Graduate degrees…venturing in another direction?

There is a fine line between patience and urgency. Yours is urgency.

Lots of things to weigh. I only have one child, but your plight is one I follow closely as someone who lived where you live, got my degree where you did, landscaped where you do, and want to return to live where you live at some point.

You don’t live in an area that supports landscape design as a viable way to make a living on its own. If you remain there, you will have to make your money on the direct installation of the work as the demographic out there will not support you through project management fees. The projects will be limited to residential with an occasional small commercial project. None of that is going to make you a hot commodity that you will be sought to do better projects in other communities, so it is what it is. That does not mean that it is a bad thing, just that you will have to be content that what it is is what it will be no matter what degrees or certifications you have.

The great thing is that you are in an area with a very low cost of living and a great place to raise kids.  You are relatively close to growers in Oregon for cheap plants, you have a steady stream of young strong cheap labor that continually turns over because of the two universities. You can make a good living and have a great lifestyle if you are not bent on designing big projects, community planning, … or anything else that does not exist there. Your decisions are more about whether you want to settle where you are and make your decisions based on that, or that you want to wait out the recession, move, and hope to restart in what will be a whole new career(s) yet again.

The sooner that you make that decision, the sooner you can start to make specific plans and reduce your stress. JD out at Crossroads came in for an LA degree in ’82 at age 30 or so, dropped out after one year and did pretty darn good as a single parent/landscape contractor. I don’t think he has any regrets.

My opinion – the economy will get better. It might be a while, but it eventually will. Not only that, but contrary to some of the complaints on this board, its not just landscape architecture that is suffering right now – workers in every field are suffering. Even the health care industry, despite its growth, is using the recession as an excuse to cut salaries, benefits, positions. My point is that there really is no magic combination of degrees and/or experience that will get you ahead right now. Might as well do something that will have you well situated to take advantage of the growth that is yet to come whether its personal or professional.

I think Environmental Engineering is a great fit with Landscape Architecture and even has some overlap in coursework depending on the program. Seems like the type of EE jobs available NOW are mostly in waste management and water treatment facilities (I have a friend who just graduated from SDSMT in EE and was one of two people who found a job)….but I can easily see it developing into a niche for your private practice particularly as we move into more sustainable development. I think you would have an advantage to be able to offer LA and EE services under one roof without adding employees (ie. overhead) at least in the beginning. You would be in the same boat with licensing, however – you still have to be a PE to offer engineering services and still have to have your internship under your belt.

Financially, if he were to enroll I’m pretty sure you would be able to defer your student loans (not sure if you could do this if you have consilidated your loans) easing the immediate financial pressure a bit. Of course you have read about the kind of loans people are coming out of school with right now, so the price is fantastic. I’m sure you can deduct the cost of the tuition from your company’s taxes as well if you arrange it like that.

This next is quite personal – maybe others are in the same boat – so I’ll just go ahead and hang it all out on the line. Candidly speaking, you and I are in pretty much the same situation both in a double-landscape architect family so I can speak from my experience at least….

I would recommend that you look thoughtfully at your goals as professionals and as a couple AND the relationship between the two. We had always hoped to own a LA firm together but the path set before us has us owning separate companies, so all his years of experience while I raised children didn’t end up benefitting our joint design firm as we had hoped, rather another firm entirely. It has turned out to be the logical choice as we balance our personal and professional development goals with our family’s needs, but I admit that the whole arrangement blew a good size hole in my career. Thankfully, his gainful employment enabled me to start up my own business which better fits our family arrangements, my interests and temprament and provides an excellent education in business that I would not get as an employee. But just a word of caution -another degree, unless you are getting an EE degree as well, is not necessarily “ours”.

The many environmental consultants who I work with (who are all quite busy all of the time) have biology degrees. Here, the work is in wetlands delineation, wetland permits applications (Notice of Intent), representing clients in front of conservation boards, and designing mitigation plans. It is mostly done as a package deal. Sometimes they are directly hired by the homeowner/developer and sometimes as a sub by engineers/surveyors. It is a nice gig with low overhead and high returns. The work is like being a hybrid lawyer/biologist/negotiator/designer, so it is not for everyone.