Ten Years Later, summer internships aren’t what they once were
I’ve seen into the Chasm. It’s beautiful, ambitious, and not the architectural graduates of times past.
Back in January I had coffee with two students from the University of Minnesota that I’m mentoring. I asked them a question, “do you have any classmates who still say ‘I can’t wait to graduate and start designing buildings!’?”
The answers:
“We’re not allowed to be that optimistic”
and
“There are people who say ‘I want to make things'”
I finished my undergraduate degree just under 10 years ago.
I regaled the two students with anecdotes from my experiences as a summer intern. Every summer from 2000 to 2004 I had a full length internship at a different firm-a small residential firm, a medium sized firm doing religious, commercial, and institutional work, an urban planning consulting firm, and a high end residential firm. Oh and I worked for Gensler for 9 months in there too. Some of the jobs were in suburban Connecticut. The rest where in urban Houston.
I’m not that much older than these students, we’re all Generation Y, but what a difference a decade makes. One of my mentees told me “I didn’t even try to find an internship last summer” and the other said “Summer internships just don’t exist like that any more. The only people I know who had summer internships were in situations where that internship was a preamble to a full time job after school.”
Beyond just a lack of traditional summer jobs…
Furthermore, they both talked about their interests. None of us talked much about buildings. One student talked about building furniture all summer and developing a unique numberless alarm clock. The other talked about working menial jobs over the summer, and about the children’s book he’s writing, the screen play he finished… he is also going to do an addition to a house for some of his friends, but there wasn’t much passion in his eyes. Meanwhile I raced home afterwards to get all my thoughts down on the computer. I just had too much to write.
Maybe this is all anecdotal. Maybe it’s just a fleeting moment, the happenstance of a few bad years. Or maybe it’s a sea change. Maybe this is one more reason that the practice of architecture is in for some radical changes. I don’t know. But I’ve got a few ideas yet to share on this topic.
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Nader
It´s not a change, it´s a signal that either:
1- Either these two aren’t interested in architecture (they just wanted to get a university degree)
or
2- You are near to a construction crisis, and it could be a hard one
Jared Banks
Nader, thanks. I don’t disagree. It’s DEFINITELY #2. And I’m sure #1 factors into it, but it’s a much larger issue and I don’t think dismissing their interest in architecture explains it well enough. There’s something bigger. Something that is making people less excited about becoming an architect than in previous years. Maybe it’s just that 50 years ago you became an architect. But now you can be an architect or a video game designer or an animator or a 3D printing specialist or… So people who became architects because that was the only option that fit their skill set now don’t have to be pigeon holed into designing buildings. That can be both good and bad. It suggests that architecture as a profession needs to reexamine itself and update. To figure out why it’s less inspiring to building a real building rather than a virtual building. Is it the product, the lifestyle, the job requirements, the other crap we have to do, the companies, the bosses….
Brian Sykes
Jared, This is a topic I feel fairly close to, since I practice in DC and I teach at Virginia Tech’s Washington Alexandria Architecture Center. My students are mostly graduate students or advanced undergrads. I agree, it is number #2. And you are on to something with the opportunity to become something else in a related field. This is a good thing. The fact that architecture students can take their design skills into these fields is a good thing, not only for them, but also for us. Less architects, hopefully those of us that do this can get a better direct deposit (that would be nice).
What I see with my students is that they do want to make the world a better place by engaging the built environment. And some really want to conceptualize and compose buildings. They are the ones that are dismayed by the state of the profession at it recovers. But the other group is very interested in just jumping and doing something like fabrication, or sustainable design, or building envelopes.
Engineers have been at peace with this forever. And they have benefited from it. One reason (among many) engineers make more money than architects is they have other options besides just building design. Why do architects feel the need to poo-poo those that get their degree in architecture, but do not feel strongly enough about enduring the hazing, that we ridicule them for ‘bailing’. I wish them well and hope they become my clients.
I would say that architectural education needs to come to peace with our hybrid nature. At its best, we are both a liberal arts Socratic education and a professional degree. Give up on this either or stuff, embrace the positive contradiction and make it our own. And for those that choose to go work for IDEO instead of SOM, wish them well, and congratulate them on a job well done.
But the other point I want to make is that many of my students understand they have been given lemons, and they are trying to make lemonade. And with the economic misfortunes that have inherited, they have reaffirmed my faith in that the future will belong to the entrepreneurial individuals, not those that bound their chest and say, “when I was a young architect we did it this way.” Those old farts, or those that think like them need to retire, or be replaced.
Jared Banks
Brian, such wonderful comments. Thanks so much. I actually just got an e-mail from a recent UofM grad yesterday. He was clearly struggling with these same issues. Though sadly he was struggling with a mountain of lemons and not sure what to do. Hopefully I’ll be able to provide him some help. Anyways I should be finishing making breakfast and watching Cat in the Hat with my daughters instead of writing at the moment! 🙂 But I hope we can continue this conversation and I look forward to talking with you more about this soon. I really need to get more posts out on this topic soon.
Lee W. Waldrep
Below is an article I authored on the value of an architectural education.
http://www.architectsuccess.com/2012/04/01/architecture-and-beyond-opportunities-abound-by-lee-w-waldrep-ph-d/
Jared Banks
Very good advice. I also hope we can inspire recent graduates that all those skills mean they have so much more than just design talent to contribute to the profession of architecture (and the built environment).
Jared Banks
Probably worth noting that one of these students decided to buy a bus instead of get a traditional job. Not sure what’s next: http://www.hankboughtabus.com/