Architect Career: Salary, Training & What the Job Is Really Like

How Much Can I Make? — Real Jobs. Real Stories. Career Insights

This episode of 'How Much Can I Make?' features architect Rob DuPont sharing his journey from childhood inspiration to professional practice. He

Key takeaways

• Becoming a licensed architect requires a five-year degree program followed by years of apprenticeship and passing state-specific licensing exams.
• Starting salaries in architecture are often low, but long-term earning potential increases dramatically when owning your own firm.

Main topics

• Path to becoming a licensed architect
• Education and apprenticeship requirements

Notable quotes

As long as you're prepared to work and not make a lot of money at the beginning, and you love what you do, then be an architect. If you don't love it, don't do it.

It's my mistress. Just ask my wife.

Conclusion

Rob DuPont's story underscores that architecture is not just a career but a lifelong passion requiring dedication, resilience,

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) As long as you're prepared to work and not make a lot of money at the beginning, and you love what you do, then be an architect. If you don't love it, don't do it. You got to have a love affair. It's my mistress. Just ask my wife. Speaker 1 (0:15) Hi, welcome back to How Much Can I Make? The podcast all about jobs and careers. I'm your host, Merav Ozeri. My guest today is Rob DuPont, an architect I actually worked with on three different buildings. We talk about years of training it takes to become an architect, why networking is so important, and why starting salaries can be surprisingly low, and how owning your own firm can dramatically change your earning potential. So, let's turn to Rob DuPont. First of all, thanks a lot for willing to do it and give us the time. I really am excited about that. Speaker 2 (0:53) Hi, Merav. Great to see you again. Thank you. Speaker 1 (0:56) So let's start by telling us, when did you first realize you want to be an architect? Speaker 2 (1:01) When I was a small boy, I've always wanted to be an architect. Speaker 1 (1:04) Really? What's inspired it? Speaker 2 (1:06) I can tell you a specific memory. My father grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts, in the Boston area. And we used to visit his side of the family all the time when me and my siblings were growing up. And the route that we used to take, it was one of those main highways, used to go right past Providence, Rhode Island. Okay. Speaker 1 (1:23) The Speaker 2 (1:23) Capitol building in Providence, Rhode Island. I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's a classical building. It looks like a miniature Capitol in Washington, D.C. I've Speaker 1 (1:30) seen Speaker 2 (1:30) it Speaker 1 (1:30) passing by, driving by. At Speaker 2 (1:32) night in particular, it's spectacular looking. They light it up. It's a white building with a dome. It looks like a miniature U.S. Capitol. It's a beautiful building. And it was designed by Kim Meaden White, one of the great architects in New York City back in the day. It was a competition that they won. So that building more than anything inspired me to be an architect. Speaker 1 (1:50) Wow. And Speaker 2 (1:50) then I started to play with Legos and draw and everything. And it just built on that. So I'm fortunate in that I had a calling early on and I've never regretted it. Speaker 1 (1:58) Very fortunate. So what kind of studying or certification or degree did you have to get in order to work as an architect? Speaker 2 (2:07) First of all, you need to get a degree in architecture. So I attended college at Syracuse University. It was a five-year program, which was pretty standard at that time because there's a lot that you have to learn to do it. There's a lot in the curriculum to learn. So I went to school from 85 to 90 at Syracuse University. I got my bachelor's degree and graduated. And then in order to be a licensed architect, to get your license to practice architecture, you really have to apprentice with architects and firms to learn. to learn the job and the responsibilities and everything that's included. There are so many aspects to architecture that you have to learn and master. You can't learn them all by just going to school. My program was very diverse, which was great. They had everything from structural... type of classes to code related classes to abstract design classes, art and drawing classes, color study. There's a ton of different disciplines that you had to learn in order to do this kind of profession. And it's changed a lot too with automation. When I was going to school, the computers were just in their infancy. As far as drafting on the computer, it was just an elective. If you go back to look at a school now, it's all automated. So I don't even know if they teach hand drawing any longer. They may. Or mathematics. Possibly not. Yeah, we had to take introductory math as well. So anyway, I don't know how much it's changed in the 40 plus years since I've been out of school. I can't believe it's been that long. But what I was saying was, when you work for an architect or a firm, you have to go through a series of apprenticeship years where you're learning how to actually... work on buildings for real, work with clientele and work in firms. And then at the end of a certain period, you'd be eligible to take your licensing exam. So whatever state you live in, they would issue a licensing exam. It's usually a several-day period. You take a series of tests, and then you're graded, and it's either pass or fail. And if you pass, you get your architect's license. And if you fail, you get the opportunity to take it again. But Speaker 1 (3:56) the license is good only for that state? Correct. Speaker 2 (4:00) But you don't have to take another exam to get your license in another state. There's a process called reciprocity, where if you just pay a fee, you can get your license in another state, in the continental U.S. It's all about Speaker 1 (4:13) money. But it's not that Speaker 2 (4:15) bad. It's $200, $300, I think, something like that. And also, to maintain your license in a state, your license is only good for three years, and then you have to renew it with a fee. So, yeah, there are always fees to pay for a license. I think that's true for every profession. Speaker 1 (4:27) When you started, did you know what kind of architecture you want to do? Not really. Speaker 2 (4:32) I just, I loved buildings and building things. So I didn't really have any preference. I will tell you that growing up in the country around here, I grew up in this town, this little town. There was no idea about modernism. It was basically all traditional type of stuff. So the first exercise that they gave us as freshmen, the assignment was design your dream house. So all the students, and I started out with about 125 fellow freshmen in my class. So we all designed these horrible. Houses, like Disneyland houses. And then when we went for the first critique, they basically tore them all apart and said, you have to learn from scratch. It's like the Marine Corps. They totally break you down and then they build you back up again in their image. Professors, baptism of fire. So it was a very interesting process. And it basically, it called the people that really wanted to be architects from the people that might not be able to handle the demands of the profession. Speaker 1 (5:25) Was there any particular... architect that you're admiring that was your inspiration over the years? Speaker 2 (5:32) The only architect that I even knew about when I was growing up was an American architect named Frank Lloyd Wright. He's probably, traditionally, I would say most people in this country know him more than any other, just because his name has been in the news so much. Speaker 1 (5:44) And what's his name? Frank Gehry. Speaker 2 (5:45) Frank Gehry may have supplanted him. Now, Frank Gehry just passed away, Speaker 1 (5:50) but Speaker 2 (5:50) he was a revolutionary architect, Canadian by birth, by the way. He was born in Canada. He moved down to California and became an American citizen. So that's an interesting thing a lot of people don't know. But Frank Gehry was a phenomenal architect. Speaker 1 (6:04) I've seen his building in California, the house where he lives. Oh, yes. His Speaker 2 (6:08) house. Ah, with the chain link fence. Speaker 1 (6:11) Yes, and all the carrigated metal thing. Looked to me like a ghetto house. Speaker 2 (6:16) Yeah. I Speaker 1 (6:17) really hated it. That Speaker 2 (6:18) was an early work. And it, Beauty's In The Eye Beholder. His thing was he used found materials. It was like found materials for art. That's how he expressed his initial design. Speaker 1 (6:29) And he was part of all this deconstructivism. I Speaker 2 (6:33) don't know. I put Gary in a class of his own. He was very unique and he was revolutionary. He was a genius designer. Are Speaker 1 (6:41) there trends in architecture? Is there a trend now that you know of? Not Speaker 2 (6:46) that I know of. Oh! No, that's not true. There is a trend. It's called biophilic design. What Speaker 1 (6:51) is that? Speaker 2 (6:52) It's where design of buildings takes its inspiration from natural forms. Plants, topography, skeletal structure, things like that. So that's why you see these more amorphous buildings are coming into fruition now. All over the world, as a matter of fact. This kind of thing is practiced all over the world. They've got to be incredibly expensive to build, but they're pretty cool. So that's one trend that I'm aware of. Other than that, I don't really know. I get a lot of periodicals, but I haven't seen anything really revolutionary that's coming around. And deconstructivism was happening when I was back in school. So that's long gone. Postmodernism, deconstructivism, all that kind of stuff. I Speaker 1 (7:29) hated it, I have to say. Speaker 2 (7:30) I Speaker 1 (7:30) hated it. Can you walk into a building today without critiquing it, without thinking, oh, I would have done this, I would have done that? Speaker 2 (7:39) Nope. Speaker 2 (7:43) And I tend to be either black and white on something. I'll either really like a building or I'll really think it's terrible. And I'm happy to enumerate the various ways. But you can't really blame one person. I'm a unique