That’s exactly what I did. I got a job working in the oil fields as an MWD operator and I couldn’t be happier. $100k salary with no prior experience? Hell yes
I haven’t taken the exam but I remember a teacher telling me that for plant identification they just walk you around LSU’s campus and point at plants. No idea how many plants though. I have a pretty recent plant list from LSU (2 years old) if you want it.
The difference between a landscape architect and a landscape designer is the landscaper was busy making money for the last 5 years in a good economy while the rest of us sat in a classroom getting a worthless degree.
FYI, Macs run AutoCad, 3ds Max, etc. extremely well using Bootcamp. In fact, Windows Vista ran smoother on my Macbook pro in bootcamp than it did on my desktop PC. Thankfully I don’t have to use Vista anymore but all this talk about problems running windows programs with Macs is nonsense. Running parallels is a different story but i’m not getting into that.
Go with the desktop, not because its a PC but because you get more bang for your buck. Laptops are nice but if you want more raw computing power at a reasonable price a desktop is the way to go. Also, don’t get caught up with RAM. You can upgrade that later for relatively cheap. 64 bit OS is a must these days as well. Ditto on the processor speed. Its the one thing that you can’t really upgrade so cough up the money now, you’ll be happy later.
If you’re with your kids then you should check out Valkenburg’s Tear Drop Park. Went there on a landscape trip in college and the slides were SW-EET. Parents were scrambling to grab their children as full grown men (aka over served landscape students) took over the playground for a half hour. Good times. Hudson River Park was pretty cool as well.
Unions are great if you want to destroy an industry. They sound great in theory but what have they done for other professions? When somebody builds a house, hiring a landscape architect is a luxury, not a necessity, at least in the minds of your average every day person. With the economy like it is now who is going to pay even more for this luxury when they can find an unlicensed landscaper to do a similar job for a fraction of the price? Unions= increased overhead = higher fees passed on to the client = less work for everybody.
I was there during the Tibet riots and they had all kinds of sites blocked. It made sense (I guess) to block sites like youtube, wikipedia, etc. but Land 8? Thats a little strange.
The answer to the original question is going to be different depending on who you ask and what firm you’re working for. 3ds Max isn’t very common in landscape architecture because it takes awhile to learn and it can be difficult / time consuming. Most firms are content with a sketchup model. However, if you do take the time to learn it and you can use it efficiently its a very effective way to represent your designs, by far the best way to create realistic renderings of a space. I would say its useful but definitely optional to know the program. Flash also would fall into that category. There’s alot of cool stuff you can do with it and its pretty easy to learn the basics but if you’re just making a basic slideshow its not necessary. You’re better off just using photoshop and acrobat.
I’d use Acrobat over Powerpoint. My school is really critical if you decided to present digitally so Powerpoint presentations usually won’t fly. If you know Flash or Premiere Pro thats even better.
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