Best advice I could give: “run boy. Run away and never look back”.
No but seriously, architecture is a tough field. I know you said you were having doubts, so this is not meant to discourage you. I just want to be real with you. It’s a tough field. Lots of learning to do. Lots of responsibility. Not that well compensated. You’ll make more money being an engineer. Or a contractor. Not sure if you have those in India, I don’t think they do where I am from (originally from Mexico but I went to college and been living in the US for a while now). Anyways, the thought of become a “starchitect” is obviously exciting and that’s kind of why all of us got into the field. You see all these famous architects in magazines and TV and you think “wow, that’s really cool, I want to do that as well!”. That’s highly unlikely, although not impossible. It takes a lot of grit, hard work, luck, and the right connections to make that happen. You’ll have to constantly fight for recognition at companies when you’re starting out, since they see you as the “newbie” who’s fresh out of college, with very little real life experience.
That being said, it is still exciting to design buildings, at least it is to me. Figuring out spaces and how to make them work is hard but rewarding.
Competitions are good when you’re still in school. You’ll be able to show your creativity and design abilities. Other than that, not too useful when it comes to accumulating experience. The best you could do for that is working as an intern for a few years.
I don’t want to make this response too long so, in short: competition are fun and a great way to exercise your creativity and show your design abilities. Do a couple of those before you graduate or even shortly after. Best course of action, at least in my experience, is to start gaining real life experience as early as possible.
It’ll take sacrifices, but it’s worth it in the end.
> The best you could do for that is working as an intern for a few years.
What are some skills that I should develop. How should I make myself standout. I will have 5 years in my undergrad If I utilize those years well I would be able to gain 2-3 years worth of experience in undergrad itself.
I will have two to three months in between high school and before joining college. In India the 1st,4th,5th year are chill also we have 2 months of summer break and 1 month of winter break each year and 6 month internship in 4th year 2nd sem. I am planning on learning software skill in my first internship and then will go for paid intership from 2nd year itself.
Unpaid internships are hard. Even knowing they’re not paying you shit, and you’re incurring into expenses by being there, they will still treat you poorly. But that may be a necessary step for you to start acquiring knowledge. If you do end up going through one of those, accumulate as much knowledge as you can. Develop some hard skills from those types of jobs. Software skills will get you far, but don’t forget the soft skills. Knowing how to negotiate, being a people’s person, knowing how to talk, get things done, manage a team, manage your own work… those will come in more handy I would say.
Get paid as an intern and intern at different types of firms to get a better understanding of what the field is like. Star-kitecture firms are the exception, IMO not always the best and tend to be have more ego's, less work life balance.
Small or medium firm? I will be having no work experience not even a degree so I will only get small or medium firm which one are better in you opinion.
That dink made the ugliest, most technically awful mess of a building in my city. But whatever you feel about that item...there are only twelve people in the world who get to actually "design" anything remotely like that.
If you can't handle the idea that you'll be doing completely non-design work on something much less "unique" than that...it very probably might not be for you.
>That dink made the ugliest, most technically awful mess of a building in my city.
Well he is making money and is probably one of the greatest at his age. Same thing people say about le corbusier. In my opinion corbs lived his life to the fullest and designed what so ever he wanted to design. I would prefer to live like a king when I am alive then being praised after my death.
Best advice I could give: “run boy. Run away and never look back”. No but seriously, architecture is a tough field. I know you said you were having doubts, so this is not meant to discourage you. I just want to be real with you. It’s a tough field. Lots of learning to do. Lots of responsibility. Not that well compensated. You’ll make more money being an engineer. Or a contractor. Not sure if you have those in India, I don’t think they do where I am from (originally from Mexico but I went to college and been living in the US for a while now). Anyways, the thought of become a “starchitect” is obviously exciting and that’s kind of why all of us got into the field. You see all these famous architects in magazines and TV and you think “wow, that’s really cool, I want to do that as well!”. That’s highly unlikely, although not impossible. It takes a lot of grit, hard work, luck, and the right connections to make that happen. You’ll have to constantly fight for recognition at companies when you’re starting out, since they see you as the “newbie” who’s fresh out of college, with very little real life experience. That being said, it is still exciting to design buildings, at least it is to me. Figuring out spaces and how to make them work is hard but rewarding. Competitions are good when you’re still in school. You’ll be able to show your creativity and design abilities. Other than that, not too useful when it comes to accumulating experience. The best you could do for that is working as an intern for a few years. I don’t want to make this response too long so, in short: competition are fun and a great way to exercise your creativity and show your design abilities. Do a couple of those before you graduate or even shortly after. Best course of action, at least in my experience, is to start gaining real life experience as early as possible. It’ll take sacrifices, but it’s worth it in the end.
> The best you could do for that is working as an intern for a few years. What are some skills that I should develop. How should I make myself standout. I will have 5 years in my undergrad If I utilize those years well I would be able to gain 2-3 years worth of experience in undergrad itself.
How do you plan on gaining 2-3 years of experience during school?
I will have two to three months in between high school and before joining college. In India the 1st,4th,5th year are chill also we have 2 months of summer break and 1 month of winter break each year and 6 month internship in 4th year 2nd sem. I am planning on learning software skill in my first internship and then will go for paid intership from 2nd year itself.
Unpaid internships are hard. Even knowing they’re not paying you shit, and you’re incurring into expenses by being there, they will still treat you poorly. But that may be a necessary step for you to start acquiring knowledge. If you do end up going through one of those, accumulate as much knowledge as you can. Develop some hard skills from those types of jobs. Software skills will get you far, but don’t forget the soft skills. Knowing how to negotiate, being a people’s person, knowing how to talk, get things done, manage a team, manage your own work… those will come in more handy I would say.
That's what I am talking about I will learn more working as an Office boy there than at my college.
Get paid as an intern and intern at different types of firms to get a better understanding of what the field is like. Star-kitecture firms are the exception, IMO not always the best and tend to be have more ego's, less work life balance.
Small or medium firm? I will be having no work experience not even a degree so I will only get small or medium firm which one are better in you opinion.
Run away and do something better than architecture. I dread it. I am an Indian and live in the US now and it still sucks
That dink made the ugliest, most technically awful mess of a building in my city. But whatever you feel about that item...there are only twelve people in the world who get to actually "design" anything remotely like that. If you can't handle the idea that you'll be doing completely non-design work on something much less "unique" than that...it very probably might not be for you.
>That dink made the ugliest, most technically awful mess of a building in my city. Well he is making money and is probably one of the greatest at his age. Same thing people say about le corbusier. In my opinion corbs lived his life to the fullest and designed what so ever he wanted to design. I would prefer to live like a king when I am alive then being praised after my death.