“I want to be an architect” — six words I never expected to hear from my daughter! It certainly came as a shock. She had been leaning towards majoring in computer science at her small liberal arts college in Northern Maine. However, a brief ‘Intro to Architecture’ course captivated her in a way that simply growing up around me never did. Maybe she finally glimpsed why I enjoy it so much, despite it being such a tough profession with long, expensive studies and low financial rewards.

Now that she was bitten by the architecture bug, I thought I would be able to give her useful advice on how to approach studies and a career. After all, I’ve worked in the US for over 25 years, visiting various architectural schools as a critic or a lecturer. But as we investigated her options, it became painfully obvious that I didn’t really have a clue how it all worked. What followed was a crash course on the various paths US students take to pursue architecture.

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