Like most young people, architectural school graduates have seen job opportunities shrivel in recent months.
"A couple years ago, anybody who was able to walk out of architectural school could find a job, there was so much demand," said James Barnes, a Rhode Island School of Design architecture professor and owner of James Barnes Architects in Providence.
"But (the job market) is not as good as the last few years, and I expect this year will be even slower," Barnes said. "Students may not find exactly what they’re looking for, and they can’t be as selective as they’ve been."
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But all hope is not lost for graduates vying for a job in architecture, a field inextricably linked to the construction market. Although Barnes said work in the corporate sector has "basically disappeared for the moment," the institutional market – especially in the Northeast – has held up rather well.
Hospitals and colleges and universities continue to forge ahead with capital projects, keeping many local architectural firms busy and in need of new talent.
And architecture grads’ stock generally has risen in recent years because most leave school with computer skills that have grown increasingly valuable in the field, according to Stephen White, dean of the School of Architecture at Roger Williams University.
"Students have a degree of computer literacy that older people in the profession often don’t have," White said. "Graduates are a lot more valuable to firms than they used to be."
White added that despite the recession, the RWU architecture graduates still are finding much success in the job market. "It’s a pretty exciting time in architecture," White said. "There still are plenty of opportunities out there. Almost everybody gets an appointment," he said. The school typically graduates about 50 to 60 students each year.
White says the high demand is partly attributable to graduates’ knowledge of programs such as Auto CAD or form*Z, a three-dimensional modeling program. To help architecture students hone their visual and graphics skills, the school offers a course taught by a founder of TellArt, a Providence-based information-design consultancy.
Often, architecture grads combine their computer skills with bedrock architectural talents – fundamental design principles, problem solving and the creative use of visual tools – to branch into unconventional jobs, such as Web design or computer animation. Architecture grads from both Roger Williams and RISD have delved into those areas in recent years.
But with the implosion of the dot-com sector, many of those opportunities have evaporated. Barnes said the Web-design market for students, for example, has "basically dried up."
Still, many RISD students remain undeterred and continue to seek jobs outside traditional firms, Barnes said. He estimates that as many as 30 percent of the roughly 75 students who graduate each year from the RISD architecture program pursue work in non-traditional settings, such as computer animation or set-design work in the entertainment business.
While some markets for architectural grads have been dampened by the idling economy, job prospects in the public policy arena are flowering. Hot-button political issues that have emerged in recent years – most notably the use of innovative urban design to control sprawl and the promotion of energy efficiency through the use of "smart" or "green" buildings – have put some young architects on the front lines of public-policy debates.
For instance, a handful of RISD architecture grads played a role in persuading the city of Providence to back the rehabilitation of some mill buildings in Eagle Square on the west edge of Federal Hill.
"I think there always have been students attracted to public advocacy, working for community groups and non-profits," Barnes said. "With the economy not doing so well and fewer opportunities at traditional firms, there may be even more interest in public policy."
