For years now, there has been information about various professional degree programs where the graduate pool is greatly larger than the available jobs. Law Degrees, for example have been increasingly hard to peddle. But is it really this bad now for Architects? Perhaps it is.
Architecture as a skill, maybe unlike law, is often not viewed as "transferable". In hard times, the "generalist" training of an Architect may not be valued by anyone other than other Architects.
Out of school, we're not writers, teachers, historians, or builders. If we're lucky, we're "Architects In Training" - interns in our chosen field. Now there are way too many of us.
For what seems like ages, I have counseled staff members and aspirants alike - that Architecture most be chosen because you enjoy it, not because you can expect to get rich doing it. Now that jobs are less plentiful, I guess we should factor in the odds of actually making a go of it.
Is there a solution? Tougher entry requirements? Better training in College? Alternate career paths, with better preparation? I'm not altogether sure, but I know I keep searching.
More to follow...
1 comment:
My two cents. "Project architects" are the only architects who are in demand. They always were. They are essentially managers, technocrats/bureaucrats... anything BUT what the typical architect is supposed to be like. Project architects performance is assesed based on them completing a project in time, within budget, and if possible with little or no legal snags. They are a basically a cross between a manager, an economist and a lawyer. They need to be (and are) extremely organized, usually very efficient. They must know the building code by heart, they must know construction law, they are constract administrators, they must be sort of financial experts, they must sift daily though enormous amounts of data and paperwork, and on top of that they must have people skills as they have to manage so many entities at the same time.
I said all that because a project architect's persona has strictly nothing to do with the artistic environment and education usually provided by an average architectural course. A project architect will almost never need to use design skills, or creativity, or any artsy stuff like that. Long workshop hours, "designing", colouring paper masquerading as projects, trips to Rome to learn about history of architecture, wearing turtlenecks and drinking espresso,... pretty much all that stuff is useless for a project architect.
I am trying to say that there is a huge disconnect between what they teach you in architectural school on one hand, and what is REALLY needed out there, on the other hand. As long as this gap is not addressed, there will always be a lot of unemployment among architects. As an architectural graduate, not only you don't have the skills required by prospective employers (who are looking for project architecs), but you also do not have the required MINDSET, as most students are more like the artistic type; it's rather hard for an artist to transfer his/her skills in order to become a paper-pusher.
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