Like you I want to own a firm and choose which projects to take. Similar size, too. Something else important and a motive for me personally is the contribution we can make to our locales. I feel it's equally important for me to do work in a place / landscape that inspires me as it is the type of projects and clients for whom I'm designing. There is a serious need for design that truly responds and is a product of its location. The office I'm at prides itself on that but in reality it's more a formal / rhetorical device to explain the work than a real ground-up evolution of site.

So, choose your path and your location wisely.

i aspire to be rem's bitch.

i want to be able to perform a bicycle kick in the world cup...

GOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol holz, nice......

I think what you both are aspiring to be (Rabbet and Huanmic) is quite on par with alot of us here and in the profession.

my 5 yr plan has been to complete my licensing exams, just to have my license (not so clear on whether i want to practise at this moment in time on my own). In addition, continue to grow with my current firm and hope that our small development projects take off, so that I can be designing all of them.

Always great to make plans for long run, but i have figured that that always doesn't pan out and hence, it's better to hit milestones (or focus on those first).

where I am now: working in architecture, applying to graphic design masters programs

next 5 years: I plan to get an MFA in graphic design and hopefully do an internship abroad (london, sydney, melbourne, or aukland) between years. After that I think I'd like to work for a magazine that's doing really fun stuff right now like Dwell or ID, although it would be fun to help redesign one that's not so great yet.

Ultimate goal: be a partner in a firm that does a wide variety of graphic and product design work, teach at a good program. For me variety is the key to my practice, as working in different media helps keep my brain sharp.

i was only half kidding.
right now: terrible job - but that's soon to change. very soon, and to a much better job.

in 5: licensed, a little more experience, return to germany, NL, or CH.

ultimate: partner up for quality design|build or speculative a la jonathan segal or rick joy. and lead a yearly archi-tour through CH.

Me...BFA in Interior Design, been working for a 2 person shop for 2 years (yes Huanmic you learn a hell of a lot at a small firm) and am applying to MArch1 programs for the fall.

next 5 years; Finish my Masters, get licenced and team up with a good contractor and become a "good" developer. This way I don't have to deal with HGTV watching idiot clients and butcher contractors. So ideally pick my own jobs, finance my own jobs and build my own jobs. A boy can dream can't he?

now: 6 hours sleep / night
5: 8 hours sleep / night

^^someone's knows how to go about proper goal-setting. Small, achievable goals, unlike the rest of the grandiose visions we've posted here.

rationalist read buisness books. My wife's currently finishing up her MBA at UofC and I've read several of her books and they have been very helpful in goal setting, negotiating, and planning.

Oh, it's no doubt tedious of me to point this out, but I don't believe in 'goals'. I would have been a lousy judge of what would be great for me today five years ago.
In other words, I concentrate on each day as it comes whilst respecting, to a degree, any impulses which would actually jeapordise any kind of a future, such as eating raw chicken found in, say, the gutter.

1. Finish Undergrad
2. Get Married
3. Become LEED-AP
4. Start Grad School
5. Finish Grad School
6. Make Babies
7. Finish IDP
8. Finish AREs
9. Become starchitect, outsource work overseas, reap the profits.
10. Retire to Bora Bora at 40.

lovely solid.....LOVELY!

1. Start Grad school
2. Get divorced
3. Drop out of Grad school
4. Become a lesbian
5. Become Zaha Hadid's lover
6. Reap the profits
7. Leave Zaha
8. Return to hetero
9. Retire by 30
10. Make babies with Jean-Benoit Dunckel

on the (more) serious side (I don't even like soccer/football):

1. pass LARE (in the next year)
2. finish IDP (less then 1 more year)
3. pass ARE (2 years)
4. pick up all the professional skilz needed to start own practice
5. network to meet people to feed future practice
6. start said practice
7. save the planet
8. retire? never!

somewhere in all this - make baby/ies

Where are you now:
Making good use of my BS Psychology degree working at a pizza place. It's very, very, pathetic. It really is a b.s. degree.

Next 5 Years:
Hopefully I'll get into UT Austin and spend 3-4 years doing my MArch I degree. It'd be nice to stay in Austin for the internship; there are a lot of things going on, and I'd like to find a firm that focuses on sustainability. That doesn't seem to hard around here.

Ultimate Goal:
If things work out well, I have this strange fantasy of going into business with my boyfriend (engineer) and combining an architecture firm with a home automation business. Right now he automates high-end homes, but I'd like to find a way to make it feasible for smaller projects. It'll save homeowners money, but make me lots of cash! Hopefully, anyway. If that doesn't work out I'd like to have my own firm. If that doesn't work out, I'd like to work in a smaller firm doing smaller projects.

And on the "where are you now" topic...it's time for me to go to work. Pizza, yay!

Hey Outside dream....looks like you are on your way....(got accepted to 2 schools I see)
Congrats and just make sure if you stay in austin that those bastards at the pizza joint you are with right now, well that they provide u some of that stuff you're selling now! Esp, when it's late and you have to stay in studio all night long!

goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!

sorry that was for treekiller's bicycle kick!! You just gotta love football | futbol (it ain't soccer, damnit)

1. finish contract without another seizure
1.25 head to Europe (its a metric thing)
2. complete registration + open practice on a sunny Caribbean island
3. this is for the missus in my life (trying not to predetermine love)
4. build what was originally conceived as a batchelor pad
5. fill pad with 50s & 00s period furniture
6. have mai tais & mojitos with archinect friends (pref from my pad)
7. approach next 5 years

What's a good time of year to take a break in the Carribean and what's a suitably exclusive island where I can, say, bump into, say, Jessica Alba rather than yer average vacationer?
That would be a worthy short-term goal, right? One could talk babies later.