1. i wanted to change because i detest sitting in a cube crunching numbers and working 10 hrs. a day for a supplier to chrysler, toyota, and isuzu. i was designing machine tooling for boring out engine blocks for assembly lines while i was studying mechanical engineering - i did this on the side for school. sort of like being a young apprentice to a proj. manager in engineering. mostly, i couldn't find reason in knowing all these industrial techniques, methods, formulas, etc. . . it's fun, but i couldn't find the purpose besides making money.

2. GMI/Kettering univ. formerly General motors institute of technology in Flint, MI. a good hardcore mechancal engineering/automotive design school.

3. this was back in the day, i didn't submit a portfolio.

4. i'm in grad school right now in architecture

5. we'll see in one year. but yes, i'm happy i changed. engineering is too stressful and too demanding. good money and more oppourtunities in engineering (in the prorfessional practice realm) though.

i'm glad you are switching out of engineering. architecture is such a different discipline than engineering - you'll wonder why you didn't study it from the start. i did. you'll use more of your lateral thinking than your analytical methods for thought, basically meaning that you get to be more creative and use that potential as a motive in architecture. it's a good release once you get into it.

my suggestions for entering architecture is to enter it with an open mindset. just leg go of everything you've learned in engineering and sort of loosen up and wing it. it's a fun practice.

actually, questions 2 and 3 were about architecture education and assuming the fact that you likely had to go to grad school to learn about architecture.

definitely don't need portfolios for eng ;)

thanks though for the response... i generally feel the same way... that all my creativity is being stifled it not completely squashed.

I never made it into real-life work as an engineer. I pretty much went to architecture straight out of engineering school.

1. I was bored with engineering. I spent three of my six years in engineering working full-time at the school's student newspaper, trying to balance my love of math and physics with other more creative endeavours such as a design and writing. When the newspaper was finished, I realized I was back where I started – in engineering – and I needed a change because all they were doing was grooming me to be an engineering grad student, and I saw no realistic satisfaction in that career path.

2. I took Engineering Physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Now I'm at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

3. I put in a lot of photography, a reasonable amount of illustration and graphic design, some hand-drawn perspective renderings and other pencil sketches, and a bunch of design and writing work from my time at the newspaper.

4. I'm still in school but taking an eight-month work term to get some more experience before heading back to school in January. I'm working at a medium-sized firm in Vancouver doing a multitude of tasks, all of which have been great experience. I don't really appreciate architecture school yet, so I'm hoping some real-world architecture work can start to change that.

5. Yes. I'm still naïve and enamoured with capital-A Architecture, so I'm happy to take the supposed pay cut and do something "cool." Notwithstanding that my research showed this to be a more lateral financial move and that, in reality, nanotechnology research is actually quite fascinating.