Architecture, Engineering, and Drafting Careers

A couple hundred years ago, there were no skyscrapers. There was no mass electrification, no space exploration…there weren’t even any computers. We know what you’re thinking. How the heck did people spend their time at Starbucks? That’s a good question.*

_{*That’s a terrible question.}

But…we’ve come a long way, baby. The Industrial Revolution changed the game. (In case you don’t remember from your History classes, the Industrial Revolution was something like the American Revolution, but with fewer musket balls and more patents.) Suddenly, a building could be more than two stories high without collapsing on itself. Steam-powered vehicles were becoming hip and trendy. And you could now call someone via one of those telephone thingies so you didn’t have to look them right in their ugly mug.

The good news? Not everything has been invented or engineered yet. In fact, it’s sort of a ball that keeps on rollin’ once you’ve set it in motion. Which means that opportunities in this field are going to keep on growing higher than…whatever latest eyesore they’re building in Dubai.

Once we got a taste of bigger/better/faster, we were hooked on it like caffeine. Stuff can always be improved, so anything that’s already been invented can be…reinvented. Until we get it perfect. Which will never happen.

So…architects and engineers are in high demand (not to mention drafters, those guys and gals who take an architect or engineer’s designs and turn them into pretty little drawings so the vision can become a reality). And because the work they do is so intricate and important…they make some moolah. Of course, if you’re designing cheap, single-family homes, you’re not going to be raking it in like the guy designing Disney World II (don’t get excited, it’s not a real thing). The money is out there, if that’s what drives you. A decent architect usually gets around 10% of hard build costs for home construction; if they have a half dozen homes for 5M-10M being built in luxury areas, that’s millions of dollars a year for them…

If, on the other hand, you’re driven by the desire to turn a few gears of the world’s motor and keep this whole technology thing moving forward…well, there’s that, too. It’s awfully satisfying to be able to say you personally contributed to a huge breakthrough in biomedical engineering that is going to save countless lives. Or that you engineered a new, valuable and effective fuel source. Or that you came up with a better and faster way to mold cheap, plastic toys. Well, the world’s preschoolers thank you, anyway.

Careers In This Field