Subject: re: Do you like being a landscape architect?

From: [email-masked] (Lisa Nunamaker-Orgler)
Date: 9 Jan 1995 13:39:25 GMT

I love being a landscape architect (actually, I'm not licensed yet - so I'm
a landscape designer technically).  I'm sure you will    hear good and bad -
some people just chose the wrong profession for themselves.  When I decided
to go    to graduate school I kept thinking I should try a different
subject, but it always came back to landscape architecture.  I loved
undergraduate school and I am very excited   about graduate school.  Go with
your feelings.  If you       are still unsure keep looking into it and all
-- 
Lisa L Orgler
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (CowboyRik)
Date: 10 Jan 1995 11:53:45 -0500

This is a toughy.  Do I like being a landscape architect? Yes!  Does the
public, in general know what I am capable of doing? No!  Since the public
and some of the posters of this newsgroup think that landscape architects
are landscapers or more appropriately, plantscapers, its hard to command
the type of compensation we should be getting or be in positions that we
are trained for.  Many communities refuse to allow landscape architects to
perform and provide the services that they are capable of doing (for
example site and/or storm water management plans).  Many engineering firms
that hire landscape architects limit the LAs duties to planting plans. 
When times are tight, LA's often are the first positions cut while less
"environmentally sensitive" engineers are retained.  All very frustrating.
 Those LAs that are satisfied with their profession and are wondering what
the big deal is (about professional frustration) probably have not
experienced this "discrimination".  I personally know many LAs that can
not find positions that pay a decent salary and have to augment their
income with something else or abandon their careers.  The fact,   the
services that LA's perform are all too often considered  luxuries.  Go
where the money is, that's where the jobs are.  An interesting aside: 
Many great past landscape architects experienced financial hardships,
Beatrix Ferrand and Charles Gillette are two that come to mind.
Happy Trails
CowboyRik
(Any LA that calls himself 'Cowboy' must be sitting on a high horse ;)  )

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From: [email-masked] (LndArch)
Date: 14 Jan 1995 11:09:37 -0500

Since graduating from college 5 years ago, I've experienced a wide range
of tasks that, at my company at least, fall into 'Landscape Architecture'.
But I enjoy the variety that it brings to my job. However, after spending
a day at the office regrading a townhouse cluster in order to save some
extra area for a children's play structure (all the while trying to get
the drainage to work), I find it extremely frustrating to have a relative
or friend that evening say to me "I guess winter is slow for you since no
one landscapes this time of year". Thats not to say that I don't do
planting design, but there is so much more to being a landscape architect.
Just ask anyone who's taken the registration exam. I know an LA that calls
landscape architects in the design/build field "peat moss guys" (or gals,
to be P.C.).  I think thats a little condescending, but you can understand
why he says that, he's tired of the kind of comments like the one I
mentioned above. 
It's really up to us to change our image, no one is going to do it for us.
-Barry Stingel, RLA