Some background: I have a degree in Architecture (B.Arch.) from the University of Texas School of Architecture. Since receiving that degree I have participated in many professions, most of them not architecture. For more than 15 years people have asked me how I got from X to Y and about the applicability of my architecture degree and architectural education to whatever it was I was doing (graphic design, technology marketing, software product management, etc). My answer has always been the same: it was a great education and I use the skills I learned in architecture daily even though I am doing XXXX.
I think its time to explore in some more detail and with some more rigor exactly what it is I’ve meant by that.
There seems to be a growing consensus that as commodity jobs leave the US for more cost effective locations (cf, Friedman – more later on that) that our system of education and workforce will need to become more “right brain”-focused and attuned to differentiating with design, amongst other qualities (cf, Pink – more later on that). If that is so, somewhere in my stock X to Y answer is a strong sense of the applicability of design education to a broader array of situations.
