1. no money, long hours, toilet details.
b. no money, long hours, toilet details, blowing Rem.
3. no money, long hours, toilet details, eating kat food, fucking Childs wife.

if you are great at rendering, you can do that at all 3 too. If not, then I am afraid toilet details are all that's left.

But hey, at least you won't be stuck in a non-vented room running blueprints all day!

Be proud of those toilet layouts. Draw them with care. Constantly ask questions and keep your eyes and ears open - don't wear headphones!!! - and you'll learn a lot as you draw.

wait, you mean i don't have to get on my knees and blow Rem? should have taken the offer and moved to Rotterdam.....i gots family there too!

My problem is my mind really wanders when doing boring ACAD drawings, I mean BAD. The best way I've found to prevent that is the Trance stations on Pandora.

I agree, they cut you off but I get bad ADD and it takes me forever to work through issues without them.

i wear one headphone an keep the other ear tuned to the principal that sits across from me.

If you are an intern, will they not allow you to go out in the field (construction site) with which ever architect or who ever is supervising it, once in a while?

don't expect a damn thing. work your ass off and ask a lot of questions. work late and don't bitch. i spent my 20's doing exactly that. i have worked for two stars (plan on 100+ hour weeks), a boutique (plan on toilet details and filing), but no corporate firms. now i have a great job and actually get paid - no bathroom details and 40ish hours a week. now if i just didn't hate architecture so much...

i hate it when people are surfing porn on office time. earphones don't give a flying fkuc about. when i was an intern i wore earphones because i didn't want to listen to the frickin enka (be glad if you don't know what enka is) the office usually had going on. i was still engaged with job. the boss knew it too...he also wore earphones and his office has been running since the 1920's so i guess he knows something about how to keep a practice going... i don't wear earphones now but thats cuz i get to play what i want in the office. i would say however that any office that don't allow music is probably not for me.

sunsetsam, "they" should do that but probably won't. you can ask however.

who's got time to surf the web for porn @ work?!? unless by porn you mean archinect.

earphones are presently ok. previous employer allowed us to play whatever (usu. minimal techno/microhouse/glitch). present, not so much, but the work environment is really relaxed...

I wouldn't be able to survive without headphones. I do my best work when I'm able to tune out all the distractions in the office by listening to some cool music.

small vs lg -my experience,
sm-less pay, better design, less chance to design, less resources, less financial benefits, more hours, youre the bitch

lg-more pay, worse design, more chance to design, more resources, more financial benefits, have people who work for you (assistants)

i would highly recommend anywhere that pays hourly

everyone wears headphones in my office, at least everyone who enjoys music,

holz, you would be surprised what i have caught people doing on company time. porn ain't the worst of it, by far.

jump what's worse than surfing for porn, i gotta know?

For those times when you really need to block out distractions and focus on CADing, headphones are a blessing, and should (IMO) be allowed.

But if you are in an office to learn, as an intern, a HUGE part of your education will be listening to your boss/others on the phone. Those conversations teach you what practice is rally like. I just commented to my partner last week, for the 500th time, as I hung up one call and dialed another number, that I never knew being an architect basically meant spending the day with the phone in one hand and the mouse in the other. But thus it is.

I'd also second never working for somewhere that doesn't pay hourly.



Use ear phones, but leave them off when people are around.

i can ignore people without headphones. its my one talent.

I would say it very much depends on the firm. I've worked at 3 starchitects, 1 boutique, and no corporate. In the starchitect firms I had:


1st was ok: regular hours, good pay, great environment. Got to work on a competition team of 5 who were all v friendly and let me have a crack at designing the podium of the skyscraper we were working on - a large part of which made it through to the actual entry.

2nd was great: very long hours, great design to which interns were expected to contribute, perks such as getting models that I made by myself into a MoMa exhibition, but next to no pay. I did learn more here than anywhere else in my entire education/professional life though.

3rd was awful: Very long hours, no responsibility at first (actually given the task of cleaning out a cluttered room for 3 days followed by 2 days putting fancy holographic invitations in envelopes for the starchitect's flatwarming party!), very rude staff etc. but after all that shit I had a word and did eventually manage get to some good detailing experience and, towards the end, be in charge of a mini-competition entry myself.



So, from my experience 'starchitect' doesn't imply any specific type of experience. Sure, there are some things that generally differ between starchitects and boutiques etc, but there can be bigger differences within each category and between individual practices. I had 3 very different experiences but overall I enjoyed each one. Even when I had a terrible time I was still exposed to high-profile projects and managed to get my name known by a few people (even if only as an intern).

Although...when you work at a starchitect's you do get to copy their entire shared drives to DVD for future use. ;) *taps nose*