The House my Master’s Degree Built: my path to becoming a licensed architect
This Guest Post is by Alicia Liebel Berg
Full disclosure: I spent $130,000 on my Master’s of Architecture degree. Contextually speaking, I have a poorly designed suburban development dwelling. I have a mortgage. To add insult to injury-this pricy house needs some major repair, as it is NOT move-in ready. Your profession is what you put into it, although I will forever be paying to maintain my house of architectural education. It is a fixer-upper.
Why does the house that the Master’s Degree built require improvement? The simple answer is, an Architect’s education is never done-the profession is continually evolving.
In order to have an upgraded exterior, annual association fees are necessary to augment my professional title from ‘intern’ to “Associate AIA”. Dependent on how long it takes me to pass 7 exams and to complete 4,500 hours of practice I need an additional 3 years of remodeling and an additional $5,000 (minimum) to pay for licensure. My furnace will suddenly crap-out requiring me to fork over $2,000 to purchase the study materials so I can learn the material necessary to prove my competency in Architecture. Consequently, during this path to licensure, yearly property taxes ($75) are mandatory in maintaining my NCARB record (for the rest of my life, by the way). Those taxes rise once I get licensed to around $225 per year. Â As my house of the architectural profession elevates in appearance, so does the amount of money required to maintain it.
Even once my house is licensed I will have to take on additional insurance JUST in case someone decides to launch a lawsuit on my expensive door step because they slipped on the rubber surface I specified (as industry standard) because the $8 an hour minimum-waged teenager didn’t clean the grease up off of the floor well enough at the end of his shift. I will be able to sign drawings but how long will it be until I feel completely comfortable letting my first child out the door? Will these construction sets be completely competent to withstand a lifetime of the unforeseen? There will be nights when I will lie awake in that house and lose sleep worrying that I am not competent enough. How long will it take until I conquer my confidence?
Eventually my house and its confidence will increase in value to the most expensive on the block. From a real estate standpoint, that is terrible for its resale value! I will continue to add upgrades with the latest software to produce the drawings for my clients. I will pay to purchase the latest code texts so I can continue to keep my clients safe. I will fork over convention fees, repeatedly, to educate myself on the evolution of the practice. Without this continuing education I will looses my license (despite paying the annual, interest-fluctuating yearly payment). I might even throw additional money at my house and chase LEED, CSI, or some other (yet to be created?) certification. The rest of my life will be spent in funding the maintenance of my architecturally educated home. Thank Christ I found my dream home of a career.
(Jared’s note: the photo in this post is from a photo essay Alicia did on the school houses of McKenzie County, North Dakota. All the images are hauntingly beautiful. Spend a moment and check them out).
Evangelo Kalmantis
Interesting metaphor. Going one step further, it’s like the shoemaker who can’t afford to wear decent shoes.
Parallax
A house represents so many possibilities especially for a young architect. Often I find myself day dreaming, searching, exploring real estate, imaging a forgotten building or vacant lot, that needs to be thoughtfully developed and set a precedent for a area and change the way people think and act. Though the reality is that even coming up with the down payment to purchase a home or the required amount to purchase land is so far away that it is very troubling on various levels. Sometimes I wish I stayed at the Naval Academy so I could serve my country, go through graduate school with the GI Bill and get a VA Loan and buy a house and retire.
If I were to buy a home I would have to buy it about 100 miles from my place of work or come up with 20% (>$100k easily). Then I think why not just live in the wilderness and build homes for the areas that are less densely populated, but that does seem possible. Or some how follow the footsteps of Buckminster Fuller and develop a method for creating sustainable housing that is so inexpensive and easy to construct that drives a new era of construction and renovation. That is probably the only way to do it. After seeing what USC is doing (http://www.contourcrafting.org/) it seems like we will witness construction methods and means changes tremendously. We put a lot of value into these old homes with no technology, not critically designed to fit into their region and climatic zone, when we should get more and better homes. Even when we get into these homes we then have to contend directly with how expensive it can be to build and design a home.
The imagination drifts towards creation and redefinition of space and place. I think I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a few weeks if I had my own home or a lot to put it on.
Congratulations Alicia on your home ownership. Onwards and upwards.
Lamas
Alicia I wish I have any more to state or paint in the house a master degree of Architecture have earned you. Rather in a clear statement as an Architect myself, this house have become an extreme over price as a profession without justification for it, rather than old schol boys club of realtors. I only kept my degree on the wall as proof because it’s no longer a requirement to know how to build a better house.