#479 - CAREER ADVICE: FIRST JOBS & LICENSURE
SUMMARY
This week, David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design discuss their experience with their first job in architecture. They touched on the difference between school and practice, working overseas, office politics, project managers, job titles, office culture, architecture licensure, when to take the architecture exams, the exam systems, and more. Enjoy!
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) David's first job & school vs practice.
(10:38) Marina's first job & working overseas.
(18:48) Office politics.
“Offices are a microcosm. It's about the work that the office does, but it's also really about the chemistry between the employees and everyone that makes up the office. If you hire the wrong person, it could mess up that chemistry. If you hire a couple of really good people, it could enhance that chemistry. I think the power of people's relationships within the workspace is really underrated. It influences the quality of their work, but also the happiness and development of the employees themselves.” (21:15)
(26:40) Project managers.
“I don't think everyone can be, or should be, a project manager… which is the problem with age ranks in architecture workplaces. If you stick with an office for 5 or 10 years, at some point, you're going to be a project manager. It's not really because you gain the skills, and you are able to hold that role. It's because you've been there long enough that when you turn around, there's no one else at that age with those many years of experience, whatever that means. That's also a tricky thing, because if you're a certain age and you've been in an office for a while, if you're not a project manager, then what are you? But you could become a technical person and find your expertise in something that you're good at.” (27:30)
(29:37) Job titles.
“If there's just one person in the office who's playing ‘the [political] game’, then you feel like you have to play that game because you don't know how the senior partners are registering all the information. If they're being more convinced by this individual simply because they're playing the game and kissing ass more… and know you feel like now I have to do that. Because even if we start off at the same level and you’re doing the same quality of work, who is going to have the more perceived value and contribution to the office? Well, it would be the one that's making an effort to make sure the partners see their value. So now everybody starts playing the game. The amount of collective brain power that's now taken away from just practicing and being a good architect to focusing on ‘What do I look like to the partners?’ I hate that.” (32:23)
(34:53) Office culture.
(38:55) Importance of getting an architect license.
“The truth is, having a license only matters, legally speaking, if you intend to stamp your own drawings. But most people don't do that. Most people are working at an office for an architect, and that senior architect’s stamp is used for the projects that they're in charge of, or all of the projects in the studio. Which means that if you are an employee and you're licensed, it makes no material difference to the office because they don't care. Even if you've had your license for the last five years, you’re not going to stamp drawings because of insurance logistics, company structure etc. You know how the office is structured. Therefore, there’s a very good argument to not even bother getting licensed because what difference does it make?” (40:07)
“The profession struggles with conveying what we do, the value of it, and the expertise associated with it. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but one of the ways to help solve that problem is to have licensure. What it takes to become a licensed architect does not guarantee that that individual is a good architect, but it would be nice if there were a way that we could establish a perceived level of expertise. The easiest way to do this is through a title, which is to say that I'm licensed or not licensed. It's flawed, but as a profession, we need something. That's the only thing we have currently that would at least help us with this issue.” (45:32)
(49:36) When to take the architecture exams.
(55:40) Exam systems.
“The exams are counter to who an architect truly is. Because when architects are faced with a problem, our first instinct is to consider that problem from all different angles and question the validity of the problem and say, maybe there's another problem that's bigger behind it. We're used to poking at it from all these angles, but the exam does not want that. As architects, we are non-conformists because when we see an issue, we are creative about how we solve it. The exam is not about being creative. It’s like, “I am the exam, and you have to conform to me, what I'm saying, and adopt my logic.” It does not make sense.” (01:02:06)
