Thearcheorizer

I had an opinion about up skilling and business minded people utilizing that. I wasn’t pretty serious about it and refrained myself from talking about it looking only at the onset of positive outcomes.

Recently, I came across a LinkedIn post (which I forgot to screenshot) which made me think over it and I had to write this for my fellow architect friends and students and other professionals too.

I don’t remember the exact lines of that post. However, I can clearly tell you what it meant.

Architecture education is like teaching baking without telling one how to run a bakery.

As soon as I read, I felt agreeing to it and I just let go of that post. Later that statement haunted me to the extent it made me write this post.

You might also think like how I thought first.. yeah architecture education teaches the basics but doesn’t teach us about running a good company or business.

That plain thought is a trap, I feel personally with the onset of increasing money laundering in the name of up skilling and certification. I don’t say it just like that, I will list down my reasons for it.

• Architecture education gives you the basic skills and knowledge which you have to work on personally.
• In order to have a picture of what real practicing looks like, architecture education also provides internship similar to the home surgeon training for medical students to become a doctor.
• Most importantly, experience is gained only with experience. What experience could teach you can’t be taught in any schools.

There’s a lot of area as sketching, drafting, detailing, scripting computational designs, project management, time management, conceptual design development, writing, documenting where you could expertise yourself or be a jack of all trades. But trust me no one can be 100% excellent in all aspects/skills.

In the name of up skills, lots of certification courses and trainings business are out there currently. Earlier I have seen such money laundering schemes in other industries especially corporate sectors. It’s okay as long as it benefits the learners efficiently and effectively. Let the trainers also earn with their knowledge and skills. But hefty amounts are being charged. I wonder if the trainer is being really paid that much. Financially aspect is one thing. Anyways I am concerned about another important fact.

Students and architects are being lured to believe that their architecture education isn’t enough to survive in the field.

Professionals with career break were usually the victims of such courses in any industry. Now, even the currently graduated students are also believing that they need more certification courses to be employed.

I wonder if they had invested their five years of education duration worthwhile or do they just believe that some other additional certificate course alone could land them in a job..

I usually keep my blog posts short and to the point. This time I couldn’t stop ranting. Bear me this time alone and please keep in mind of my concern for you. How you use your time during education period matters a lot and you don’t need to burn more holes in your pocket for landing in a job. Only experience gives you certain skills and growth. In order to gain that experience, whatever you need is being provided in your education. If you feel you need to explore more of your course, do it passionately before you graduate itself. You will stand out of the crowd and be employed. Also, one can’t run a business without a proper paperwork and knowledge about what business to run. You can run your own architecture firm too, learn everything before hand for it and gain experience to build your empire.