wtf?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Dude, do the math. That's not even one-third of the minimum wage in NY state.

And by the way, if this is a serious question and doesn't include any typos, I really have to question whatever research and critical thinking skills you supposedly learned in college.

i agree...yet it would still be $500 more a month then i make ;)

well, it is a serious question.

it is very difficult for a recent graduate to find a job right now, in 3 months' job searching after graduate, except the numerious "hiring freeze" responses i have got, this is the first thing which looks like a job offer.

but i was really surprised when they told me the wage is 500 per month... i did not expect much in this economy, but i was thinking a wage should at least make me a basic living....

A wage should at least comply with federal and state law.

not sure if it worth it...

a kind of semi-star-achitect office...

i am currently not in nyc yet. hard to decide if i should go there to work for such a small wage

You do realize that $500/month equates to approximately $2 an hour, right? Maybe if you're lucky, they'll give you a few coals and leftover bread crumbs at the end of the month.

If you're dumb enough to even seriously consider this "offer", then you deserve whatever shitty treatment this firm gives you. Unfortunately, it's practices like this that drive down wages for the rest of us.

FWIW, my first job with an architecture firm was with a semi-starchitect in Chicago 13 years ago, during an economic slowdown... And I was making $9.50 an hour plus overtime and benefits.

Tell semi-starchitect to fuck off, and get a job at Starbucks. At least Starbucks offers a health plan.

your allowed to make a counter offer.. say something along the lines of "I was thinking something along the lines of minimum wage"

thanks for you guys' opinions. i appreciate

maybe i should wait for several more days. there is another firm's phone interview next week. it is also an intern in nyc, 20k/year, which sounds more reasonable. but not sure if i can get it...hope me have good luck in the interview...

I am not going to be as harsh as LIG, but $500/mo won't even cover half of your half of rent (because you will be rooming w/ someone). And then, you will be in one room in a house out in Queens or the Bronx or Jersey or something.

If you are looking at living in NYC, you should at least familiarize yourself with the cost of living. I am pretty sure that you will not be able to spend less than $1000/mo on rent alone (whether you are sharing or not). $500/month is buying your food for the month.

Next question,

Is this your first job in a firm?

Some perspective: In 2005, the median salary for an entry-level intern in NYC was $36,000.

You need to head to your local AIA office and ask to see the most recent compensation survey.

to 21 Ronin,

yes, this is my first job. I went through school all the way, BArch and MArch, without working experience. i ve been searching for job for 3 months after graduated in august, but got "hiring freeze" everywhere...

to living in gin,

I did check some on-line salary survey...but staying unemployment for 3 months, i will take any job which can make me a basic living....

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I would rather work for free than $500 a month. Seems to me that at least you would retain a degree of freedom rather than having to comply with the restrictions of acting like an employee.

the median income for homeless people in New York city is greater than $500 per month.

you been blago'd!

$500 bucks...
dude, do you really have to work at a semi-starchitect firm at NYC????
can't you just pursue true starachitect firms in other countries, say OMA in Rotterdam??
My friend who worked there told me that they'll pay little but they provide accomodation.....
At least I would do that than working in NYC while having negative balance on my bank account..
man..I once had an intern job that paid $10/hr in SF. Even $1600 -tax/month wasn't enough for me live, so i had to live with my mom.

I would seriously consider another option. dude you have M.arch try find opportunity in here in SF though you won't find many semi-starchitect firms in bay area.

to just tim,

thanks for advice.

i m not particularly interested in working in nyc, i m not particularly interested in working for star or semi stars either.

the only thing i m concerning now is a job, after 3 months umemployment. now i m willing to relocate to anywhere i can find a job. i have sent out hundreds of applications across the country, but only got several onsite interviews and none of them worked out due to hiring freeze.

i actually sent out quite some applications to sf firms, but seems no one is hiring?

if anyone hears some place might be hiring entry level people, please please let me know....i really appreciate it.....

take the job. think of it this way, you'll probably still be looking for work for the next 3-4 months anyway. in which time you could either accumulate 3-4 months experience (and $1500-$2000) or 0 months experience (and $0).

you have nothing to lose. this is a competitive world and it's a long ways to the top. it may not get any better so you might as well get started.

but puddles, moving to a new city AND signing up a lease is something that you can't just ditch after 3-4 months (well, unless favonian knows someone in NYC to stay a while). At least now, favonian can look for a job across the country, but once s/he moves to NYC, then that's the only place s/he will have to find a job until the lease expires.
favonian, what if you just stay low and enter some competitions, so you can beef up your portfolio. or try to learn a new software or something?

im sure you can find a month to month rent...if you try hard enough.

favonian-

Having experience at a firm where you are not proud of the work is more important than working at a place where you get paid nothing (or next to nothing). Your salary history is something that could come up in interviews and taking $500/mo does not give you much leverage in negotiating salary after this internship. Taking work just for the sake of having work puts you in a terrible position. You will most likely be taken advantage of.

I never understood why people go through school without working in a firm first. How do you know if you will even like the office (small, medium or big) atmosphere? I know this is not helping you at this point, but there will be people with experience that just graduated along with you. Good luck, especially in big cities like NYC or LA. It may not be encouraging advice, but it is real.

You could most likely find a homeless shelter to live in for a couple of months until you find a real paying job. It might prove to be a
worth while life changing experience, which money can't buy you.

While I think puddles is right in the fact that it will give you some experience and cash (and something is better than nothing), I think it is a bit telling that the employer only sees your value as that much. Lets face it, it is basically free and the $500/month is a joke. (You sure it isn't $500 per week?) Yes the economy is not in good shape, but seriously?

I could see if you did not even graduate from B.Arch and it is definitely a temporary thing, but you have a masters degree and looking to start your career. There are two different kind of interns - true interns that are temporary employees just there to learn, and interns that are called that because of a technicality/regulations that prevents us from calling ourselves architects until we pass the ARE.

Fuck that...

$500 a month isn't even enough to rent an bench in Central Park. If anyone ever told me with a straight face that this is what they were wanting to pay me, I'd laugh in their face and walk out the door. I don't even care who I would "insult" or how many bridges I would burn.

yeah, it is an absurdly low salary.

but it depends on what the other factors are. is it worth it to you to not be making money in order to be working and gaining experience? is this a firm that you will actually get a good experience at? are you excited about leaving wherever you are from and coming to new york? do you have a trust fund that can support you despite having basically no income? but yeah, even stingy stingy oma pays interns $1500/month in nyc

"do you have a trust fund that can support you despite having basically no income? "

... the deal breaker for those of us that realize how absurd low that really is.

you can't work for nothing - and 500/mo IS NOTHING. you should value your time more than that.

one question to consider in the future. with the mass layoffs that have occurred in the field and the unlikely return of any building boom (which if you consider subprime lending, flipping, easy credit, etc was indeed a boom created under suspicion) how much will wages drop for those competing for the much smaller pieces of the pie...

A new world order is in the making, we all work for free.

exactly. which is why i recommend taking the $500/month and running with it as long as you can.

I can't believe the sheer number of firms that pull this "stipend" shit in NYC.

Favo, you're better off washing dishes because frankly that's probably what you will be doing for the principals at that firm everyday anyway.

unless you have some sort of financial safety net that you can fall back on, i would strongly suggest not moving to a new city, especially an expensive one. even if you get an architecture job (the other doesn't qualify as a job), it's not going to be stable enough for you to make that kind of a leap in this economy. stay with family or friends while you try to nail something down, architecture or otherwise. things can go downhill very fast when you're unemployed and have no one to rely on. i read in the wall st journal yesterday that even restaurant jobs are hard to come by at this point.

The employer should be taken to court!

Don't do it! - There is more to life and you will not have a good experience.

Work for yourself and do a competition! You will make more and learn more,
you'll connect with people rather than be a drone.

I hate shit like this!

my first job at the minimum wage 4.25/hr. (at thirteen yrs. old) would have been about three hundred dollars more a month then what you are looking to get now. you might have an opportunity to work, but to sell yourself short in the process is not the way to go about it. if you do choose to work for nothing (which is what you are expecting to make), then i would suggest staying put where you are, and find a firm that would be willing to take you in as an apprentice opportunity. offer to work a few days a week to take in the culture, process, and achitectural firm experience. what you gain can be applied to your resume, and then an interview when the economy opens up. this would allow you to save on any relocating expenses, get some experience, and work another job (i.e. starbucks as suggested above). This profession is competative as it is, and any experience that you can gain in the meanwhile might set you up better when the tides turn.

^ this is great advice

What's the firm's name? Come on, tell us. We promise we won't report them to the government.

When I came to this country 11 years ago I did it because I could not find a decent job after graduating from architecture school. The first job I took in the US was washing dishes ($1,200 a month) while I learned the language. Not even in my native country (developing country) you would be paid $500 a month.

Yeah I understand with the economy, the layoffs, the flooded market, this gig may seem necessary but I think that it is simply unacceptable and completely insulting.

And in all likelihood, all you will be doing is cranking out renderings and presentation boards without picking up a single iota of knowledge about your profession.

I argue that he/she could learn from renderings and presentation boards. That is seriously not the worst thing that could happen. In my first internship while getting my BArch, I earned more than 4x that, and for the first week all I did was organize their storage room.

FP, it doesn't matter, you cant throw a football in lower manhattan without hitting the window of an boutique arch firm that pulls this shit. Its really, really bad here in the city. It should be illegal and the AIA should have something in its ethics code barring it. One of the biggest problems is that so many new grads are willing to start their careers working for free/stipends for these people. I myself fell into the "stipend" crap, which frankly is more insidious than the "work for free" crap because you interview with them and they say they'll pay you and I was too naive (first job here in the city) to negotiate, just said I'd show up next monday.

seriously ...how is that even possible to get away with .. do they just not put you on the books?... and if your not on the books will they be legally allowed to sing your IDP?

ps ...sorry if this has been said ..i read a couple of posts the just skipped to the bottom

The partners who run firms that engage in such practices need to be stripped of their licenses and maybe even spend some time in federal prison. I'm dead serious... When slaughterhouses and factories pull this shit with their workers, criminal charges can be filed, but nobody bats an eye when some egomaniac starchitect does it.

It would have two immediate benefits:

1) Remove a few ethically-challenged architects from the profession, and allow more responsible professionals to pick up the slack.

2) Make a few high-profile examples of some starchitects losing their careers, and you can be assured that most others would snap into shape very quickly.

Come to Detroit. I will pay you $600 a month to do my job.

I was just thinking....I made more money per month working as and office boy....in 1972...The Profession certainly hasn't moved along with lighting speed. I say it is time the AIA address this issue among their piers and the NCARB step up to the Plate and start revolving licenses.

favonian,

Thanks for posting this thread, i cant stop laughing.

Here is the deal, u miss understood the offer, they meant 500k. so knock urself out and apply ASP

I just really don't get the underpaid and don't deserve more mentality of this profession. And it's really sad and disgusting that people who ask for higher pay are seen as money grubbers. How is it that this is the only professionally licensed field with such archaic salary/standard of living views? The firm I worked at during school and graduation was only paying me $9 bucks an hour as a contract employee (didn't know what that meat when I signed on) then only wanted to pay $25k/year salary after graduation and I had already been with them for a year.

Don't undervalue yourself. If you start out this way, it may set a tone for your entire career. I'm already struggling with this.

i tried to negotiate the wage, then they did not reply at all.

also, another small firm said they need an intern several days ago, but after i asked them how much the wage will be they did not reply....

so i guess they may really be able to find someone work for them at that low wage

Or maybe they hired somebody local with better experience, a better portfolio, and/or better business sense and gave them a real salary.

If you're getting so few callbacks, maybe the problem is with your resume and/or cover letter. Even in this economy, some firms will still be hiring because of normal staff turnover, new projects, etc.

You mention "sending in applications". This isn't fast-food work; I haven't turned in a job "application" since I worked at Circuit City. Ask a trusted mentor to review your entire job-hunting approach and your portfolio... Make sure it's somebody in the profession who will give you candid advice, rather than a friend or family member who will only tell you how wonderful you are. If you know of any architects in your area, call them up and ask for an informational interview, even if they aren't hiring. Anybody but a total asshole should appreciate your initiative and at least give you some pointers.

Where are you currently living? Most NYC firms would much rather hire somebody who is already local, and they have no shortage of local candidates to choose from. This goes for most other large cities as well.

Sorry to sound so harsh, but I wish somebody had given me some harsh advice at your age, instead of me having to learn my lessons the hard way.