While it is admirable that you want to get some office experience before and/or concurrent with your graduate studies, a little scan through the threads here on archinect would easily demonstrate that this may not be the market to find an easy job with little to no experience. With so many experienced and even licensed architects on the hunt for any job I think your chances, realistically, are fairly slim. That said, if you can afford to work for free (which totally devalues the profession) then you might be able to get some employment somewhere.

You might want to consider just emailing some offices and see if you can job shadow for the day or something. I would think this might actually be a bit more rewarding because you would get to see many offices with zero commitment and understand how various types of offices and projects work. With the workload in so many offices being fairly thin it seems like offices might have the time and patience to let you hang out for the day. Your really at a time in your education where exposure is more valuable then experience, in my opinoin.

completely agree with *uck

Great advice Morse. Thanks!

What about getting an AutoCAD/Rhino/Revit certification? Would that help or, because of the lack of edu. and exp., that won't help and I shouldn't bother?

<i>"your really at a time in your education where exposure is more valuable then experience, in my opinoin."<i>

i'm a student as well with very little skills/architectural experience. at what level do you think internships will be considered seriously? after learning 3D stuff? after graduating?

thanks.

Ah yes, it's *uck.

Should have gone here (http://morsecode.scphillips.com/jtranslator.html) first :P

I don't think there is a specific time or skill set that clearly signals it's time to start an internship. The issue is more about not getting to focused on one idea or work method too early in your education. The thing with an internship is that your only getting exposure to one office and one type of working which for some people can be potentially damaging. If the experience is good you think all offices are that way, and reverse for the opposite. Not only that, the authoritarian nature that some offices take that their work is the only work that can be called architecture could derail your own personal discovery of architecture (and realization that these offices suck). I watched many of my friends in undergrad who were working at offices (while I worked retail) suffer in studio because their professional experience made them second guess their personal design decisions.

free4m-

you might want to consider visiting the school(s) you are planing on applying to and talk to students in the program you will be entering to see what software they are currently using. Also it might be useful to see what general topics are being discussed around the school and do some reading to familiarize yourself with terms, theories and the like that seem to make a frequent occurrence in reviews and class discussions.

Also it never hurts to be really well versed with the Adobe Creative Suite becomes presentation can make or break a project.

not trying to parse words, but an 'internship' can't really start until you've completed some school in the field within which you will be interning. for architecture, i think idp requires 3yrs of undergrad education before you're technically considered an intern (and probably 1 or so for grad education, not sure...don't hold me to these numbers...just trying to make a general point). this may seem trivial, but if you contact firms inquiring about internships, you probably won't get the most appropriate response, given your circumstances. imagine a pre-med student seeking a medical internship prior to completing any actual med school...

while the proposal of shadowing firms sounds enjoyable, and while i more or less agree w/most of morse's comments (exposure being more important than experience), i don't think shadowing is your only option. you may be able to find work within an architecture firm -- perhaps as an administrative assistant or similar non-architectural staff position. this accomplishes some of the goals outlined by others above (exposure to the practice of architecture), and it also gets you a paycheck. there is plenty to do in an office that is related to and important for the successful practice of architecture that don't require any arch. education or experience (assisting with marketing, RFQ/RFP process comes to mind)...

anyhow, just expressing an alternative. prolonged exposure to a single practice may be worth more than a bunch of shorter visits, even if that practice isn't doing the most interesting work.

best of luck!

Great! Thanks AP!

It sounds like (because of my past business dev. experience) I'd much more likely get hired as a temp/admin assistant than an unofficial inten. That's all I really want, is to be in the office, to get a feel.

*uck, when you say that I should be well versed in Adobe Creative Suite, that's a lot of programs to study. I can do the basics in Photoshop and Acrobat, but haven't touched InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, or Fireworks. Knowing all those could be a career in itself :P

free,
most of us know all of those programs and it is not even considered to be our career, we just have to know it. I was going to suggest to you to perhaps get out into the field and see if there is any work out there! I know couple of people that were interning at our firm before they had to be let go and they actually started working for some construction firms that still had some work left and were willing to hire them. I believe that working in the field will prepare you for the architecture industry more than filing shop drawings or stamping CD sets. It will give you a better understanding how things really work, how buildings are put together etc. I was putting garages together in high school which gave me alot of experience going into college, but then again that was years ago. Understanding building construction helped me move up in the firms and leading projects! I guess it all depends on what you want to do as an architect! Good luck!

I would start with getting really comfortable with Illustrator. It will be a huge asset when you start putting together presentation boards and for small publications.

Put simply, Illustrator is a Vector based software while Photoshop is a raster based software. What that means to you is that Illustrator comprehends things like line weights. Also Illustrator is able to handle text much better than Photoshop that really is only meant for image editing, not text or vector graphics.

Other than that, InDesign is useful when it comes time to making a portfolio. Anything after that you probably won't need to know unless your program does any sort of animation work but you can probably cross that bridge when you get there.

You're going to school to be an architect, not a draftsperson. So don't worry about learning all these programs. Chances are, your instructors will want you to hand draft everything in your first year. And the two years after that, you can make architecture however you want. But never confuse architecture with drafting. Two completely different ideas.

Internship? Right now? Forget it.

If you want to learn some nice programs to prepare you for school, I would suggest photoshop, illustrator, in-design, etc.

ditto the software. adobe suite is standard knowledge base for graduates in my opinion. i am old-ish and been out of school for awhile but can use all of the adobe stuff as well as several cad software, and a few other knicknacks for admin. computers are very important, even for old folks like me.

interning for free is maybe possible, helping with models and so on. better choice is probably to try and work as assistant.

to be taken seriously ? i dunno - for some things right away, for a lot of important stuff i guess maybe after you finish undergrad...

Thanks guys. I'll get started on those three.

It's interesting that you all have left out AutoCAD, Revit, 3dMax, or Rhino. Is it your opinions that I should just leave those for when I'm in school and knowing those wouldn't make my chances of employment any better, especially if I'm going after an assistant job?

if you have no experience you probably won't do cad. drafting requires understanding how to put a set together and for someone who has not begun to work on architecture yet it means taking time to teach you. not sure if that is worth the investment for most interns.

software is impt but knowing what to do with it is more impt. which is ultimately the value of experience over a list of skills.

free4m,

just curious about what you have been doing to gain exposure to architecture since your last post. Have you heard anything from Cal Poly Pomona?

i have a question more about software than internships. fortunately, i've been admitted to berkeley's m. arch 3 program this year and will be starting there in the fall. while participating in their summer program, we used auto cad and illustrator a lot. i also know my way around indesign since that's what i used to lay out my portfolio. what other programs are important besides autocad, illustrator and indesign? also, while in the summer program, i bought a really cheap dell since i have and older mac and couldn't run autocad. what are people's thoughts on running autocad on a mac? is it best to just have a pc for the cad stuff? thanks in advance for any insight.

ps. i heard from an architect i've working with that they've had great experience with cal poly pomona arch grads :)

i have a feeling that cal poly's program is more about preparing students for the profession than others, like say... sci-arc. i really love sci-arc though and participated in their summer program in 2008 as well.

no university will prepare you for the real world. they can't. some will get closer but without working in office there is not way to get the experience, and in any case that would miss the point of university, which is to learn to think.

contracts office admin, redlining and all the rest can come later, on the job. i absolutely believe an architectural education that focuses on the real world is a waste of an education.

jump_ valid points. what's really got me hooked on an education in architecture is the fact that it teaches students how to truly think in a critical/analytical way. and in a creative/ artistic way as well. the focus is more on the process or journey and how all the moves made need to make sense or somehow justified. but i think that's the point, which is why i hear there can be quite a disconnect between the academic and professional worlds. but as you mentioned, the day to day activities like redlining, rfp paperwork and what have you can be learned relatively quick at an office, so of course, the years in school are to learn how to build and problem solve within a rule set or system. really interesting stuff.

the comment i made was just one that an architect shared with me once. she explained that cal poly grad interns at their firm were more ready to work at an office than the sci-arc grads they received. but who knows, folks who attend cal poly pomona are probably more like to work at architectural firms and get licensed than say sci-arc grads, who may also be interested in design, art, academia and not necessarily licensure. just some thoughts...