wow this is awesome... I have alot of rethinking of my rethinking to do... maybe ill just get a heard of sheep and tend to them... i hear theres good money in that

I know making $100,000 a year isnt the norm for architects, I am just trying to figure out the best way to possibly reach this level... I would love to practice architecture, but if I have to do it "on the side" while I utilize my skills, if I got an MBA for instance, to accrue a nice paycheck than thats what Ill have to do until I make my break...

jump - where did you get your phd in urban planning from and how long was that program to get the masters and the phd? and you have a MArch or a phd in architecture also? Do you feel that with all of this knowledge and all of your degrees and experience you have alot of opportunities available to you to kind of get your hands on some cool projects and get involved in a good number of things? how is someone with your credentials able to hold up in this tough economic time? job security wise?... paycheck wise?... etc?

marry rich. end of story.

thanks for the optimistic advice... maybe engineering is a smarter route to go... does anyone know if you have a bachelors already, hypothetically speaking, lets say it was environmental planning, would you need to do a full 4 year program to get a bachelors degree in engineering? or would this bachelors allow me to opt out of a few classes, a semester, a year, 2 years...??? I understand I would need to take like physics/calc/etc, but im planning on taking that this year anyway because I was planning on getting my MArch, but with all the pessimistic comments about the field I feel I really need to reconsider what my plans are...

I see the benefit of an MBA with an architecture degree in the business world. In some cases, design thinking is really playing a big role in how businesses innovate. Businesses thrive on innovation and the right execution and management to get it done. A person who has the ability to think conceptually but also be able to manage effectively could really play an influential role in these firms. There aren't a lot of people out there who can do that and this is certainly one way in which architectural thinking can be a powerful leverage tool...and a way for us to be making more money.

I can see this happening in design consultancy firms like IDEO and MAYA design, as well as firms with an entrepreneurial focus.

Architectural firms are also seeing the benefit of design thinking in other fields. At the firm I work at, we have a group that provides design consultancy services for businesses that has nothing to do with designing a building.

So although you probably wouldn't be practicing architecture in the traditional sense, you would certainly be applying design thinking to other fields...

my biz partner is licensed architect, trained at TU Delft by major starchitects and gets the conceptual stuff better than most. he was good enough to be invited to do phd at my own school by my professor.

he went into developering without mba and was totally forced to learn a new way of thinking. i am slowly learning the same stuff now. but mba is not necessary to that. again it doesn't hurt, but in our case the archi-background means we know which properties to invest in and which land can be developed so is def more important. the financing side my partner learned. i am not sure mba would have helped on that end cuz its still theory till you get out there - so am not so enamoured of the idea that an mba combined with architecture degree is necessarily that far ahead of just having the one.

not to discourage, just that it might not be the answer.


joben i did bachelor environmental design then master of architecture in canada (i was born on canadian prairie), worked as architect in london and in japan for several years before doing phd at university of tokyo. some doors open, but really it is not the paper i have in hand but what i do with it. i have my own office and we are getting by. i am not bad at planning but we brought in a very good planner to lead us on planning projects and we will see how that goes. we are still trying to work out our model of practice and nothing is set yet. will have better answer in 5 years. phd does qualify me to teach and puts me ahead of those with just m.arch, but i am learning recently that teaching has some trade-offs that maybe are not worth the security of a job...


truly if you want to make money then take any degree that interests you, mba or architecture and then start making friends and figure out a business plan and try to make it go. i don't think it is possible to make real money in traditional firm, as engineer or architect. better chance of doing so as an mba and go work for bank and then save a few million and start investing in property. this is model i see quite often here in tokyo. i don't see many architects doing that, largely because it is hard to save money on architects salary and also because temperamentally we tend not to be suited to business of that sort. oddly the only architects i know who are actually pretty good at the business side of things are starchitects. i think it is something to do with ambition that got them where they are and the attitude that goes with it...

...

Joban,

Generally engineers make higher starting salaries than architects, but their salaries tend to increase less over time, so a middle-aged architect could be making more than a middle-aged engineer. Much depends on career paths, entreprenurial initiative, luck, etc. There are many fields of engineering, too, and salaries vary among them. Right now petroleum engineering is very hot--I just read that they can make in the $80s right out of school, but when oil goes bust, they may well be out of work...

For the best salary info, look at professional web-sites or salary studies. Anecdotal information is notoriously inaccurate.

Since there are no guarantees about the state of the world or the economy in the future, I encourage you to do something you like to do so you won't be miserable every working day of your life. Develop a positive attitude, social and leadership skills, work hard, think creatively and you have the best chances of making a good living.

Joban,
I have several friends in engineering and without exception they all earn far more than architects. Then again none of them are consultant engineers to architects. They all laugh at the consultant engineers I work with as being hacks that were at the bottom of the class and couldn't get jobs in corporate America. I think there is some truth to that.

Most of my engineer friends are either ME's or EE's working for companies like IBM, Caterpillar, etc. Starting salaries are good and raises/bonuses dwarf what Architect's generally get. Additionally, after rising through the ranks for so long they are encouraged to go back to college and get an MBA or other management degree (company paid) and transition into upper management. It's a corporate atmosphere where you can get swept out in a major layoff, but generally speaking the compensation is far better and the management track is better defined than architecture is.

Asked an EE friend how long it would take someone with an Arch degree to get an engineering degree. He said at best 3 years, applying old credits towards your gen ed requirements. They still have specialized labs, similar to studio, that you can't skip over.

thanks for the comments

aquapura - do you know how long it would take someone with a bachelors in a field that isnt architecture? I have a bachelors in environmental planning... I understand those credits wont fullfill the credits of an engineering degree, but I thought the gen eds required for the degree would be able to be substituted...

I only know little about engineering, and this semester I plan on taking an intro to engineering course at my local community college. Does anyone know if engineers have the freedom to design? That was the main draw to architecture that fascinated me, being able to create and design extraordinarily unique pieces of art that served as a home or a hospital or school, etc. Do engineers have this ability or freedom to do this kind of work? or are they just the ones that really build and put together what the architects come up with?


I figure if its going to take me 3-3 1/2 years to get my architecture masters, why not just work a bit harder and use that same time frame and get a bachelors in engineering where I could earn more and possibly design as well? or maybe not design...

Does anyone know if engineers are required these days to get their masters? or will a bachelors be sufficient enough until one day I might decide to get that MBA for an upper managerial job?



jump - do you think maybe taking a few business/finance/accounting/management courses would be sufficient enough to gain all the business knowledge I would need if I got my MArch? because if that was so than that would narrow down my thinking and I could possibly work toward getting that dual MArch/MUP degree instead of the dual MArch/MBA degree. That is to say if this whole engineering idea doesnt really pan out.

Joben, the engineer we use for our office also has phd. he is like cecil balmond though, def special. if you want to be that kind of engineer you need to work towards that goal on your own, maybe start looking for an in to arup right away.

money is not good though. i have a few friends from arup in tokyo and they never made more than us architects. construction is maybe just not lucrative especially for the offices where design is high priority. but my friends did do amazing amazing work and yes were/are absolutely part of the design process. in fact they often drive the design development as much as the architects. seeing work in progress (often for star-architects) very often blew me away. the pay though? meh.


as for what to study, i think a business course or two is useful for anyone. if you want to be trader in bank or a manager in office then go for mba. if you want to design i am not so sure how much it will help.

having said that i am pretty sure that a fairly regular poster here, called quizzical, has mba as well as license and he seems to be saying it was invaluable. probably best to ask him because i am biased by my own experience and he will have a better perspective.

I'm working on my M.Arch degree. My question, after reading all of these posts, is - do you all think that my having studied business as well as a BFA in Interior Architecture & Design, having run my own interior design business for 10 years overseeing staff, running the office, marketing, etc. as well of course as project management, design, designing remodels of homes (interior and exterior as well as construction), being an expert in BIM, CAD, 3D rendering, Photoshop, etc. and then also having my M.Arch degree will give me any advantage when I graduate with my M.Arch degree in terms of garnering a higher salary than most interns/newbies just starting out in a firm?

Thanks for any feedback!

joben - it doesn't matter what your current undergrad degree is in, it should be sufficient to skip over gen ed requirements for most engineering programs. As for the degree, a simple bachelors of science in engineering is plenty to get hired. Most engineers with graduate degrees are professors or plan on going into academia. As I said, any major company that wants you to get a grad degree will pay for it. Don't bother up front.

As for engineers doing design, that all depends on what engineering field you are going into. Like I said before, don't get an engineering degree to become a consulting engineer to the building/construction industry. The pay sucks and you're in the same boat with us Architects. Get a corporate job doing design. I have a friend that used to work at Dell computer designing the motherboards inside Dell workstations. It's design, just far different than buildings. Pretty much anything mechanical or electrical or chemical is designed by engineers.

If your MArch is going to take 3-3.5 years you could easily pound out and engineering degree in the same or less time. Worth a strong consideration if you have any desire to do something outside of Architecture.

thanks alot guys

aquapura - I think I am going to need to research some of these engineering programs and see if my bachelors degree will be able to substitute for some credits... The only consideration I have put into doing something outside of architecture only came recently when I kinda got smacked back to reality with everyone letting me know that architecture isnt exactly the best paying job, unless your these "starchitects". I am a very hard worker and I know givin a difficult task I could rise to the challenge, but this field is sooo new to me that I am very doubtful that no matter how hard I work, if the talent isnt there, I might be screwed. With that being said engineering kind of seems cool because I like construction/design, I think these jobs are so technical and just seem so fullfilling to me. That is why architecture really was what I wanted to do. But this goes back to the whole salary thing. I AM passionate about this field, I think its amazing what architects do, but at the same time, sometimes its not just about what I want, and I have to think long term, like if I start a family in the next couple of years (im only 22 by the way, but I need to put things into perspective).

I am going to hopefully bang out physics, calc, intro to engineering, a bunch of art/3D design courses and maybe engineering physics at this community college this year. Hopefully while I am doing all of this I will get a better grasp on whats going to work, because right now I feel all of the plans I have made thus far have been either shot down, or havent lived up to what I thought they could. Thanks though for the insight and comments, really appreciate it.

informative discussion thread; thought I'd chime in.

first, my hat is off to all practicing architects. my wife is working on her bArch, and eventually god willing, her mArch.and after seeing herwork so hard in her design studio courses, my respect and appreciation for the requisite skillset needed to do well in architecture has increased dramatically. architects have to use both sides of the brain, while us engineers use only the analytical half, as we like to joke!

i work for a consulting engineering firm in san francisco; we design the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems (MEP) for buildings architects create. i've worked on many large high profile commercial, high-rise residential, mixed-use commerical/residential, high end custom residences, hotel/resorts, throughout san francisco, the bay area, and beyond.

regarding issue of compensation in consulting engineering field (MEP): it's decent and livable; $50k out of school. 65k within 3 years. 80k+ with a professional engineer (PE) license with a few years experience. the associates at my firm (typically 10+ years experience, PE, LEED, building commission acreditation) made 100k+ before this construction decline hit us.

this field is great in the sense that we contribute to the design of cool projects which by the way were designed by whom? : Architects!

the entire 'building design' field (composed of architects, and engineers) is pretty cool; i think id' be bored worked at cisco or intel writing code or working on some esoteric microprocessor smaller than my thumbnail. in contrast, i get to drive anywhere in the city and look at these large buildings, and say "hey, i worked on that!", simply because i'm still psyched that i get to contribute to these projects. one's ego is too large if you call engineers in the consulting engineering field 'hacks who couldn't get a job in corporate america'. the technical and communication skills required to produce a MEP set of construction documents for a large project is not something to sneeze at. would you call the architects and engineers responsible for a university campus, or skyscraper a 'hack?' if so, you think way too much of yourself.

ps: all you architects and aspiring engineers: check out PBS E^2 (e squared) series. you can find it on netflix stream instantly. it's really good and stresses that if american architect's and engineers don't adopt "green sustainable' designs, we won't be competitive with the rest of the design world (europe, asia) who are embracing sustainable practice as in integral part of the design process; not as an afterthought.

good day, good luck. work hard!

and don't forget the power of good negotiation skills. it'll really get you far in the salary range. don't be scared to negotiate hard, as any other professional in his/her field!

If you are under 30, just study to become a physician or a lawyer, do not marry a wealthy woman or man, because you will feel a slave. Architecture is like music, anyone with some practice will be able to build, to draw 2d or 3d. Architects have the brain of a physician, but the income of a slave. Sorry for my English. My humble opinion. Run far away and start making a living with dignity in other field.