Hopefully we didn’t scare anyone away last week, talking about all it takes to be an architect.  Yeah it might take a lot of school and commitment, but we have a lot of fun too.  AND, building models and drawing all night is WAY more fun than scouring books for hours on end, studying human anatomy and memorizing Latin vocab terms.  Because you guys are all super-awesome and have made the effort to be a part of the ACE program, you’ve made a huge step into the world of architecture, construction, and/or engineering, and it will look amazing on a resume. Way to go, good job, and super duper.  There was a lot we went over in class about how one becomes an architect, so I’m going to take a sec and go back over all of that to clarify:

1.  Be awesome
2. Enroll at a NAAB or National Architectural Accrediting Board accredited school.  This is the next most important step you guys will take.  We went over the accredited schools in Illinois, but here is a link  [http://www.naab.org/architecture_programs/]to all the 154 schools that qualify.  Whether you do a 5 year Bachelors, or a 4+2 Masters program, getting a degree at one of these schools is mandatory for later becoming a licensed architect.  (Also feel free to talk to any of your mentors about schools.  We have a lot of people that went to a lot of different schools and would love to answer any questions you may have!)
3. You should probably go to class at school; this makes it a lot easier to actually graduate.
4. IDP or the Intern Development Program requires you to have 5,600 hours of “intern” hours before you can take your licensing tests.  You are able to start your intern hours after your third year of school so taking summer interns during school breaks is a resume booster, and you get an early jump on your hours!!  (Also, for those of you who like free food, I got soooo much free food at my first IDP internship, there were SO. MANY. DONUTS.) *****PS: This sounds much worse than it really is.  All of your ACE architecture mentors (except 1) are all working on IDP.  We do the same things at work we would do without IDP requirements, but with IDP we just have tobe a little more careful about keeping track of hours.
5. Taking the ARE or the Architect Registration Exams!  7 grueling tests that consist of things that you usually forget immediately after studying.  Hey that sounds like any other test you’ve ever taken, right!?  Right.  Nonetheless, you have 5 years to take these exams so that’s not too bad, and you can retake ‘em as many times as you want.
6. Once you’ve accomplished all of this you can officially say you are an Architect, use big made up words, and buy as many pairs of architect-y glasses as you want.

Again, this all sounds like a ton of work, but a little commitment, and innate tendencies to down 7 red bulls and eat 4 packs of sour gummi-worms over the course of an all-nighter at studio and you’ll be just fine.

Architectural Education (<– Powerpoint from class about how you become an architect!)

Careers in Architecture   (<– So you’ve just finished 5/6 years of arch. school and you have a terrible realization: you    don’t want to be an architect after all.  Not to fret!  There are so many other things you can do with an arch. degree.)

http://archinect.com/forum/thread/34132/mice

^This is why cats are important in architecture and your college studio culture.

http://salmanrimaldhi.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/cat-architecture/

^And this is how we should reward them.

Next meeting:

Goettsch Partners office @ 224 South Michigan Ave, Floor 17

4:30 – 6:30 on 28 November

NO MEETING ON 22 NOVEMBER 2011:  Don’t come, seriously, I’ll be way too busy getting my stomach ready to eat the crap out of some turkey and then enter into a small food coma.  Also there won’t be any free Thanksgiving food here, so don’t even try.

Do come on the 28^th of November though, we WILL have free food, you’ll get to do some learning about the Construction management part of this shindig.  Again, construction management, not construction worker, big difference.  See you all in a couple weeks, have happy, safe Turkey days, and get your Sketch-up skills in the Christmas mood over the break!  (See previous blog post for details.)