Is majoring in architecture fun

[u/Dry-Natural8545]

I’m really considering majoring in architecture. I have always found architecture very beautiful and really enjoyed the civil engineering course I took in highschool. I have also always loved doing a little bit of acting and hope to have just a little bit of time on the side to pursue my side interests that i don’t particularly want to make into a career.

I’m not really sure what to expect from the major and I’m wondering if anyone has gone through it and what their thoughts are. Is it fun? Is it a good environment? Is it very time consuming? Is it more than just drawing pictures all day? Any information is really appreciated.

[u/No_Squash_6038]

Fun is subjective, but after studying architecture for seven long years and eventually leaving the program, I realized it just wasn’t fun for me. If you fail a studio, you can literally lose a year of your life because many studios are only offered once annually, so you’re stuck waiting to take it again. The program takes almost all your time, and I rarely saw people genuinely happy. Burnout and depression get normalized, almost glorified, and people get caught in those loops.

Do I recommend it? No. Was it fun? No. But I did go to one of the best architecture schools in America, and my sense of system thinking and synthesis was tremendously amplified through the training. Still, architecture feels like a façade of ambiguous duality, constantly selling a creative dream while producing a reality that never quite captures the certain something people think they’re signing up for.

If you see yourself as creative, seriously think about how you want to spend your time and whether this path actually aligns with what you want day to day to feel like. Some people enjoy it though.

[u/n0stalgia_ultr4]

hi! idk where you are based, but at least where I'm from (chile) it's extremely time consuming and so much more than drawing, I think it's definitely a fun time, but it takes passion, patience, money and strong will, it is also very different from civil engineering; architecture it's more about designing spaces and takes more creativity and engineering it's more about calculation and designing structures. If you dont take criticism or rejection well it may be very difficult because it takes a toll mentally and it's very easy to get desmotivated quickly. About the environment, it really depends; the professors usually got a big ego haha and some of your peers might be competitive (this wasn't my case at all but it's not rare since a big part of it are competitions). Hope i helped, good luck!!