What else can one do with a BLA or MLA?

[Anonymous]

I notice a lot of people either trying to do something strictly in landscape architecture, but its

a broad major and included a wide-range of coursework. So what other jobs could one apply with

a BLA or MLA? PR, Marketing?

[David Lorberbaum]

Ashish,
I’m a UGA grad like yourself and have been very fortunate to still have my position with the firm I started working with right out of school. On the other hand, I have been keeping up with my classmates and they have not been so lucky. When I have talked with them a majority of them have gone back to school. One is going back to be a veterinarian. One for architecture. One for City planning. One for Law school. One is going back to seminary school.Some others are working for the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Some are dabbling in graphic design. One is an insurance agent.

So I think people are just doing whatever they can right now.

I think you could probably do graphic design, possibly advertising(if you can find a firm that will take a chance on a BLA grad), if you are a good people person then you could do sales in just about anything.

My Dad always told me through high school and college that as long as you can solve problems and work with people then you can do just about anything unless your degree is super specialized. I tend to think that our degrees are somewhat specialized, but we can work well with people and solve problems so it shouldn’t be a limitation.

Hope that helps.

[Jay Smith]

Ashish,

Good topic. I’ve been pondering this question myself now the last couple of years. I’ve been out of Landscape Architecture since 2008 and I’ve had a real tough time finding anything beyond minimum wage jobs. The L.A.’s I know who have gone into other fields all had additional education (or training/experience of some kind) to make that happen . The one area I’ve avoided is Sales careers. I think the previous poster is right, you could probably do that. But not all of us have the personality for that, and I truly believe you have to find something you enjoy and are comfortable with to be successful at it.

I think the problem is that Landscape Architecture is such a specialized and misunderstood profession. 99/100 people who see BLA on your resume won’t have a clue.

Personally, I’m in a transitional stage of my life this year trying to figure out a new career, and probably going back to school next year. Most likely in something unrelated and unattached from the development-dependent world of design.

I’ll be very curious to see what kind of replies you get to this thread. (And if you do get any responses from people who have succussful transitioned into new careers without any training or additional experience, I’d like to know if they had a contact inside the company who aided in their hiring or had previous related experience.)

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

It is a diverse field both through education and experience. The uniqueness of each individual’s education and experience through landscape architecture is very likely to transfer well to a number of other professions, but it may not be so easy to determine that most landscape architects transfer well to this or to that because of that diversity.

The bigger question may not be what we are capable of, but what the perception of what we are capable of is to a would be employer compared to their perceptions of “other options”.

[Baxter (Gene) Miller]

Run for office, provide political leadership on all things green. Landscape architects are stewarts of the land by training and desire. Why not apply that training to other sustainable parts of our communities, states and nation. Fire service is a important part of any community, however no one looks at the subject form a stewarts point of view. The first thing that a fire man wants to do is clear properties using a specific radius from a structure. A landscape architect with his whole systems approach would look at the problem from a differnt point of view. Lead the parade not the band. This would be a better world if more leaders were landscape architects, stewarts of the land.

[Author]

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