CONTINUED: Top five things you should know before pursuing a career as an architect

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1) It should not be pursued with your eyes closed

“Too many students are hit with the reality that architecture was not what they had expected,” says Wyzykowski.

This is the point that every architect I contacted emphasized the most. And it’s a sentiment shared by many young architects voicing their frustrations online who find they are doing tiresome work—with too much debt to live comfortably, much less start a family.

So what’s the solution? How can you know—really—if a career in architecture will be worth all of the time, hard work and financial investment you put into it?

Meiklejohn offers this advice: “Work in an office and get some practical experience. The profession of architecture can be very difficult to imagine if one is limited to the experiences of architecture school. It is not a career to be entered into lightly.”

Wyzykowski agrees. “I really would like to stress that people be critical and question a career as an architect,” he says. “So many people jump into it because it seems cool. Before making the time and monetary investment that architecture education entails, I would stress that they try to gain some insight into the life of an architect. I would start by taking a few CAD classes and interning at an architecture or engineering firm first, before going to university.”

It’s about what’s best for you

The five points I’ve outlined here paint a stark picture. But architecture is still a profession that is critical to society and offers enormous opportunities for people who have a passion for shaping our physical world. As such, there are many with the determination and inventiveness to make a career in architecture immensely satisfying. Plenty of working architects can imagine doing nothing else. Because architecture serves a tangible need and can be so influential, Wyzykowski says “it is a profession that has the opportunity to bring fulfillment to your life.”

Meiklejohn echoes that attitude, saying, “Buildings are a critical piece of the environment that shape both our personal and cultural experience. They are among the biggest polluters of the environment. They are where we spend most of our time, and we are always looking at them. Architects are also generalists who specialize in assembling teams and solving complex 3D problems—beautifully. How can this not be an interesting career?”

So, architecture is a cool profession. You just need a cool head before you consider it. (Imagining yourself as a character in some romantic comedy is probably not the path to career enlightenment.)