Posted by  Vanessa on April 14, 2004 at 13:31:34:

In Reply to:  Is Architecture for me? posted by Dave on April 10, 2004 at 13:15:45:

I just finished up my Bachelor of Architecture in Ottawa, Canada, and I have to say that it's a huge decision to decide to go into this field. Whether you can draw well or not right now isn't a huge factor, you usually figure out by the end of first year if you're someone who can be taught how to draw. You mostly need that creative vision, the ability to come up with great ideas and actually put them into physical form, whether in drawings or models, and then explain exactly why you did what you did and where these ideas came from. Your public speaking skills will help you enormously here.

Patience is a big thing though, because you're looking at dedicating the next 4-6 years (I'm not sure how many years of school you need in California to be certified, but up here in Canada you need 6 years: a bachelor and a masters degree) of your life to school. Be prepared to give up pretty much everything for those 8 months a year, because architectural studies require long hours. And by long hours, I mean LONG hours. My social life fizzled out to nothing, and I gave up on having relationships after second year, since I was having to choose between sleeping and spending time with the boyfriend. Free time is a luxury, unless you're really great at time management.

Architecture is thankfully not a very repetitious profession since you go from one project to the next, and everything is a new challenge. But while you're working on one you can get very, very sick of it. In school you'll get maybe a 4 month long project, and you'll spend those 4 months doing iteration after iteration until you come up with the final product.

If you're looking to make a difference in the world, then that's a good attitude to bring into the profession. A big ego that's not easily bruised (because you'll get shot down a lot) and lofty goals are good to have to make it in the business. But realistically, only a very small fraction of architecture students go on to do something that will be recognized. Also, it's a profession where fame and money come a lot later in life, and you will probably be stuck working low-end jobs in the field until at least your late 30's/early 40's unless you're really good, or you get a lucky break.

An architecture degree is always something you can use to get into other design-related fields though, like set design, interior design, graphic design, etc., and it'll never hurt you to have it. I say go ahead and give it a try, and you'll know after the first year if it's something you'll want to keep doing.

Responses:

Post a Response -