart their careers like that. Therefore it should be forbidden to either offer unpaid internships or to accept unpaid internships and thereby create a level playfield, so that also non-wealthy kids can intern at starchitects and jumpstart their careers.

It’s not slavery. I knew what I was getting into and could’ve left anytime and found a normal job like everyone else. I won’t pretend to understand the greater macro-economic consequences of free labor, but is this really such a big issue? Are there hundreds of firms out there using unpaid interns bidding for the same projects? Just from my experience, the types of jobs these firms compete over rarely overlap with the vast majority of work out there.

yes it is

I’m not seeing the difference between being unpaid and the penance some companies pay now in nyc or sf, and still expecting 60+ hours. That’s chump change compared to the fees they demand. Obviously I wish I got paid, but that’s the realities of this industry. We wish for a level playing field but life isn’t fair and some people have to grind harder to make ends meet. Starchitecture is the playground for the rich, no doubt about that. I wish I could’ve flown all over the world interning with the best for months on end, but I couldn’t afford it and wasn’t willing to let my parents foot the bill.

Nice hole you're digging there. You support(ed) slavery and are thus a big part of the problem. Nothing here to be proud of.

Is proud the right word then? I busted ass to stay in this profession, it’s something at least. I benefited fron these internships, and i’m not going to turn around and deny others the opportunities I had.

benefited? perhaps. So did those firms that used you as a slave. I significantly discount anyone who takes unpaid internships. Why do you deserve any respect if you have none for the profession?

Maybe I don’t deserve any. If I apply to your firm I can only hope my abilities in other areas make up for that discount. But I still wouldn’t call it slavery. It’s not and never has been.

It is slavery, regardless of how hard you convince yourself. My POV here is not unique either.

The best slave is the one who thinks he's free.

Actual slaves are rolling over in their graves when they see the hyperbole.

It is a big deal as it undermines the idea of equal opportunities for all, some people already scrape by just to get into architecture school and would also like the opportunity of a jumpstart, you are robbing them of that possibility, keeping the rich white male dominated status quo in place, congrats!

Same here. When I left grad school in (09 summer) I schmoozed my way to an interview with a small but very fun design office. Got offered a job at 1 or 2 Canadian loonies above minimum wage. I stood my ground and said that was not an acceptable wage and left. I later got a phone call from that office and the principal offered a few extra $ per hr. I turned it down even-though I had no other offers at the time. I finished that week employed, with salary, at twice that other firm's offer.

How's brag camp going?

mostly directed at lower case yao

Can confirm that the above business example is a true representation of the real world.

.

Excellent discussion in those comments.

He be a collyage professor, so him talk and rite reel guud grammuh r and punctiation as you can tell by the email. I'm suitably impressed-I don't know about the rest of you.

You'd think a Yale professor would have better grammar and punctuation skills, but you would be wrong.

Riiiight. Don't stick it to the man, suck it.

Sure stick it to the man and make him pay, but the root cause isn't people like him, it's the market itself. Unless you understand the root cause, nothing will really change but most people are either intellectually incapable or too inexperienced/young to understand that...

@remini
false. this is a culture problem.

there is plenty money in architecture. the guys doing this are doing it because it gratifies their ego to have people groveling for unpaid internships. if they needed to pay them, they could figure it out. it might shut down some unprofitable studios run as vanity projects by professional academics, which is fine.

mid, definitely.

If only. (to the shutting down of unprofitable studios run as vanity projects by professional academics)

It would actually solve a whole lot more problems than just labor rights and unpaid internships. Less shitty theorizing and pontificating with unbuilt paper architecture and more room for small firms actually solving real design problems in interesting ways for actual clients.

Mostly supply and demand. Nobody pays for something when they can get it for free. As long as there are too many little eager beavers ready to fellate these guys, the "problem" will continue. Don't throw a T-bone steak on the floor and then get mad at the dog if he eats it.

@mid

I completely agree its a cultural problem but again feel it's an after-effect not the root cause. It goes like this "we did free design work in response to an RFP/interview. That's how we built our chops and that's how you should too". As long as that's how most firm get projects, it will always remain a cultural problem to be honest. 

That ultimately boils down to proving the "value" of your design services to financial stakeholders. To get you foot in the door for newer clients, the typical process involves a lot of free work just to kick-off that relationship. That's a market problem. So many smart architects can't be bad at proving value of what they are doing for so long. Unpaid staff is a systematic after-effect that shouldn't persist especially if the cash-flow is good, but again is a repercussion of what is essentially a supply-demand issue in establishing a consistent value.

The AIA handbook touched on this. In the marketing section it says something along the lines of “approximately 90% of firms market based on design excellence, where less than 5% of people surveyed looking for architectural services said design excellence was a factor in choosing an architect.” Its a profession totally obsessed with a service no one wants.