Want a Job? Go to College, and Don’t Major in Architecture

New York Times ^ | 01/09/2012 | By CATHERINE RAMPELL

[SeekAndFind]

Say it with me, readers: College is worth it.

For all the bellyaching about wasted degrees and the many indebted grads stuck on their parents’ couches, recent college graduates are still doing a lot better than their less-educated counterparts. Unemployment for new graduates is around 8.9 percent; the rate for workers with only a high school diploma is nearly three times as high, at 22.9 percent.

That’s according to a new report [PDF] from Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The report also had some fascinating statistics on earnings and jobless rates by college major, something we’ve written about before.

The chart below shows unemployment rates sorted by major, based on 2009-10 census data. You can also see jobless rates for graduates of a given undergraduate major who went on to receive further education (not necessarily related to their college major). In the chart, “recent college graduate” refers to workers who are 22 to 26 years old; “experienced college graduate” covers those 30 to 54; and “graduate degree holder” is limited to workers 30 to 54 years old.

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce American Community Survey, 2009-10, pooled sample. Recent college graduates are those 22 to 26 years old, and experienced college graduates are 30 to 54. Graduate degree holders are also limited to those 30 to 54. The percentage unemployed is based on total employed and unemployed. Earnings are based on full-time, full-year workers.

Some majors even produced college graduates who, at mid-career, earned more than workers from other fields who went on to received a tertiary degree.

[SamAdams76]

Fountainhead is one of the best books of all time. Even better than Atlas Shrugged in my opinion. Ayn Rand was definitely seeing the future. Even if she does remind me of my cranky aunt.

[ottbmare]

You know why they call it the Liberal Arts, right? It has nothing to do with politics. Historically, the liberal arts were the fields of study a free man needed to know—rhetoric, logic, and grammar. Later, in medieval times, the liberal arts were expanded to include math, (by which they meant arithmetic and algebra), geometry, music, and astrology/astronomy.

Amazingly enough, for many centuries people did not go to college to learn how to do a particular job. They went only to improve their minds. It has only been in the past few decades that we’ve expected our colleges and universities to teach job skills and have become angry with them if they didn’t show kids how to earn a living.

[bigbob]

It’s not just Architecture. For an actual comparison of 4 yr. vs technical school job demand and hiring rates, watch this video from MacIver Institute of Wisconsin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oa77NBArfA&feature=youtu.be

[bigbob]

The housing slump is only one factor. Less than 5% of buidings today are designed by architects, and technology is making it extremely easy to apply design automation and CAD techniques to minimize the work required by an actual architect and thus his fees. An adjacent field that is using these tools and achieving more success is that of Design-Build Contractors.

As an architect friend says, anyone going into architecture today had better have a “Plan B”.

[Vince Ferrer]

I'm sure that's all true, but it also the sign of a quantum leap in productivity in the field, which goes back to my belief that architecture is experiencing a renaissance. There will definitely be adjustments, some of them painful, if experienced architects simply want to continue what they have been doing for years, working on minor tweaks to yet another strip mall.

In the video I posted, a Chinese company has taken the franchising model and manufactured homes to skyscrapers, to build McSkyscrapers. Think of how much construction is going on in Asia to drive that innovation. . Architects will have to take a step back and let software worry about where every little electrical outlet goes, and concentrate on the bigger picture.

Hundreds of years ago, people got together and built things like this cathedral:

Most everyone who was involved in building this cathedral could not read. None of them had electricity, or a more powerful machine than a horse, and they lived in houses with no heat or plumbing. Yet they could build this.

Then we went crazy with modernism. With electricity, computers, wealth unimaginable hundreds of years earlier, this is what we build:

But when I write about a renaissance in architecture, it is because I see a true rejection of this dehumanizing modernism, and both a return to the aesthetically pleasing forms, and the willingness to go further, with new designs, new materials, to create something functional and yet beautiful and inspiring again.

[RitchieAprile]

hey, McSkyscraper have their place. they are the most compact way to accomodate humans on a given plot of land.
support all their human needs so to speak.

i did visit the cathedral at Salisbury back in 1989.
What efforts were expended to create all that majesty!
They were skilled artisans whomever they were.

[cherry]

I think the stats are skewed.....those with just a HS diploma who aren’t working include many from the inner city or illegals....I’d like to see a stat comparing North Dakota young men without college degrees to those with...or Iowa....or Wyoming...

[cherry]

I know several people who couldn’t buy themselves a teaching job...so much for the teaching shortage....

[Rembrandt]

“I see that education is highest on the list for getting a job. Interesting.”

Well, it IS from the NY Slimes.

[BradyLS]

Part of the reason that skyscrapers are so homogenous in appearance is the value of real estate. A builder is trying to maximize the space available for an expensive piece of property. The easiest, fastest, and most efficient way to do that is to build a boxy skyscraper and fill it with tenants right away.

Those fantastic structures you hint at, many of the them are built in the Gulf States where a nation’s immense wealth is concentrated in a few decisive hands, populations are low, and arid land is cheap. With cheap land and few native tenants, they can build such fanciful structures to attract international clientele.

I’m not disagreeing with you. You can point to new structures in the US that are breath-taking (though still tame compared to a lot of those fanciful oil-money structures). Singapore and Hong Kong—where capital is king—also is home to many fantastic buildings. I think things are changing, but just suggesting how the price of land and heavy regulation on the use of it can drive builders to go for space-maximizing solutions.

[jamaksin]

Suggest The Design of Design [Addison-Wesley, 2010] by Frederick Brooks (same author of The Mythical Man-Month from 1975 [cover has mural of La Brea Tar Pits]).

[BenKenobi]

I’ve done that work myself. Not as degreed as he is, but the economy is tough out there for young folks. Sorting work for UPS is a honest living. Nothing to be ashamed there.

[Right Wing Assault]

Architecture is fine as long as you combine it with a firm grounding in business and contruction. My Brothers-in-law, for example, have made a lot of money in design build.

Bingo. I have a friend who's doing that. He and his partner are so busy, I can't get them to finish my plans.

[dfwgator]

"Just one word.”

[r-q-tek86]

Now you tell me...

[redgolum]

College isn’t a safe bet. I would say trade school, but the illegals are killing that also.

[Lou L]

I’ve done that work myself. Not as degreed as he is, but the economy is tough out there for young folks. Sorting work for UPS is a honest living. Nothing to be ashamed there.

No, I completely agree with you. I wasn't making an assessment of the UPS work...only that he was was degreed, and under-employed, considering his qualifications.