<p>With the exception of engineering students with decent GPAs and Ivy League-type grads recruited by Wall Street finance and consulting firms, I’m failing to recall any time in past where a typical recent college grad easily cake-walked into a high-paying first job.</p>
<p>First instance profession of architecture requires a professional degree (often a 3-year M.Arch after a BS or BA), years of accumulating internship experience in specific sub-sectors of practice, and passing multiple components of a professional licensing exam, and still results in a relatively low average wage throughout career, despite its educational and license requirements. Many recent architecture grads, whether from a B.Arch or M.Arch program, face quite low wage rates, even minimum wage. Architects may be expected to do unpaid internships if fresh out of school, and most architects often find themselves working long overtime hours without further compensation. Even if these architecture grads come from prestigous “Ivy-caliber” institutions, the job market itself is volatile, not well-paying, and often glutted with job applicants with a wide array of professional experience. (Job market doesn’t necessarily stabilize with experience or age.) Many younger architects also shoulder large student loans, because graduate school can easily cost $100,000 to $150,000 COA due to high tuitions as well as expensive urban locations for those schools.</p>
<p>Frankly I’d think that the “film production” job-market is similarly glutted, and that it requires a fair amount of low paid and often unpaid “internship” work, that “advancement” is a factor of luck, connections, and talent/experience, and that many film major grads eventually seek employment elsewhere simply to become self-supporting. Not everyone has a wealthy parent to support them years after graduation.</p>