Navigating Architecture for Dummies

Navigating Architecture for Dummies

*Hello world, this blog is dedicated to all architecture enthusiasts, students and my lovely readers. Its more of an advisory which I wish I had received before choosing architecture. Hope this helps people who don't have a guide or any sort of background in architecture like myself.*

Welcome to this world of architecture, many of you might have chosen this world and quiet a few of you might have been pushed into this, but one bothering question for all of us is, Is it worth it? Is this a masochistic profession or actually a haven? Am I taking the right step in this profession? 

Well, I haven't found all the answers, but I might have understood a few things in pursuit for these answers. 

School and Profession 

Going to an architecture school is like time travelling back to Ice Age and then returning to 21st century, watching an outdated video on introduction to architecture, anyway, my examples can go on and on, but what I've got to say is that what we study isn't relevant to present day practice, however, what we learn in school is only relevant in school context and what we learn during practice is only relevant for practice. Nevertheless, the end result of those intense years of education is professional practice.

So if you get an opportunity to do a summer internship, TAKE IT!

Where is the money?

You are more likely to have this question throughout your entire architectural career. Initially you would be chasing money and later on in life, you would be chasing your clients to pay you your fees. People working in this industry are passionate, but can passion alone fill your stomach ? 

Its not that bad, except during the initial years of working when you'll find yourself getting paid the minimum wage whereas your peers in other industry will be getting paid thrice as much as you are. If the odds are in your favor maybe ten years down the lane you might find yourself driving an Audi car or even ride different Harley Davidson on different days of the week, just like all my professors.

You will start seeing money when you start taking your own projects and that won't happen without work experience.

Toxic Work Culture

In school, all of us tend to work day and night to finish our deadlines. In our perspective, it is only possible if we are dedicated to our art but to the rest of world we will more or less appear to be insane. Now, this work culture is gonna be there even in your workspace.

At work, when a drawing is given to you, you are expected to finish it before a certain deadline and if you can't, you might have to use all your 24 hours to complete it. Maybe it could be toxic or maybe not. It actually depends on how soon or late you finish the work. Certain firms have intense working hours and some places can actually be chill. 

(You can help the community by letting us know in the comment section about the work culture in the firm you've worked or are still working).

But in the end, we do what we do because we are passionate about our art form, it can get tedious and sometimes not that rewarding but it all goes away when we sit down to design because design is one hell of an addiction!

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As we've reached towards the end of the blog, I wanna thank all of you for reading through and if you guys have any questions or want me to cover any topics, please let me know in the comment section.

 

Have a good day!