Life of an Architect

• Ep 175: Stupid Questions

  Nobody wants to be the person who asks a question that causes everyone else within ear shot to turn and look at them. We spend the early part of our careers trying to prove we deserve a seat at the table, hoping we sound competent, sharp, with just the right amount of confidence. But architecture isn’t a field you get good at by pretending. It’s a craft you grow into by doing, which ultimately leads to asking questions early, often, and sometimes awkwardly. We are going to embrace that process. We’re digging into how architects keep learning after school, what a real internship should feel like, and how long it really takes to get good at what we do. Welcome to EP 175: Stupid Questions. [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access the on-site audio player]  Today, Andrew and I are going to be talking about why becoming an architect takes a long time, that this process involves doing a lot of different things, and how "stupid" questions play an important role in the education process of everyone in this profession. Just to get this out of the way, I am admitting here and now that I ask stupid questions all the time – maybe not as often as I used to, but they’re still there. The Myth of Knowing Everything jump to 3:51 Architecture school is a beginning, not an ending — a place where students are exposed to broad ideas, creative problem-solving, and the early language of the built environment. But the idea that graduation signals readiness for professional practice is a myth. Schools tend to focus heavily on conceptual design, theoretical frameworks, and academic critiques, with far less emphasis on the realities of technical documentation, consultant coordination, regulatory compliance, or contract administration. According to the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), while accredited programs must address professional competencies, mastery of technical skills is not expected upon graduation. The gap between academia and practice isn’t a flaw — it’s an acknowledgment that architecture is too vast to teach all at once. True expertise comes from layering education with experience, not from assuming a degree makes you "complete." Understanding this myth matters because it reframes early career experiences from imposter syndrome into opportunity. If graduates expect to know everything, they’ll view asking questions as a failure; if they expect to still be learning, questions become the most important tool they have. According to a survey by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Emerging Professionals Committee, 78% of young architects reported feeling “unprepared” for the technical and managerial aspects of practice upon graduation. Yet, firms consistently report that curiosity, not technical perfection, predicts long-term success. Accepting that you won’t know it all — and that you're not supposed to — builds the humility and resilience needed to become a great architect. The myth is persistent, but the truth is far more empowering. It turns out that the real measure of growth isn’t how many answers you can recite, but the kinds of questions you’re willing to ask. "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers." — Voltaire This quote emphasizes the point that questions are more important than knowing all the answers — a perfect fit for reframing graduation not as mastery, but as the start of real learning. It aligns with breaking the myth that you're supposed to "know it all" after school. Learning on the Job: Interns jump to 13:46 Internships are often misunderstood by both students and firms. They aren’t simply about cheap labor or task delegation; they are an essential stage in transforming theoretical knowledge into applied skill. A well-structured internship fosters structured exposure to different phases of work: schematic design, construction documentation, consultant coordination, site visits, and client meetings. In 2021,

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• EP 174: Dear Future Architects …

  There are bits of advice that one collects over a 30 year career and when given the chance, some are worth passing on to those who care to listen. While this could have been a lessons from my father sort of episode, we decided to keep things focused on those of us who either are, or want to be, architects, and we are going to pass along a handful of things that we wish we had known at the start of our careers. Welcome to Episode 174: Dear Future Architects. [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access the on-site audio player]  Partial Results from an Instagram Poll asking the question what "Future Architects" should know ... click to enlarge Today we are going to be talking about those interesting considerations and bits of advice that have been shared with us during our career. While they might not be applicable to everyone, I feel pretty confident that all the items we will be discussing today are of value. This will be the first “Dear Future Architects post as there are too many items to work through in a single episode. These are in the order than they came to mind and I didn’t want to presume a specific priority to them and set them in order of value. I also want to throw in there that a few of these are pretty hot and I fully expect people to think I am full of s%!t … but I am here to bring the pain. 01 Dear Future Architects ... jump to 04:55 Choose your firm based on the skills you want to build. Residential firms often hone your soft skills—communication, empathy, and negotiation—while commercial firms emphasize technical depth, systems coordination, and documentation. Source: https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/big-or-small-whats-the-right-sized-firm-for-you/ In reflecting on my career, I’ve come to realize that the size of the firm you work for can shape the skills you develop, especially early in your career. If you’re just starting out, a small firm offers the opportunity to develop soft skills like communication, empathy, and negotiation because you're often thrown into situations where you're the point of contact with clients, contractors, and team members. You're more involved with every aspect of a project, and that experience helps you build your confidence. On the other hand, in larger firms, you get more exposure to complex projects that require technical proficiency, systems management, and understanding of legalities. While big firms can make you a better architect in that sense, they may not provide as many opportunities to hone those soft skills until you reach a higher level in the company. Personally, I’ve found that small firms, while sometimes lacking in technical depth, gave me the chance to sharpen my communication skills and gain a more intimate understanding of how a project works from start to finish. This has served me well as I’ve moved up in my career. But the reality is, each environment teaches you something different, and depending on what you want to learn, one might be a better fit for you than the other. 02 Dear Future Architects ... jump to 11:58 Start small if you plan to go solo. Working in a small firm exposes you to every aspect of running a practice—from contracts and client meetings to redlines and billing—which is invaluable if owning your own firm is in your future. Source:  https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/architectural-job-starter-kit/ Looking at the question of whether to start in a small firm if you plan to eventually go solo, I believe it’s the best way to prepare. In a small firm, you’re exposed to everything: you write proposals, manage clients, and get a feel for what it really takes to run an office. When I switched from a small firm to a larger one, I found that my skills didn’t always align with what was expected. In a larger firm, tasks like proposal writing are handled by specialists, not generalists like I had been in a small firm. That experience made me realize that if you want to open your own office one day,

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• Ep 173: Mentorship Matters

  Mentorship turns confusion into clarity, builds confidence, and connects you with people who help you grow faster than you ever could alone.

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• EP 172: A Week in the Life of an Architect

  Most people have no idea what I do for a living, and to be honest, most of how I spend my time doesn’t look like the things I did when I was in college. Have things gone terribly wrong for me? What about Andrew? I’m pretty confident that his role as an architect is different than how he imagined it to be … and I think that this is all okay. It should be an interesting conversation, and possibly a mandatory exercise, to find out how architects actually spend their time. Chances are better than likely that the day to day experience for every single architect is unique with only a small bit of overlap … and that is what we are here to talk about. Welcome to EP 172: A Week in the Life of an Architect [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access the on-site audio player]  Today we are going to be talking about how we spend our time. I have answered this question as “A Day in the Life of an Architect” exactly 4 time previously on this website. https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/an-actual-day-in-the-life/ The  very first "day in the life" sort of post that I ever wrote back on March 10, 2010. At this point, the website was barely 2 months old and I was with a firm that specialized in residential work. Since this was the first time I decided to talk about "a day in the life" I literally went minute by minute through my entire day, starting at 5:50am. https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-architect/ Fast forward over 4 years to December 1, 2014 ... by this point I had changed jobs and was now working at a company where I had my name on the door, which suggests that I had some control over how I worked and spent my time. In this post, rather than going minute through minute along the tasks of my day, I broke into big chunks based on tasks ... one of which was making a margarita. https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/ep-064-a-day-in-the-life-of-an-architect/ Time for some more changes - on to job number 3 since I started the website. This particular day was the first to be immortalized into a podcast episode  that went live on December 6, 2020. Andrew was struggling with Covid at the time of this recording so I had frequent guest and neighbor/architect Lane Acree on to discuss our particular days as it related to how we go about our business in the capacity of Principals at our firm. In an attempt to keep things somewhat fresh, beyond having another person's perspective being added to the mix, we simply broke down our days into early morning, morning, lunch afternoon, and evening. In each of these episodes, I typically choose a pretty interesting day  – mostly because I wanted to look cool and that my job was exciting. I also think it is interesting to go back through these “day in the life” snapshots to see how my typical day changed as I changed firms and as I changed responsibilities. So rather than simply looking at a singular day that  was selected because it was a “cool” day, we are going to change it up and actually look at a week of time so that we can avoid the possibility of selecting a singularly fabulous day. Monday jump to 7:58 a look at my work calendar for the week we are discussing today Bob I can’t stand Monday … it is easily the worst day of the week. All the meetings associated with preparing everyone for the work to be done that week, as well as all the in-house obligations – meaning, I don’t actually get a lot of work done on Mondays but yet my day is always full and I start the week off behind every single time. While the "Staffing Meeting" isn't the first thing I do on a Monday morning, it is typically the first meeting I have. Since I have Project Manager responsibilities in the office, that means I have some dominion over who is working where and on what. This meeting is generally about making sure that people are all keep busy, but not overly so. Almost immediately upon the completion of this first meeting, I have a Marketing and Digital strategy meeting.

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• Ep 171: The IQ of an Architect

  Being an Architect is difficult and there is plenty of evidence that this is not a vocation that is suitable for everyone. The coursework you will take in college is all over the place – from the drawing and design classes to physics and upper level math requirements, you seem to have to be both an artist and a scientist to go down this path. This begs the question, Just how smart do you need to be in order to become an architect? Welcome to Episode 171: The IQ of an Architect [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access the on-site audio player]  Today Andrew and I are going to be talking about intelligence quotient and architects. This was a topic that I tackled with the 3rd blog post I ever wrote (titled IQ's and Jobs), and for years, it was a foundational blog post in the development of my website because so many people read that article. I just checked and it currently has 92 comments, and almost amusingly, there are some angry people out there and they are vocalizing their discontent. When I was younger, probably between the ages of 8 and 12, I bet I took 20 of them. My mother was a school teacher and all of her schoolteacher friends Would use me and my sisters as practice subjects as they were pursuing diagnostician licenses. I am going to confess right now that this is a nerdy episode because there is a lot of data that needs to be presented and digested in order for us to have a fruitful conversation. The History jump to 8:21 The origins of the IQ test can be traced back to early-20th-century France. In 1904, the French Ministry of Education commissioned psychologist Alfred Binet and his colleague Théodore Simon to develop a method to identify children who required special educational assistance. The result was the first practical intelligence test, known as the Binet-Simon Scale (published in 1905). The French government needed a systematic way to distinguish students whose learning challenges were not being met in the regular classroom. The aim was to provide extra support, not to label them pejoratively or permanently, but to help tailor education to their needs. Binet and Simon introduced the concept of a “mental age.” The test included a series of tasks grouped by age level (e.g., tasks that an average 7-year-old could handle, an average 8-year-old could handle, etc.). A child’s performance on age-relevant tasks indicated their “mental age”—a reflection of cognitive performance relative to age-based norms. Memory: Recalling digits or sentences Problem-Solving: Completing puzzles or analogies Verbal Skills: Defining words, understanding analogies Attention & Comprehension: Following instructions, basic reasoning The tasks grew progressively more complex. If a child could perform the tasks that most 8-year-olds could but not those of a typical 9-year-old, the test would assign that child a “mental age” of 8. Although Binet did not explicitly define IQ as a single number, the later concept of IQ was directly inspired by the idea of mental age. Psychologist William Stern (1912) introduced the term Intelligenzquotient (Intelligence Quotient) as a ratio. Not long after Binet and Simon released their scale, Lewis Terman at Stanford University adapted and expanded their test. The resulting Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (first published in 1916) formalized the IQ concept for the English-speaking world and continued to refine “mental age” benchmarks. Terman’s goal was to make Binet’s test more suitable for the American population by adjusting questions, norms, and scoring based on data from U.S. schoolchildren. He also introduced the now-familiar numeric scale with an average (mean) of 100 and a set standard deviation—initially, each standard deviation was 15–16 IQ points. Terman’s (Circa 1916) Stanford-Binet Categories Although the exact cutoff points and names varied slightly in different editions,

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