The Unemployment Rate For Landscape Architects/Designers

[mauiBob]

Okay brother Andrew, that’s not how explained it. I gotcha now.

Craig (only), LA is dead! Get it thru your head. Take off the rosy colored glasses! Give it 10 years. Know what I mean, jellybean? Those on the outside are losers and every designer should be able to get on the inside.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Rose colored glasses are when you operate on what should be instead of what is. If you base the state of the profession on what it should be, then it is dead. If you base it on what it is and always was, it has not changed.

 

What many think it should be is what they were lead to believe, what they hoped it would be, or maybe anything that they could make it. If you knew or know what it actually is, expectations are more realistic.

 

More people have to tell it like it is. Teachers need to do that, assuming they know how it is. Professional organizations should also do it for those looking to get into it. The problem there is that they have a conflict of interest in doing so. All you’ll ever get is a pair of rose colored glasses, more reasons to stay in school longer, and more reasons told to you on how important it is to join a professional organization.

[steve phillips]

Very well said Jay, Amen to that!  Yeah, the super verbose landscape gentlemen’s club elite need to come down off of their high polo horses long enough to allow some discussion.

[steve phillips]

Craig, I am confused.  “Someone going to school to better themselves is not worthless”? 

Don’t know where to begin with that one!  GEEZ!

 

Is it possible to incur huge debt with little chance to repay could be considered a little unwise?  How in these times is going to school going to “better” any one who owes 100k?

 

Do you know how massive school loan debt is today?  Have you heard of the looming “education bubble”?

 

What happens if the “other shoe” does drop?

 

I hate to think it, I hate to even consider it too, but based on the pattern of the last 10 years, ya think it might?  Maybe…?

 

I applaud your encouragemet Craig, but is that really pratical advice?

 

[steve phillips]

Most Esteemed Leslie,

 

In short, are you saying that nobody knows what a Landscape Architect is?

 

If I stood on a corner in N.Y.C. and asked 1,000 people, how many of the 1,000 would give even a close definition?

 

P.S.  You wrote a great article about a year ago that I would like to have, would it ok if I messaged you about it?

[Leslie B Wagle]

Yes, sure…

[Anonymous]

Steve – great to hear from you, it’s been a while.

 

Firstly, I stand behind my statement; someone going to school to get an education is not worthless. I learned so much more than just a vocation when I went for my BSLA. There’s more to an education than just graduating and getting a job. Going to college opened my eyes to the world. For me that is priceless.

 

I’m sorry but I don’t live my life worrying about looming bubbles or waiting for the other shoe to drop. Those are things that I have no control over. I live my life doing all I can do today to continue to grow and have a happy life tomorrow.

 

What’s the alternative for young people? They can avoid school, get a low paying job and hang out with their friends talking about how much life sucks. Or they can go school and get a degree in a “sure thing” field that they hate and life will still suck. Or they can give it their best shot studying a field that interest them. Of course they might fail and end up pursuing another field, but at least they have the satisfaction of knowing they let it all hang out and went for it. Besides playing it safe doesn’t always guarantee happiness. Risk is a part of life.

 

I think that my advice is practical because in 4 years no one is offering any better alternatives than doing nothing or going into a field that doesn’t interest you in hopes that it has a rosy future.

[Anonymous]

Come on Steve don’t tell me you’ve been scared away by the mean LAs in stuffed shirts. If LAs have become so timid that they are afraid to enter the mostly civil discussions here in the Lounge, then we will always play second fiddle to Architects and Engineers. There’s no boogeyman in here. What is going on?

 

I have to admit though, as a “Lunch pail” Landscape Architect from Cleveland, being part of a chin stroking club of landscape elite does have a certain appeal to me. That’s one of my LA fantasies. Hobnobbing with the bluebloods – arrogantly telling them what they MUST do with their properties. Doing it from the back of a polo pony would be the ultimate.  ; )   

[steve phillips]

Ha, ha! Craig, no YOU don’t bother me!

The types that I do find hard to stomach are the,

“I simply adore the Champ d’Essailes (sp) in the springtime, Not to mention the Hamptons and Capri”, types.  And the “Too wittty to be understood” types, are the most prolific posters.

For the record, they turn me away, not scare me.  You do neither.

 

 

 

[steve phillips]

Thanks Leslie, I just requested that you friend me.  But you never did answer my first questions!  Out of 1,000 would it be, > or < 1?  In your opinion…

[steve phillips]

Andrew,

 

I think that more broad question here is about you.  Are YOU an “inny” or an “outty”?

[steve phillips]

Ok, Craig,

You can be tedious, in that it seems like you carelessly scan many posts and are too quick with a rebuttle.

Please re-read my post.  I don’t suggest anybody to wait for a shoe to drop and also, you throw the frase “rosey future” in too many of your replies when most are just talkig about a food and a roof.  Thereby maybe that is how you missed the point of my post.  Which is:  although it might be a wonderful and “priceless” experience, Is that reason enough saddle yourself with insumountable debt?  Especially in an enconomy that is very bad and trending even worse?  Enter reality here, nothing rosey about it nor gloomy, just FACT. 

In other words,

You are claiming that is is better to have loved and lost,  and I am claiming plain old, unprotected sex might not be the best idea.

[steve phillips]

Boilerplater, you might like these lyrics too, or not…

 

People Have the Power

I was dreaming in my dreaming
of an aspect bright and fair
and my sleeping it was broken
but my dream it lingered near
in the form of shining valleys
where the pure air recognized
and my senses newly opened
I awakened to the cry
that the people / have the power
to redeem / the work of fools
upon the meek / the graces shower
it’s decreed / the people rule

The people have the power 

Vengeful aspects became suspect
and bending low as if to hear
and the armies ceased advancing
because the people had their ear
and the shepherds and the soldiers
lay beneath the stars
exchanging visions
and laying arms
to waste / in the dust

 
in the form of / shining valleys
where the pure air / recognized
and my senses / newly opened
I awakened / to the cry

people have the power!

Where there were deserts
I saw fountains
like cream the waters rise
and we strolled there together
with none to laugh or criticize
and the leopard
and the lamb
lay together truly bound
I was hoping in my hoping
to recall what I had found
I was dreaming in my dreaming
god knows / a purer view
as I surrender to my sleeping
I commit my dream to you

People have the power

The power to dream / to rule
to wrestle the world from fools
it’s decreed the people rule
it’s decreed the people rule

LISTEN
I believe everything we dream
can come to pass through our union
we can turn the world around
we can turn the earth’s revolution
we have the power

[Leslie B Wagle]

Go with me into the twilight zone …. could it be that schools or some kind of collective LA Jungian unconscious force is at work to grow the profession even if it’s rough on individuals? Teachers don’t stress the missionary nature of LA vs. the focus on design because a) the missionary part is hard to teach anyway and b) it would scare some talent away. In truth, there never was a “golden age” some frustrated people believe they somehow missed. Only for a few, and only in rare places. BUT If we train and send out enough new inspired hopeful grads year after year, maybe they will CREATE awareness in society (we could call this the need to eat therefore will create work theory)?

I’m half joking but also half serious. It might be a good theory for promoting a field, but people inquiring and studying deserve a fair report on general reality while making the deepest decision of their lives, that’s all. 

[alland]

I remember, at least where I studied, a “buzz” and an inherent knowledge about how much work was really out there for us, especially closer to each class’ graduation. However, this was back in the 90’s and even though there certainly was a recession there in the early part for Planners, PEs and LAs, but nothing that would compare of the downturn thus far since 2008.

I do think this time will yield an awakening of peers and the public about Landscape Architects. I have hope their will be.

[Author]

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