Applying to architecture school, calling all architects

where to start...
okay if you're going into Architecture for the money, well it isn't there. now construction has more opertunities for making money, no not swinging the hammer. CA, construction administration.

as far as making partner, that can take a long time. unless you start a firm right after school. but expect little to no clients. myself i retired after 15yrs to raise my kids which i enjoy right now. maybe later i'll go back but i doubt it.

as for salary, most guy's i hired right out of school were making anywhere from 30-45k a yr. sounds good except were talking Socal, that doesn't go far. after 10yrs i was upto 65k but was working 70+ hrs a week and weekends. projects could take up your entire life. i staked out on my own for the last 5 and was pulling in anywhere from 90-120k but i had overhead to subtract from that and taxes so it went fast. granted i cut back on my clients and was only working 9 months a yr but the pay could be alot better.

it's always struck me as odd when at a dinner party people hear you're an architect and they assume you have this great job that makes lots of money, but the reality could be farther from the idealogy. my wife fourtunatly enough is a speach laguage patholigist and works her own practice so we manage to get by nicely.

my field is commercial and entertainment. i.e. restaurants and theme parks.

good luck, and if you really enjoy artchitecture don't let the lack of big bucks get in the way. we still need architects and doctors.

 

Ahhh! Even less money, worse clients.

Go into engineering, twice the pay, and you can still find 9-5 jobs out there...

 

Aw man i hate you, you just reminded me i have to start doing apps. grrrrrrrrr i dont want summer to end.

Im gonna guess you go to salesianum? Is that correct?

 

Residential architecture? I have a friend who designs custom homes. He's been doing it for a handful of years now and he's only 24. No formal education, just the right place at the right time. He ended up landing an intership doing CAD work for a designer in high school and eventually got enough work to start his own gig. The guy who he previously worked for, is still very supportive of his work. He has a lot of work going for him, so much that he is picky about who he chooses to build for and ends up turning a lot of work down. He is just a one man show. He works with the builder and the home owner directly. No one else is involved or needs to be involved.

As for other commercial projects, some money is in it, if you don't have the nack at doing custom work. I have about 5 friends that do various architecture jobs - all are grads of Univerisity of Houston, which is an excellent school for architecture. University of Texas is also excellent as well. If you feel you are that good, I'd apply to UT just to see if you make the cut and if you do... go for it.

Miami sounds like fun, and I've lived there for a few months myself, but trust me, when you are in architecture school, the last thing you'll see is sunlight. Architecture students tend to not sleep much and live in the studios.

Best of luck.

 

I hear Rice is pretty good as well, one of the better architecture schools in the country/south - not really sure. I do know that "archis" are a special breed, that's for sure.

 

I'm now out of touch with payscales in the architectural profession but did check a career and jobs website or two...median base pay for a graduate architect in Miami is around $34K salary, with all benefits, etc., around $50K. Median pay for a senior architect...I'd guess 10 years postgrad experience and licensing exams passed...was low 60's salary and mid 80's with benefits, bonuses, etc. This matched my cold guess very closely and is also about the same as in my area, Dallas. These figures are for non-partner employees and are probably based on payscales for large commercial firms or very well established residential/small and specialty project firms. My guess is that a newly minted partner at either of these firm categories would earn $100K all told, and owner-partners at major commercial firms can earn very big bucks, especially if they are also partners in successful R.E. development projects. I wouldn't reasonably expect to make partner at someone else's outfit until you've got 15 years post-grad experience.

I was in residential work for my whole career as a regular employee, a contract (hourly-rate only) employee, and as a solo practitioner. Still guessing, if I were to again go out, at age 56, and set up shop as a solo practitioner, I could gross around $125K in billings, based on a 40-hour average work week with all the usual holidays, etc. (in solo architectural practice, you'll go a few weeks with maybe 25 billable hours per week, just looking after loose ends of various kinds, and then a couple of new projects will come in and a client will call and give you the go-ahead on construction docs and you're billing out 80 hours a week for awhile. Over 20 years of solo, I found that it all averaged out to a "normal" workweek.)

Regarding clients, I'd say that 95% of my private clients were good to great people to work with. A few have become longterm friends. The 5% that were bad were horrible, but it was because they were just jerks in general...they treated everyone the way they treated me. I won't name the profession that most of the bad ones belonged to, but it's probably not hard to guess. Over 20 years, I was "stiffed" for less than $3K...I wasn't a bad businessman.

I hope this provides a little pragmatic insight...I won't get philosophical or reflective about architecture as a potential career...I'd be writing all night...good luck.

 

If you want to do highly innovative architecture, it is sometimes hard to have non-professional clients (i.e. residential clients). They do not understand the role of the architect, and that can lead to unpleasant endings.

On the other hand, when a client trusts you, it can be a lot of fun. Building something that has never been done before, is like building a prototype as the final product.

For that reason we try to be very aware as to who we take as a client, but sometimes you still can get it wrong.

 

You've got a jump way ahead with all of this...an established family R.E. business and a supportive dad, connections, $$. Excel in school and do your internship with the best firm you can find in your area of interest for practice. After you're licensed, with a few years experience, and want to go on your own or partner with someone, you can bypass a lot of the crap work and clients that a typical solo young architect or small practice has to take to keep the lights on. More advice...if after you graduate you still want to practice architecture for love and passion, make doing your internship and licensing first priority--get it over with. The older you get, the harder it is to do, especially if you're doing well in R.E. and have acquired the beginnings of a family along the way. I've known several folks like this...forty or older by the time they finally got through the exams...don't let it happen.

Rijk is offering good advice from a very different perspective than mine.

For a little background...my clients came from a relatively small pool of very affluent to wealthy, mostly conservative people here in Dallas. I worked in traditional and classical styles for my whole career...it's what 95% of the upper-end residential market demands here, and it's what I wanted to do anyway. I never had to convince or educate a client about design concerns that weren't already familiar to them...they usually had a good idea of what they wanted or the work involved renovating and enlarging an existing residence with established design characteristics. Most of them understood the architect/client relationship very well from the outset.

I don't know Rijk other than from exchanging a few Fchat posts with him and looking at his firm's website. His practice is indeed cosmopolitan and dedicatedly innovative...I'm sure that his clientele in general is much more broadly sophisticated than mine was, and the size and scope of his practice is much larger and goes way beyond residential work. His practice certainly isn't typical from a design-philosophy standpoint, but would be so in that it is a big-city practice with employees and all that is involved in the business of architecture.

One experience Rijk and I share...what looks and checks out to be a good client can morph into a monster. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often.

 

Hehe, apps are terrible. I finished my Penn ED one the day before it was due, Chicago the day it was due, UCs a bit early (they're pretty easy apps), and USC 9 minutes before it was due.

If I didn't get into Penn, I had something like 7 more schools to apply to. My parents said that if I didn't have them all done by Dec. 15 then I wasn't going skiing over winter break. Penn ED came out on the 12th, and I hadn't started a single app yet. Thank god I got in or that would have been a very lame winter break!

 

LOL! I just got back from moving my sister into Harrison high rise. Probably go back tonight and party.

 

Just want to confirm what the guys above have said; it's a long hard slog to get registered (licensed in the US?), your projects will only be as good as your clients (best advice I ever got was to just say 'no' to dodgy clients), there's lots of easier ways to make money, but it's a whole lot more fun than most of them! Good luck

 

Karen..your profile says beach bum but I see you're you're also an architect on the side...another architect with a Ferrari comes out of the Fchat woodwork!

I've also flat turned down iffy clients, a few right on the spot because I just didn't like them or somehow got strange vibes.