Reply To: Leaving LA for Civil

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

There is a big overlap between the two professions. Civil is a more technical discipline, but depending on what types of projects the CE office does you can be pretty well prepared to be an asset right away in a CE office. Also, depending on what types of projects an LA firm does or an individual wants to do, you can have a competitive advantage over other LAs moving forward than those that don’t have that experience in a CE office.

I’ve read so many posts on this and other forums of LAs bitching about other professions doing “our work”. I believe a lot of that is because the LA profession no longer holds its ground as a profession solely based on pretty renderings and planting plans. Those are now more easily done by other professions than they used to be because of technology. Many LAs rely on others for the more technical aspects of site planning which isolates them as a supplemental design asset rather than a full asset. When that happens there has to be a lot of revision or additional communication with other design team professions than necessary which slows down the process and can be more frustrating to the design team than bypassing the LA and doing it themselves. I know this because I was on the other side of it for 12 years. …. some LAs are a PITA to work with.

You don’t surrender your landscape architecture education and experience by working in a CE office. You build on it. You also bring something into the CE office that they might not have. I don’t understand the us against them mentality.