Overview

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Get ready for an eyeful of towers, buildings, and bridges.

Description

Do you ever walk around just to look at the buildings? Do you plan vacations around visiting all of the most fascinating, ancient structures you've seen on The History Channel? Do you press your ear to the cornerstone to hear what ol' Empire State is saying? If you do, you're probably hearing, "Be an architect…" in an eerie, yet calming, voice.

Okay, you can stop singing "Empire State of Mind" now.

Let's face it. You've always been that kooky kid in class, scribbling a majestic skyline in the margins of your math homework. Well, it's time to turn those doodles into a career.

Future architects get to go to school to be dazzled by the rich history of building design. To many people, this protracted history lesson would be a snore-fest, but you're the type of person who sees the art in the architecture. So you, you lucky dog, will learn all about design and structural analysis, from ancient Greek columns to libraries that look like space ships.

Bonus: you get to be creative.

Architecture is a major for people who are artistic, but not in a paint-stained pants sort of way. You'll need both hard, scientific knowledge about what makes a building structurally sound as well as wild design ideas. To design a building is essentially to create a giant sculpture that could be on display for generations to come.

After all, we're still admiring the work of Gustave Eiffel, who created…well, you know what he created.

Once you've earned your degree, it'll be time to put all that knowledge to use and start your career. Unlike communications or biology, architecture isn't a very malleable degree. It isn't exactly a trade, but it's close.

This means you should be prepared to work as an architect, or at least at an architecture or design firm. Who are you kidding, though? You know what you want to do. The talking buildings never lie. "Be an architect…"

Famous People who majored in Architecture

• Santiago Calatrava, Spanish architect (neofuturistic)
    
• "Weird Al" Yankovic, parodist, record producer, author, and pretty much everything but an architect
    
• Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect (modern)
    
• Frank Gehry, the man responsible for the Walt Disney Concert Hall, among others
    
• Ice Cube, rapper, actor, record producer, not an architect

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