start working construction.

yeah, construction

constructon I'll get you up to speed and past most of your peers.

build by day, render by night

yep, yep, and yep.

constuction.............doing what in particular?

framing.

Unless some particular trade has your interest. I spent 5 years doing custom stonework on trophy homes and even though my work was focused, there is still an incredible amount of knowledge to be gained just from being on jobsites as buildings are built.

Learn how to frame a wall, pour a slab, flash a chimney cricket, layout a stair stringer- anything anyone will teach you, really. I would avoid painting and drywall, personally.

It's sounds very interesting. so by doing this I'll be ahead of the game when I go school?

dunno about "ahead of the game," but you will have experience in parts of the industry that others in school might not. Might help your projects some, or not at all. I think framing in general is a good thing to do for a bit as you can quickly see results of your work.

I dunno about that, but you WILL be ahead of the game when you get into an office, and nobody else knows how buildings are put together.

Pardon my ignorance but what exactly is framing

the wood stuff between the sheathing and the drywall in typical single family residential/ light commercial sized buildings.

So basically you're looking hard labor now and valuable experience in the long run? Can I pay my bills with that?

i used to work for a metal building contractor, doing steel erection, demolition, and metal roofing. that's how you become a real man. there will be enough concrete pouring and wood/metal framing around you for observation. don't show up on the third day with new work boots. its very embarrasing, even awkward.

do you feel that it's beneficial for me to gain such an experience?
What other alternatives do I have outside of construction?

The construction job will likely pay as well or better than any architecture related experience you'll have with no previous work experience.. If construction is not to your liking (personally I hated working construction)
a construction job won't really help you in school.. other informing how you think about the constructability of your work.. which could be a positive or a negative..

you can probably get some kind of summer internship at a firm.. you might be moving old drawings to dead storage, or filing, or answering phones, but being in the office, and seeing how disgruntled the employees are might help you decide if you want to continue your schooling.

Or, use your advertising experience to get a job doing marketing for a bigger firm. Tell them you are going to arch school and see if they'll teach you soem other stuff. Good marketign peopel seem to be in demand.

I worked for a coupple different metal fabrication shops for a few years before school and it was good I think but mostly for the exercise in dicipline and prescision. There is a lot more to architecture than macho hard hat stuff.

I'm with newstreamlinedmodel on this one - marketing expereience may serve you very well after school.

Notice poor betadinesutures' concurrent post asking "what are some ways to market yourself?" and frankly none of us have any good answers. Architects tend to be awful at marketing.

My old firm hired two young people to be marketing directors - both interested in architecture but weren't sure they were ready to plunge into architecture school. After a year or two, they each went back to school, one for an MArch, the other in arch history. This was a +/- 20 person firm. I'm sure larger firms hire more than one marketing director.

And the time spent in a firm would definitely be educational.

I've really gotten some great ideas from this post...thanks a bunch!