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I have at least 5 facebook friends who have architecture degrees who work doing something totally unrelated. And I have met many more who also are doing the same.
I'm kind of curious as to why. When I've asked them why, they've given me varying answers from the fact that it's difficult to do your own designs to the fact that it's hard to find jobs. But it seems like an overall well paying field with good job satisfaction and room for creative expression. As a matter of fact, it would be a field I would consider if I could do it all over.
In fact, out of my non-professional social circle, I have only met one person with an architecture degree who actually does it.
I've done some and have a few projects around town that are "mine"
However, that was all almost 20 years ago. Even then it was a hard field to get into
but not impossible. You really had to know someone. Now, forget it!
As mentioned above, not much building going on. Most of the big firms have either dwindled to
a few partners or disappeared.
Now, I have enjoyed being a full time volunteer with my kids schools for the past 14 years.
Work for my husband at our business that is not in that field. I've said that maybe someday but don't
really see me going back. Maybe piddle a bit once the kids are out of school, off in college and we have retired.
Then again, I'd have to go back to school to learn all of the new CAD development.
I personally think that all of the new computer technology has really effected that field.
You don't really need understudies to do all the menial drawings like before computers.
Almost 50% leave this occupation, in the traditional sense, within 20 years of graduating from architecture school. They defect to allied fields, such as construction companies, developers, and municipalities.
When you cross-pollinate an engineer and an artist, you often get a strange bird.
One of my kids thought about it for awhile. He did a lot of research and spent some time talking to different architects. From what he was told, it's very hard to find a job and the pay is really not that great and the hours can be pretty intense when there is a deadline, and there is always a deadline. We have friends whose son graduated with a masters in architecture last year. He has already had 2 jobs, and been laid off by both because the firms just didn't have the work. One closed completely.
There's PLENTY of jobs in the field. People just don't want them.
I think, like everything else, it was at is bottom in 2009 and 2010. Construction has bounced back and there are more cranes in the air. Listening to people talk, the wages are low, they don't climb up that quickly, and there is a lot more in terms of "creative differences" and territoriality than if one is a nurse in ER and someone comes in with a gunshot wound. Everybody rolls up their sleeves, puts on their gloves, and tries to ensure the person survives ... and then go have a smoke afterward.
Engineers are often picked for other jobs or moved from engineering into management because it's a prestige degree. I've known a lot of idiots with degrees, even masters, in fields such as English, sociology, etc., but I've never known a really dumb architect. My SIL is an architect. His first job out of college was as an architect for a federal prison. He's now the operations chief at that prison and second in command after the warden. They move up. I've seen it in the corporate world all my life.
Engineers are often picked for other jobs or moved from engineering into management because it's a prestige degree. I've known a lot of idiots with degrees, even masters, in fields such as English, sociology, etc., but I've never known a really dumb architect. My SIL is an architect. His first job out of college was as an architect for a federal prison. He's now the operations chief at that prison and second in command after the warden. They move up. I've seen it in the corporate world all my life.
The worst thing is when you have a group of engineers managed by a NON-engineer. I have a friend, a P.E., who works for a public agency and had this happen. This person was a scrapper, eclipsing other engineers in interviewing for the position. She made the situation untenable. A engineer, a P.E., was slotted into that spot subsequent to her and productivity/morale went back to normal.
An architect might move up in facilities management, running the physical aspects of the prison. If he or she moved up and started running the other operations of the prison, without knowing personnel management, budgeting, and strategic planning, it's because it's government and that sort of thing happens, as noted above.
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