[Peter Graves]

I would recommend squarespace or cargocollective. Both paid services but so worth it. With squarespace you get your own domain name as well so it’s a little more professional. Stay away from anything that isn’t custom domain name, like behance.net/yourname or cargocollective/yourname. Just shows you haven’tput much effort into it, even if that isn’t true. 

[Peter Graves]

n.b.: gross generalizations below

these programs couldn’t be more different when it comes to landscape architecture teaching. Where do you want to be after you graduate? What do you want to get out of your MLA program? Take a look at where graduates of these two programs typically end up working. Are you interested in becoming an educator, researcher, or working for a leading or innovative firm in the northeast? Harvard’s my suggestion there. Are you more interested in the practice of landscape architecture at the ground level, learning about how landscapes are designed and constructed, sustainability, plant materials, like to see your designs built, like to work locally,specifically in texas or the southern U.S.? I’d say A&M for this reason. 

I’ve worked with people from both schools. Both great schools. And sure, you can technically do anything you want with either education. But as a generalization, you’re going to get the “latest and greatest” tech and teaching from GSD, and you’ll get a really great education grounded in the reality of the here and now at A&M. 

Giant grain of salt here as I attended neither of these schools.

[Peter Graves]

In my experience talking with my coworkers and classmates, the depicted total debt load is not far off from the norm. I would say a standard debt amount for just the MLA could be anywhere from 20-40K, and you can almost double that for a BLA. The issue isn’t the cost of tuition, as many grad students are getting a break on tuition, but all of the miscellaneous expenses needed to survive – food, housing, etc – that the scholarships often do not cover. Add in the price of software and computers and the sticker price goes way up,sometimes unexpectedly. 

Also I agree that the rent amounts shown here are a little ridiculous. $1600 in rent in Denver should get you a really nice I-bedroom loft apartment or something. It shouldn’t be too hard to cut that in half, leaving another $800 a month to work with. 

Certainly the debt burden does impact how a lot of people navigate the landscape architecture job market as well – especially in a recovering economy, the options aren’t too great for a recent grad. It seems like a profession that has below-average starting salary for a professional or terminal degree-holder.

[Peter Graves]

yup, It very much depends on the firm, worldwide. The idea of working longer hours for less pay has been around for a long time in the design professions and is unlikely to let up anytime soon. I have worked for firms in China and the U.S. that expect crazy hours, even most weekends.

I would say the majority of landscape architecture firms worldwide have their employees work a lot of unpaid overtime due to A) charging too little for their services, therefore needing free work from their employees and B) an idea that is more cultural and pandemic in nature, which is that we are willing to suffer financially for our careers as designers.

As a service industry, firms externalize the problem by saying “the client NEEDS the project by tomorrow” or by saying “they just dont KNOW how long it takes to do this 3D rendering, I guess I’ll have to stay up all night again”. And to that I say, have a little self respect. And respect your employees time and charge the proper fee to allow for healthy work/life balance. Our ability to design stems directly from our sensory inputs, created by experiences largely OUTSIDE the office on a day-to-day basis…

All of that said, I have found a few firms that value this life/work balance very highly, and understand the value of hiring a complete person instead of a robot. I am currently working for one of them. They are out there and I strongly hope that future designers will be able to stand up for themselves in some measure instead of matrying themselves for the sake of their profession. 

[Peter Graves]

firm called Hartness Vision does excellent landscape viz work but may be pricey

[Peter Graves]

great input….good to hear from actual interviews that went well.

[Peter Graves]

Hey Laura,

Thanks for the link! Yeah, that’s all I have been able to figure out- DesignIntelligence’s top 10. But I want like top 25 or 50, so all the schools I applied to will appear on the list, hopefully, so I can rank them accordingly.

I have applied to MLA programs at:

-LSU (accepted)
-Kansas State (awaiting)
-Texas A&M (awaiting)
-University of Colorado-Denver (awaiting)
-University of New Mexico (awaiting)
-University of Texas-Arlington (accepted)

Anyone know what these schools rank in the DesignIntelligence report?

[Author]

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