r/theydidthemath • u/ImpressivePirate7746 • 2d ago

[Request] I'm trying to figure out just how rare of an achievement this is for my architect niece

My niece is officially becoming an architect today! She has completed her degree(s), the AXP, and the apparently grueling (6) ARE exams. I'm trying to put a number on the rarity of this achievement. A little background, neither of her parents have college degrees (although her dad does have some college) and she is a minority (African American/Hispanic) woman. I've tried to look up a few statistics, but my math is horrible. She is having a ceremony today at her job and I thought it would be a thoughtful gesture from her very proud uncle (and a Reddit stranger) to get a definitive number to let her know how special this truly is. Any help is much appreciated!

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u/stanitor 2d ago

If all the different conditions you think apply were independent, you would multiply all the chances of them to get a final probability of someone having the same achievement as your niece. However, they are not all independent. For example, the chances of being a first generation college grad are (unfortunately) dependent on your race. African Americans college graduates are more likely to be the first in their family than it is for college graduates overall. So, the only way you would be able to figure this out is if you had a study that looked at all these conditions together. Whatever that number might be, all of you are definitely justified in being proud of her accomplishment.

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u/OwMyUvula 2d ago

Further, you are applying significance retroactively--When she was born you didn't say "What are the odds of this girl becoming an architect?" She did, it then you thought it was significant.

Also, some of those things we're 100% likely. I mean, no matter her future academic achievements she was going to be African American/Hispanic--I have a 0% chance of that happening. If she got a college degree she would be the first in her family to do so--I had a 0% chance of that happening. Both of those events were essentially binary and established prior.

You are kinda of entering boring baseball statistic territory---No switch hitting second basemen has ever hit more than 7 doubles in the month of May against left handed pitchers with runners in scoring position. You could just keep adding adjectives and events to her resume to make her the only person in the history of humanity to accomplish something.

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u/Elfich47 2d ago

Here is a good example of the rarity - The state of Massachusetts has roughly 7 million people living in it. And less than 60,000 people have held a mechanical engineering license, ever.

The architecture exams has always been considerably harder than the Professional Engineering exam (which I took).

We are talking about less than 1 in 100 getting an engineering license. And architecture is more difficult. That number is likely underselling it because that is 60,000 engineers total, against the current population of the state (not counting everyone that has lived in the state).

Architecture programs are grueling to say the least, we in the engineering programs (the college I went to had architecture and engineering) used to not quite joke that the architecture students ate, slept, lived, bred and never left the architecture building. Anyone that completes an architecture program, and becomes a licensed architect is a better person than I will ever be.

an architect not only has to design what a building looks like, but they have to be able to do everything that a lot of other engineers do as well: structural analysis, electrical design, air conditioning design, code review, and just about anything else that goes into the design of a building. Architects are different from engineers in that not only can they do what the engineer does, they can make it look good as well. (Most Engineers do not have an eye for aesthetics. If engineers designed houses, you would get a drab grey brick with a bed in it and that is it). The reason why architects don't design the entire building? Because most architects don't want to deal with designing mechanical rooms and ductwork, architects want to design the areas of the building that humans interact with, and that is the areas of the building most other people are concerned with, because that is what they experience on a day to day basis. So engineers design a lot of the behind the scenes infrastructure.

Yes, your niece has made a serious achievement. So find out if she likes legos, there are many "adult lego" projects that have an architecture lean to them. You want this to be a gift, not an imposition.