Reply To: The Artist Dillema

[Christa]

Alissa,

I graduated in 2010, and am still what I would consider early days as far as my LA career. However, as far as I can tell, there is a demand for the scientific knowledge. My undergrad is in forestry, and I seem to be doing alright. I have had some interest based on my background, and some don’t seem to count it one way or another.

An MLA takes about a year longer if you don’t have a background in design, at least where I went. If you add in a summer or two, that’s practically as long as an undergraduate (although some undergrad design programs are closer to 5 years, I have heard). I can’t tell a real significant difference in the regard held for an MLA vs a BLA, although I can attest to the cache a graduate degree brings in indirect ways. 

As for drawing, that totally freaked me out as a student. I was so self conscious to draw in a studio setting with classmates all around me. I’ve taken some drawing classes, and now get decent compliments, unsolicited, from LAs on my drawing. I’m not Picasso, or anything, but I can pass. I can recommend Mike Lin’s course, and his son, Brian is really good, too. Also, computer graphics are pretty big now, which is a whole other ball of wax. You’ll want to know some Photoshop and Illustrator and SketchUp, and then maybe choose from the library of other really cool graphic programs (check other discussions for info). Once you apply to a program, start learning the software.

I think different schools emphasize form over function, or vice versa. Science is more functional, and art is more about form. Function tends a bit toward engineering, such as ecological or biosystems engineering, which may also be careers of interest. Design is a combination of the two. It took me a semester to begin to see design, which is to say to pay attention to the shadow, shape, and space around me everywhere. I was more focused on the ecology and management. But now that I do actually see, I love it. I enthusiastically recommend the profession of landscape architecture, because of the cool stuff I have already learned and get to do now at work, even though I’m still a newbie, so to speak. It’s a tough course of study, and the profession is hard to describe because it is so variable, market-driven, and broad, but it’s totally worth it.