The Process of Becoming an Architect

Before applying to architecture school, I found that the median salary for intern architects is $35,000 a year, so I knew the career was not lucrative, but, I thought, if I could design residences, the emotional benefit would be worth it.

School is a three-and-a-half year grind (if you’re getting a Masters with a different undergraduate degree). You don’t sleep the first two years. The third year, you sleep, but only if you’re burnt out enough to demand it for yourself.

After graduation, though, there is an internship period of not less than three years. You’re lucky if you’re working less than 50 hours a week, but at least you’re sleeping. This is when Intern Development Program (IDP) credit is earned through performing various tasks for a minimum number of hours while employed at a licensed architecture firm. This phase lasts, on average, five years because earning IDP must be balanced with doing the tasks the firm needs. For example, they may not need you to visit the construction site often, so it takes longer to earn that credit.

The tasks are often mind-numbing: drawing bathroom elevations, double-checking shop drawings - sent to your office by contractors showing column locations or other important details, tracking down door-handle information, calculating cost per square-foot, etc. Your firm is willing to put up with your ignorance and teach you the profession. School, you find, is irrelevant to 90% of what you do. If you hated school this might be positive, but if you loved the intellectual and formal challenges, this could be hell.

Interns make on average, $35,000 to $54,500 a year depending on their years of experience. If the firm is well-known, the interns will be paid minimum wage, $15,000 to $18,000, if they are paid; this is a system that allows the wealthy to employ the wealthy.

Once IDP credit is earned, you may take the numerous licensing exams, which either satisfy the state or national requirements. The nation exam, the Architect Registration Examination (ARE) has nine divisions with some daunting pass rates. Even taking special classes, it is unlikely that you will pass every division on the first try.

Once licensed you can demand a higher salary, but you’ll likely need to change firms. Your first firm would have hired a licensed architect instead of you if they had need for one or could have afforded it. As a project architect, that is, the one who signs their name to the drawings, you hold all of the responsibility should something go wrong. For this you need to have expensive insurance incase you’re sued, and you will be sued at some point.

After four years of undergraduate school, three-and-a-half years of graduate school, five years of internship, passing the exams, acquiring scary responsibility and the expense of insurance, and with four years of experience, you’re making a median income of $62,500 a year. For comparison: a structural engineer with a four-year undergraduate degree, a three-year internship, (I assume a license) six to eight years of experience, and expensive insurance has a median income of $95,000; a construction manager with a four-year degree and seven years experience (no licensing required) has a median income of $101,000. Architects aren’t highly valued, at least in terms of compensation.

There isn’t much benefit to becoming licensed, so many people trained as architects simply call themselves designers. They get a commission, design it, and, if it is a project that requires a licensed architect, partner with a licensed firm that produces all of the drawings and oversees construction. (Of course, some licensed firms only sign the drawings.) Some of these unlicensed firms, if only designing houses or apartment buildings smaller than a certain size-limit, never need to partner with anyone, as these projects do not require an architect.

With a profession that already has little societal value, it is harmful for school to neglect the reality of day-to-day firm life. It should accurately reflect the profession, not be so disjointed that it attracts students who would not otherwise want to practice. And somehow, the profession needs to increase its perceived value, because the process of becoming an architect is too difficult and the stress of being an architect is too high for the little benefit one receives.