Shane Hummus: the truth about an architecture degree: is it worth it?

Is an architecture major or architecture degree worth it? That's what we're gonna be talking about today. But before we jump into that, make sure to gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm. On this channel, we talk about personal finance, college degrees, careers, and opportunities that are gonna lead you to success. And we also go over how you can avoid some of the common traps that so many people end up falling for. If that sounds like something that interests you and you're new here and you haven't done it already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell so that you never miss out. So first of all, what the heck is architecture? Architecture is the science and art of designing and engineering large structures and buildings. So an architecture degree is a really cool combination of kind of hard skills. You know, you're gonna have to have some math skills, but you also have to have some artistic talent as well. Around 8,500 people graduate with an architecture bachelor degree every year. And there's something magical and amazing about imagining a structure in your head, putting it down on paper, and then eventually having it become a reality, building it out in real life. Architecture is something that's gonna be interesting, not just to people who end up going into the profession, but to other people, you know, random people that you meet at dinner, they probably will like to ask you about your profession as well. Now, as always, I'm gonna break this down into four different categories that I think are extremely important when it comes to evaluating college degrees. The first one is going to be salary. Now, graduating with an architecture degree, you can expect to make around $48,000 a year starting out, and mid-career pay is going to be 87,000. However, there are other types of architecture, such as interior architecture and landscape architecture, and the pay is going to be different for those. Now, if you get the degree and you end up becoming an architect, you can expect to make around $80,000 a year. However, this is going to vary greatly depending on whether you're working in the public sector, private sector, working for a big firm, or whether you have your own business, you're an independent contractor. It is very competitive though, and you saw on that last slide with BLS that it's only growing about 1%, which is much slower than average. Many architecture positions are also going to require some type of internship. So if you are able to get a job, the salary is pretty good. Overall, I'm going to go ahead and give this one a seven out of 10 for salary. Next on the list, we're going to be talking about satisfaction, and I always like to break this down into two really important categories, which is meaning and then job satisfaction. Now, meaning is basically how much your career, your job positively impacts the rest of the world, whereas job satisfaction is just how much do you enjoy doing your job. So let's say you were employed to just watch Netflix all day long, and you were a Netflix critic. You might really enjoy doing your job. It's something that you would really enjoy doing because, hey, who doesn't want to watch some Netflix? However, you might find, especially a few years in, that your job doesn't have very much meaning. Whereas let's say you're a plumber and you're kind of just doing the same things over and over again, you know, you're fixing pipes. It might not be the most glamorous job, but you are helping people because people truly do need plumbers. So that career might have a high meaning score, but it might not have as high of a job satisfaction score. Now, according to PayScale, with an architecture degree, you're gonna have around a 55% meaning score, and by that, I mean 55% of people think that their degree and the job that that led to significantly positively impacts the world. When it comes to meaning, that is gonna be a little bit above average when you compare it to other types of degrees. Now, when you look at job satisfaction, there are several different types of architects that you can become, but let's say you decide to become a landscape architect. About 73% of landscape architects said that they were extremely satisfied with their job. That is also going to be higher than average. And you can probably imagine why. Becoming an architect is pretty awesome. You get to use those hard skills that not very many people have, and then you also get to use your own artistic ability to create buildings that maybe no one's ever even seen before. People generally tend to think architects are cool. If you mention that you're an architect around a dinner table, a bunch of people are gonna start asking you questions. And so if you are able to get a job as an architect after getting an architecture degree, then you're probably gonna be pretty satisfied with it. So for that reason, I'm gonna say the satisfaction score, if you are able to get a job, is going to be around eight out of 10. So it's gonna be pretty high. However, that's a big if, and I'm gonna talk about that in the next section, which is demand. So remember when I talked about becoming an architect and how it's only growing at about 1% per year? That means there's only gonna be around 1,100 jobs that open up in the next 10 years. I also mentioned there's around 8,500 people who graduate with an architecture degree every year. So there's a little bit of a number discrepancy there. There's not that many jobs opening up, and there's a lot of people graduating. Now, of course, there's also gonna be a lot of people retiring, so hopefully that frees up some of the jobs, but it's still obvious to see that this is not one of those industries where there's just tons of jobs left and right. So it will likely be very difficult for you to get your first job right out of school, and so it's gonna be extremely important for you to network and make sure you do internships. And on top of that, an architecture degree isn't gonna be as flexible as, say, a business degree, for instance. So with a business degree, let's say you planned on being a marketer, for instance, so you got a marketing degree, and then you decided, hey, I don't really wanna be a marketer. It would be very easy for you to switch careers and go into something else. Business degrees are extremely flexible, and they have a lot of options for you just because of the fact that every company out there, every industry out there is hiring people who graduate with business degrees. An architecture degree, on the other hand, is not gonna be nearly as flexible. So the skill set that you learn with an architecture degree is gonna be extremely valuable. However, it is pretty specific and specialized, and it might be a little bit difficult for companies to see how you're gonna use that skill set in other roles. However, with that being said, I do think there's one saving grace when it comes to getting an architecture degree, and that is that it's highly respected. So there are certain degrees out there, like engineering, for instance, where even if you don't become an engineer, it's still very easy for you to get a job in other areas. So for instance, you might get an engineering degree, and then you end up becoming a software developer. A lot of companies out there have the philosophy that they're just gonna hire the smartest possible people, and then they can train them how to do the job later on. Architecture also falls under this category where a lot of companies out there are looking for people who graduate with architecture degrees. For instance, if you search the keyword monster.com for architecture degree, there's about 43,000 listings that have that as a keyword. Now, as a comparison, computer science degree is a very popular one. Lots of people are looking for people who graduate with computer science degrees, and that has 141,000 job listings. And an anthropology degree, on the other hand, is gonna have around 829 job listings because that's not generally a degree that a lot of people are looking for. So with that being said, the demand here is going to be lower than average, but it's still not the worst. Overall, I'm gonna give the demand a six out of 10. Next on the list, we're gonna be talking about X factors. And X factors could be anything from flexibility to how easily automated is the career. We also talk a lot about the skills that you learn in the career and how valuable those skills are on the market. So ZipRecruiter has a skill index that basically says how valuable different types of skills are. And according to this index, service-oriented architecture has a skill index score of about 59, and architecture design has a skill index score of about 39. This is kind of average, maybe slightly below average. And this doesn't necessarily mean that these skills aren't valuable. It's just how much are they valued on the market? How much are different businesses willing to pay people who have these skills? With that being said, according to a study by thetab.com, architecture did actually rank as the most difficult degree that you can get. And that probably explains why it's so well-respected. Business owners know that if you can get an architecture degree, which is definitely one of the harder degrees, it might not be the hardest, but it's definitely one of the hardest degrees, then you can probably do a really good job for them. But this also means that it's going to be one of the most difficult degrees, so you might wanna keep that in mind just because of the fact that the average 18-year-old might not be ready for the curriculum. I remember when I went to college, if architecture is anything like engineering, those guys were studying like 24-7. Whereas the business majors were having a lot of fun, the engineering students were basically studying all the time. According to willrobotstakemyjob.com, there's about a 1.8% chance that architecture will be automated. And I tend to agree with that. There's no way architecture is gonna be automated. That combination of artistic skill and then also the hard skills when it comes to math and designing stuff and all that, there's just no way that you're ever gonna be able to automate that. It would also be very difficult for you to outsource it and send it to another country just because of the fact that you do have to have a lot of communication with other people that are gonna be working on the project. But overall, I think the issue with this one and where it really suffers is because of the fact that it's just not very flexible. Most people are gonna go to architecture school and get an architecture degree because they want to be architects. The problem is there's just not that many jobs out there for architects. And this isn't one of these degrees that's extremely flexible where you can just easily switch careers. Yes, sure, absolutely, it's possible for you to switch careers and do something else, but it's not gonna be as easy as, say, a business degree. It's also one of those careers that depends heavily on how the economy's doing. So if the economy is going really well, they're probably gonna be designing and building a bunch of new buildings. And if it's not going very well, they're probably gonna be scrapping all of those projects. Overall, if you plan it out, if you've really done your due diligence when it comes to planning, making sure you know exactly what you're going for, and then figuring out reverse engineering the steps that you need to take in order to get there, then this can be really good. But I'm gonna have to say here that if you make a mistake, this one has an X-factor score of 5.5 out of 10. So when it comes to the pros and cons of studying architecture, some of the pros are going to be that it's somewhat artistic. Now, there's different programs. Some of them are gonna offer a BA, which is more of an artistic-related degree, and then some of them are gonna offer a BS, which is more of a science-related degree. But overall, it is going to be somewhat artistic, no matter which one you go for. And people who become architects tend to really enjoy their job, so that's another pro here. And on top of that, architecture degrees and architects in general are going to be pretty well-respected. Some of the cons here are gonna be that it's gonna have low job growth, and the growth is gonna depend quite a bit on how good the economy is. The second thing here is the process of becoming an architect can be extremely competitive, long, and expensive. Some people end up going back to grad school in order to get a master's degree or a doctorate. There's a lot of tests and certifications that you have to get. Many people end up doing internships as well before they get hired for a full-time job. And then another con is that it's one of the most difficult majors, although this could be seen as a positive as well. Overall, I'm gonna give this one a score of 6.625 out of 10. It can be a great degree if you've really planned things out and you know exactly what you're getting yourself into. However, if you don't plan things out or things don't go exactly the way that you thought they were going to, this one can be a big trap. Now, of course, this is gonna be completely subjective. You know, getting a degree for one person might be a 10 out of 10 score, and then getting this degree for another person might be one out of 10. I always encourage you guys to do your own research when it comes to these videos. And a great way to do research is to check out my college degree ranker down below. It's a list that I put together in my Patreon and I'm updating it periodically. My goal is to make the most complete and accurate list that exists anywhere in the world. And if you haven't done it already, go ahead and gently tap the like button, hit that subscribe button, ring the notification bell, comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera. Share the video, and whatever you do, don't leave. Check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you. Bye.