They'll tell you that architecture school is really tough and you'll work your butt off. Well, that's true. However, I wouldn't trade my all-nighters hunched over models, drafts and projects for any other major. And while it sometimes is disappointing that your buddies take business (aka drinking) as a major and have loads of free time, I'm really content with my major. The design process is exhilirating, having a set of problems on your hands, having to come up with a creative solution for it, seeing it evolve and eventually getting your hands on the final product. It is an extremely rewarding feeling. Studio atmosphere is fun too. You spend the nights talking to people next to you, blasting music, etc. One night, for instance, our professor assigned us an enormous model due the next day. All of us were extremely bummed out about it so we decided to get trashed, and we did - I downed two forties and some wine and Jager, all the while building that model. The next day the teacher was very surprised as to why everyone looked like shit and no one had finished that model. Eventually, however, that same model extended into a couple weeks worth of extremely underslept (though sober, heh) nights, with a few all-nighters here and there, but the final product is something that many of my non-arch friends marvel at and, honestly, I still do too. And, if managed properly, you'll be able to maintain an intense social life while maintaining quite decent grades, and I'm not even one of those crazy well-rounded people who do all these things at once and I suck at multi-tasking.
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One of the degree programs I'm looking at is architecture. I've always enjoyed drawing/sketching my own skyscraper, hotel or stadium designs, though I've never really gone into great detail (floorplans, etc - but I have almost always given them sort of a "common sense" thought).
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I used to do that as a kid a lot, too. And, contrary to my expectations, in arch school common sense is a much more valuable asset than strong knowledge of math or exceptional drawing skills (though being at least decent at sketching and drawing is a must). You can always get an engineer to tell hou exactly how much weight a beam can hold (though you must have a decent perception of things like that yourself, too), but it's your specific job to know how to manage people through architecture and how to make a design that works for all of its users. I, too, used to draw a lot of skyscrapers. Now, however, I don't even seem to do that as much, and have instead grown an enormous appreciation for stuff I pretty much didn't care for before - smaller houses, historical styles, etc. Speaking of the latter, I always found historical styles to be a bunch of fancy mumbo-jumbo till I took a course of arch history last year, and was blown away. It puts the world, and the societies we live in, in such different perspectives. Now, I can appreciate pretty much any building for its own qualities rather than going "wow, that's nice cause this building is all antique and stuff" or "this one is nice cause it's all avant-garde, jagged and whatnot". I now have a better perception as to why its historic masters applied the details they did, or the reasons (or maybe the absense of such) that caused the architects to put up the abovementioned jagged walls.
You have to really like architecture to remain in the course, as the major is quite demanding. However, if you decide it's not for you then you can always switch major. Buf if you do like it, you won't regret the choice, trust me. I sure as hell don't regret it.
For most of my life I've been interested in architecture but in high school I dedided to go into law, for the money. However, a thread similar to this one knocked some common sense back into me. I thought, "well sure I'll get paid about as much as a schoolteacher, but if others can get along just fine, then hell, why can't I? At least I'll spend my life doing something that I like rather than growing to old age and having my only achievement being an additional parking spot in my garage." Besides, if you make it big, you make it BIG."
Congrats for your sister's wedding btw. You cool with her new man?
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