exhibit design/engineering......

but you have to learn how things are 'actually' built and 'assembled'....

Smoka,
peruse these fora and you shall come across both what and more than you desire to know. But, to sum up:

Every job is different. There are some aspects of the work which carry through but this is due to the technical side of the proverbial coin. I currently work in a niche market doing high end residential work, I can walk to all my job sites, I have direct client interaction, I prepare major presentations, firm marketing and graphics, spend most of my time sitting in front of the computer in CAD (going bonkers) but enjoy a very small office with lots of personal freedom and a steady flow of work for at least the next 5 years. I am 25 and I just have an undergraduate degree.

A good friend of mine, many miles away in a southern metropolist, works for a major corporate firm in health care. Her background is in nursing/medical care so even though she also only has her undergraduate, she is being prepped to take over the division whence peace returns to the economy and the said major firm can more easily re-structure. She travels 2 weeks out of the month all over the country, can work from home, sees her friends and family as often as she can on these trips and is satisfied with the privledges which come along with the responsibility.

We both have crazy dead lines, we both end up dealing with irrational clients who have no idea whats going on but sure as hell have enough money to tell you what to do about it, and office environments that fluctuate from being filled with baby unicorn neighs to the depths of jerry springer hell.

Another good friend of mine spent 2 years in France working for Mr. Notable Designer because she is fluent in french and double majored in french studies. She is now at Notable College being a Notable Graduate Student.

Another friend left the profession directly, programmed and built robots in Austria and Switzerland, and now does all kinds of design work (architectural/computer systems/software, etc) for Columbia in NYC.

There are many, many options - the more you expose yourself to the field the more you will see. Take heart, you can absolutely avoid the whole 'Office Space' situation - it requires a 'Fame' like scrappy attitude, the right leg warmers, and most of all - connections.

Comfortable is totally doable in architecture without having to take on side work or a part time job on the side. Starting salaries in architecture are low compared to other professions, but within a few years you should be at a level most would consider comfortable. Of course, comfort is relative. You could be the type who defines "comfortable" as making 80k+ by the time you're 30 - and that is not very likely to happen. But 50-60k by 30 is realistic and that seems pretty comfortable to me.

How many of you are required to work in a cubicle?

Probably a lot of us. BUT, architecture offices generally don't have "cube farms" and crappy systems furniture. For collaborative work cubicles are much better than individual offices anyway. Go to some real architecture offices...don't just base your assumptions on Office Space.

i'm going to offer a little perspective of someone who has been in this game a long time...

this profession, as a general rule, is on the wane. or at least a radical shift in it's position as an authority over the built environment. design/build is on the rise, as are professional managers who have direct control over the primary keys to a project (budget and scope). firms who are niche or 'star' designers will always have a place vis a vis the media, but most of the remaining small to medium size firms are slowly getting squeezed out by a combination of factors - one is the increasing speed and complexity of projects, which most larger firms can do and offer more assurance to the clients of a job 'well done', one is the sheer economics of trying to sustain these firms - a lot of overhead relative to probable billings but not enough to invest in the kinds of more sophisticated technologies and methods of project design/management/etc. that clients are demanding. three, most medium sized firms can't retain more 'specialized' staff and has to sub that work out to a consultant (say a really good cost estimator). larger clients are increasingly looking to have all this done under one roof. check out the aia's statistics on this trend sometime - we have more architects working for large (60+) firms now than at anytime in history (something like 45%). i see some of these more formally merging with large contractors over the coming decade to offer a vertically integrated project solution.

in general, you can do 'ok' salary wise as a rank and file employee but the only way you make the real money is to either bring the work in (you are the conduit for the firm) or to have an ownership stake. it's very hard to do at a young age; hence some kind of adjacent business could be a way to generate more income.

if i could advise any youngsters in college: get a b.arch and then go get an mba. that way you can legally practice architecture but you'll have the saavy and business understanding to truly be able to navigate the world. or go to a place like the d-school out at stanford. in any event, go into this profession with an expansive, entrepreneurial attitude. look for opportunities to exploit and don't be afraid to try anything.

the zumthor's of the profession will find their way to that kind of place, regardless of what anyone says. the reality is that less than 1% of our profession has that kind of ability and can create that kind of opportunity. for everyone else, figure out if you're content to be just a part of the process or someone who can make a dent in some other equally important manner.

Just coming off of a major project w/ some MBA's, I'd caution you highly. I'm not saying it's a bad choice of study, but I think your time is better spent in one or another. The mentality it takes to be in one or another is quite different and I think you'll enjoy one much more than another. I personally came away from it realizing that I could never do what the MBAs do. As much as the educated and open minded ones are, they're all at the very least 20 years behind in design. Also, they talk about their work not as "projects" but as "products" which bears a strong semantic consequence. The profession is largely guided by convention as opposed to innovation. Which is perfectly fine given the financial risk that developers bear. However, I stress they're entirely different mentalities.

I'm assuming that you're not an arch student as an undergrad which is perfectly fine. That was my case as well. I actually, contrary to laru above, believe that a strong liberal arts education is infinitely valuable. Especially given the breadth of design today. The B.Arch's that have come to my school as M.Arch II's have (in my humble opinion) been no better designers than the M.Arch I's. (No offense to any B.Arch's).

I'm also seeing a shifting of the profession. There are people being trained more as designers these days at certain schools and others that are more technically trained at others. That is to say the training of architects can vary quite a lot. Some programs, you'll come out knowing how to write a spec and draw a framing plan. Others you'll intimately know Delanda and how his stuff applies to haptic organizations in parametric modeling.

The field is becoming increasingly broad so I'm certain you'll find what's right for you. The key is to understand that what one experience brings is not the full picture and to find the niche that fits you best. But yes, overall the money isn't good. But you can eek by and make a living. Ultimately it comes down to choices you make. You just can't have your cake and eat it too. Unless you're supremely talented.

well the quality of March's depends on the school. my school was not well known for it's graduate program and as a result the March 1's were no better (if worse in most cases) than the Barch's.

i would agree with laru that for the most part, only a small percentage of architects have the opportunity to operate in the sense of a designer. with the exception of a few high profile firms, the architecture firm has very little control over the end product, not to mention all of the changes that an initial scheme goes through.

smokatres, in the beginning you really have to view your 'career' as more of an apprenticeship: low pay and long hours to learn a somewhat volatile profession. which can be frustrating after 4,5 or 6 long years in school, but it is what it is. i am fortunate to have a S.O. who makes more than twice what i do. but like 4arch said, you just have to adjust your standards for living.

My M.arch program offers the Design/Build option for the second year in the program. I did it and it was treated as a studio. It enabled us to travel to meet clients, check out materials, and we relocated to Upstate NY from NYC to do construction 3 months after that to build the project.

There are Design/build firms out there if you would like to get involved in the construction part.

If you do enter into a M.arch program, you will have electives. I used my electives to take urban policy courses. You can take business courses as an alternative to getting a dual degree.

Ants, good point about the 'flavor' of education - I graduated with a highly developed conceptual/architectural thinking skills, minor professional production skills and ZERO construction knowledge.

From what I can tell, it actually serves professionals better to graduate with highly polished architectural thinking skills and (for some) struggle through the technical/standardize/industry beast while on the job and in the field. That kind of situation tends to provide design as the foundation rather than the generation of technical documents or the accumulation of proceedural knowledge, but the risk is not knowing what the hell you are doing and moving forward without being aware of something. At that point you are eating your mistakes in dollars and that can be a big problem.

Give and take, really. I also agree with Laru - I can't see it holistically but things are definitely changing.

"From what I can tell, it actually serves professionals better to graduate with highly polished architectural thinking skills and (for some) struggle through the technical/standardize/industry beast while on the job and in the field."

The problem is, increasingly a lot of firms don't have the patience for that-they just want people who were born instantly knowing everything and can produce a construction set from day one without supervision right now. And they are looking for the generation of technical documents as the sole criterion of quality. I think the firms that allow time for a person to grow and learn are sadly few and far between. Which isn't completely their fault-a lot of clients have totally unrealistic ideas of how long a quality building takes to conceptualize and produce and that pressure gets passed down to the least experienced person who can least handle it.

Thus ends my morning rant...

ODB,
this is quite true. Its probably wisest to say you will be educated in somethings, be totally ignorant in others, and then you will spend the rest of your life working to balance out and fill in the gaps. An office expecting a graduate to require NO training and just sit down and start working is absolutely asinine - our work is context laden consultancy and it takes a fair amount of time to properly...steep.