If your are implying that an rise/spike in enrollment in architecture programs was because the students were counting on having a job (because of a building boom of some kind) after the end of the program, I beg to differ. (MArch here.)
Architecture is one of those passion fields that you enter knowing full well that the barrier to entry to becoming established is very high. It is also not a meritocratic field (like software). Everyone in my school (Columbia/GSAP) knew that at the end of the program, we were looking at n years of slavery for some big name architect (if lucky) and it was all together hugely competitive. After all, we had the example of our instructors (some of them highly regarded talents) who were mostly "paper architects" and pamphleteers.
Many of us elected not to go that route and branched out to computer graphics, modeling, and some like me ended up being software engineers, instead of spending the next few years drawing bathroom details for some commodity architectural firm, hoping for future glory. (Yes, ego is a big driver for architects, and possibly a job requirement.)
So regarding the current unemployed numbers, I would be curious to know what percentage are electing to remain unemployed due to perfectly reasonable reluctance to do banal work after having spent anywhere from 4 to 7 years pursuing their passion for excellence in design.
Architecture is one of those passion fields that you enter knowing full well that the barrier to entry to becoming established is very high. It is also not a meritocratic field (like software). Everyone in my school (Columbia/GSAP) knew that at the end of the program, we were looking at n years of slavery for some big name architect (if lucky) and it was all together hugely competitive. After all, we had the example of our instructors (some of them highly regarded talents) who were mostly "paper architects" and pamphleteers.
Many of us elected not to go that route and branched out to computer graphics, modeling, and some like me ended up being software engineers, instead of spending the next few years drawing bathroom details for some commodity architectural firm, hoping for future glory. (Yes, ego is a big driver for architects, and possibly a job requirement.)
So regarding the current unemployed numbers, I would be curious to know what percentage are electing to remain unemployed due to perfectly reasonable reluctance to do banal work after having spent anywhere from 4 to 7 years pursuing their passion for excellence in design.