The first thing to find out is who actually is actually doing the work that you want to do. Degrees, licenses, and talent will not get you in front of the people looking to hire someone to do that work.

Everyone wants these projects, but wanting them does not bring them. Few put out announcements that they are going to do such a project. Usually you hear about such a project long after the design consultants are all selected. They select people that are known to have had great results and experience doing similar projects. They might consult their architect, or interior designer, structural engineer, or some professional whom they know and trust to recommend someone.

It is a chicken and egg thing to some degree. The best way to bypass the problem is to work for people who are already getting this work. You work it for several years to learn the ins and outs, but mostly to network and be known. The problem is how are you going to get hired?

You get hired by bringing something to the table. If the firm is a bunch of Harvard GSD grads, they want to keep the mystique and reputation of their firm. They won't hire a recent graduate from anything but an elite school (and you can't blame them). If they are landscape architects, entry level help will have a bachelor of landscape architecture degree as a minimum. Since BLAs need to intern for a couple of years, these folks will work fairly cheap as well as having really good training, so hiring anyone else because they want the opportunity does not make sense.

To sum it up, you need to get working experience and networked to be a player in this type of work. To get working experience, you need to position yourself to get the job. Do what you need to do to get that done and you'll be in better shape than any other strategy in my opinion.

Your Harvard person gets good work because he worked for people doing that type of work long before doing it himself. He got that/those jobs because he had a degree from Harvard and was most likely hired by a previous graduate from Harvard or another elite school in landscape architecture. The door was opened, but he had to go through it, work hard, learn a lot, and develop relationships with people in positions to help him later on. Becoming a valued assett to those who can help you is the only sure way to get them to help you. No one will "give" an opportunity unless there is a benefit to using the person to whom they give the opportunity.

Laag,

That all makes sense. "Although i do want to clarify that the Harvard person is a "she"!) Am I correct in assuming that if I want to start my career working in a Landscape Architects office I'm better off getting my MLA from the far less prestigious City College, not a masters in Landscape Design from Ivy League Columbia? (I've already got my BA and City College accepts that as an adequate educational requirment to their MLA program so I don't think it's worth while to go back for a 4 year BLA degree unless there is something I'm missing).

It's funny, I've asked several Landscape Architects why they chose that degree rather than Landscape Design, thinking they'd say something simliar to what you have expressed about the type of firms they wanted to work with and the types of jobs they wanted to do but they all (including Ms. Harvard) gave me an odd look and said that they became Landscape Architects because the school they chose only offered that degree - in other words they chose the school, not the degree. In most cases they were actually pursuing a completely different course of study from LA at their school and decided for varying reasons to change degree path at that same school to get their BLA or MLA.

I would still like to hear from people with urban design experience (I know from your other posts, Laag that terraces and rooftops are not your general area of work although I very much appreciate your response, particularly the advice on positioning). One of the issues I am encountering is that as i make contacts in the field, the Landscape Architects in the city tend to be one person offices who create the designs themselves then bid out the construction to masons and carpenters. There are many more Landscape Design firms but they tend to be associated with garden centers and (surprisingly) big event floral design firms. I'm not sure I want a career selling plants or making centerpieces and doing a little installation on the side! The bottom line is that i am not sure the jobs I envision even exist in a city.

I'm not saying which school is the one to go to. I am saying that you should find the people who do the work you want to do and find out how to best position yourself to work for one. That is true with any type of landscape design career. If people are hiring nursery designers for this, than position yourself to get a job as a nursery designer.

It is much easier and quicker to take the bus that goes to where you want to go than to try to find the place by walking around.

You have to be found by a client that is looking for you much more than for you to be finding clients. That is why this is a tough business.

Thank you, this discussion has definitely clarified my thought process even though urban designers have not jumped in (don't be shy you guys - there's still time!).

I don't know if any other people who are thinking of going into design or who are stagnating in a design career are looking at this thread but if there are I do want to add some things that I think are not just specific to my situation. I agree, any business is tough and being found by a client is the toughest threshold to cross to find to suceess. In my career, working both for myself and others I've found the key to that door can be not only to have the clients come looking for you but more importantly to help people who never dreamed of being a client realize that they not only NEED the service you provide, they WANT the service you provide. And consequently, they want YOU.

Please don't think I am ignoring your bus metaphor, I find it apt. But this particular sub-set of American society I want to work with prefers to take a limo. I won't get much business waiting at the bus stop any more than I would walking. I think if you want to run your own business it pays to focus more attention to your potential clients and their habits than to what an employer is necessarily looking for. If you need experience as a worker first you can always market the skills you have (unless you are say, a poet and want to work for a nuclear physicist or something) and lower your price if necessary to get that experience.

If I want to work for myself (and I do ultimately) I don't know if it makes sense for me to get an education in something that won't be useful to me (nursery designer, event planner) only in order to work for someone else who has decided to use that particular skill set as their marketing niche. So far my career plan involves creating contacts in the building and constrction industry in the city and creating my own niche market and marketing plan - green roofs, xeriscaping - whatever is new or can be made fresh, and working my butt off from there. And in this case status (education, money, power) is a very important thing for people I want to work for. I do think what are seen as impressive credentials could help open the door, but given the newness of the Columbia program I just wonder if I will actually be getting the skills I need which was why I asked about the program.

I don't mean to be argumentative, I just think there are more ways to get the things you want than to try to be a good employee, particularly if you really want to be the boss.

I think you'll find that clients want one thing from a landscape designer more than anything else. It is removal of doubts. It is all about what you have done and nothing to do with your potential. That is why it is best to ride in someone else's limo that is going through the gates of the exclusive community and stepping out when you get there.

The common assumption is that you can get work by pricing yourself lower util you build up your portfolio. The problem is that these jobs are long term investments. The client wants as little uncertainty as possible. That makes it much easier for them to hire someone like you, but who has worked for a successful company already and has a portfolio of built work that they have at least worked on. Anytime that it is between you and someone with a stronger history of built work, you'll be in second place. Second place means not getting the job.

What typically happens with designers who go that route is that they wind up taking on jobs to survive. They find themselves pulling trays of flowers out of the back of their toyota pickups twenty years later.

The Harvard grad would not be doing much either if she had not worked for others. People don't like to attribute their success to others, but there is a reason that they require internships for LA licencing. It is the fast track to good work. Going into business right away almost locks you in at the level you start off at. No one will tell you that though.

My background is in interior landscaping, but I still suggest that there's an awful lot to be said about working in the trenches as someone else's employee. It's a pain in the butt, but you will learn the business from the ground up. It will teaach you what kind of plants work and don't work and why, where to source them, how to price them (maybe), how to deal with all sorts of clients, what kind of marketing works and what doesn't, etc. These are expensive mistakes to learn on your own.

I can't help you on the education part, since interiorscape is not much of a degree program, and I am largely self-taught anyway. Around here (Baltimore), what you can do is much more important than your credentials. In your market, it may be different, but ultimately people care about the finished product way more than whether you have a degree from XYZ school. Are they really going to name drop that "my landscaper has a degree from XYZ"?

I think I did not make myself clear - I do believe both of you are spot on --working for someone else to start is a great idea, I just don't think you have to tailor your education and planning entirely for that particular rung of your career ladder. The Columbia program requires an internship in the 2nd year even though it is only for an MLD and I also plan to work for someone in the field for a while once I graduate in addition to that internship. Also, I agree that pricing yourself lower to clients to get a job once you are working for yourself will probably not help you. What I meant when I talked about lowering your price was that there are a lot of ways to convince an LD firm (or just about any company really) to hire you when you need to obtain that experience, and negotiating salary, particularly with a small firm, can be one tool to help get you in that particular door. I don't mind taking an extra job selling flowers out of the back of my Jaguar (sorry, I'm not trading it in for a Toyota just yet - gah, I can't believe I just wrote that, sometimes I am a jerk) for a while if I can work for the right firm to get my start and experience. Plenty of people have built their careers on marketing the skills they have to firms that have jobs they want, even if their skill set is not identical to what that firm is looking for.

My badly stated point was that I think you may have an edge if you plan your career with what your potential clients will be comfortable with rather than worrying purely about making yourself attractive to employers that you will be working for in the short run. And although I agree, my potential clients will not be name dropping my university, plenty of them will have gone to that school or a similar one. In my experience people like to associate, whether in business or pleasure, with people they see as most similar to themselves. The networking opportunites are a bonus as well.

Again, thank you for the responses, I appreciate your help and do value your expertise. Mulling over what has been said is clarifying my though processes, even where I am resistant I am trying to learn, but my experiences in life have shown me there are more than one way to accomplish a goal as long as you don't get too far off the rails of common sense. And I do take what you say as that basis of good common sense as gained from your experiences.

I'm simply warning you that you will not be hired by the specialized design firms without bringing something meaningful to the table (at any price). What you think is meaningful and what they think is meaningful may be quite different. It is the biggest miscalculation out there.

There are tons of people who have made this miscalculation, but they are not about to admit it in an open forum. Some are in denial and some are too embarrassed, but it is much easier to join them if you don't understand that. At least go to some of these firms and ask them what it would take to get hired. I think you'll find that there is something to it.

"In my experience people like to associate, whether in business or pleasure, with people they see as most similar to themselves"

Yes and no. Unless you're in that caste yourself, don't fool yourself into thinking you'll be seen as an equal. Where we win clients as designers is by communicating to prospects that we share their values and/or vision when it comes to the finished product, not by making them think we're one of them. I have disgustingly rich estate clients who call me annually for projects because my designs knock their socks off- not because we share a tee time. How did they know to call in the first place? Because our company has 30 years of installed works and references. IF I were to leave here and hang out my shingle (not the game plan at all), the jobs I've done here are what would get me the next gig.

You sound like me, looking down the road and impatiently wanting to just get step one over and out of the way so the "fun stuff" can happen. Take a breather and really look at the types of firms doing what you want to do. You may be pleasantly surprised at where you end up. When I moved to VA the plan was to work for a top-notch design/ build for a couple years and open my own practice. I have to say, I lucked into a great firm. I may stay here a while.

Per Laag's advice I am calling local design firms to see what they are looking for. Unfortunately for me most are not looking for anything or anyone except clients. I have gotten some good advice about getting my own crew once I start on my own, as the general consensus in this town is that the money is in the installation, not the design. I'll keep trying to make contacts though. Columbia says that they will probably not be able to help line up the required internships in the second year so I'll really need to get a jump on this in any case!

Marcinde, I'm curious why you changed your plans. It is great to work for people you respect and who give you the opportunity to take charge of interesting projects but you did initially have a desire to open your own shop it seems. Did you just start out feeling that going it alone was probably the way things would work best and then found out otherwise once you were with a good firm? Or were there more concrete reasons?

Laag, I frequently mull over your posts on the design forum, your advice on design is thoughtful and very often the most insightful given. I appreciate you don't want people to make career mistakes but I just can't resign myself to focusing my life on what someone else wants me to be. Pick up any issue of the Wall Street Journal and check out the career paths of just about any Fortune 500 CEO for example and you'll see that many job skills are more fluid than you think. I personally have been very successful (I prefer the term delightfully rich to disgustingly rich though!) using what I have and what I learn to get where I want to go and I don't think that's unusual at all.

Obviously you personally don't need to be hired by anyone in any field whatsoever, you do good work for yourself, but I bet if you had the desire to you could at the very least get your foot in the door in any industry you wanted outside of fields that require specialized technical skills or licensing by the state (rocket scientist, brain surgeon, whatever) just by leveraging what you bring to the table.

I've owned two landscape companies, and I miss being my own boss. I had talked to a few of the high-end designers plying their trade here in metro DC, and honestly thought that was the life for me. However, with being a professional, self-supporting designer comes being a project manager. While it's nice to get out in the field from time to time, I do this because I love designing, solving problems, spending hours at the board with markers and colored pencils. I don't do this because I love ordering concrete, yelling at suppliers for selling my imported pavers out from under me, etc., etc. By working as the designer for a design/ build, I get to live in my little foofoo bubble, and someone else gets to figure out why the wrought iron guys didn't show up yesterday.

That's not to say I've put away the notion of something that's all mine, but that vision has changed. Having realized that I prefer to do the designing and leave the implementation to someone else, I have a small business drawing for landscape contractors, cabinetmakers and architects. It's still small- the project I'm currently on will finally let me break even on startup marketing costs- but the hope is that someday I can stop commuting three hours a day to an office. Again, though, it's a radical shift from the business I thought I wanted. I find more satisfaction helping small-time contractors grow their business than I do beautifying the world one millionaire at a time.

As to the education- if it were me, I'd do the BLA program. George Washington has a masters level LD program, and I haven't heard the best things about it. Columbia's may be completely different, but looking at curriculums (curriculae?) I see more value, and a better overall eductaion, in a BLA. Not that I have one, but I wish I did :)

Dave

I'm not saying you need to adjust your overall career goals to match what someone else does. Think of the internship the same way you do an education. The internship is a very accelerated way of learning and networking. You need to meet a certain profile to get into the door of many of these design firms. It is only that aspect that you tailor to someone else. Think of it as majoring in your long term needs and minoring in making sure that you are well set up to get a good internship or job that gets you the experiences that you need to progress.

If you don't meet that profile then there is no internship. That will leave you with a degree or certificate and no experience or built portfolio. No matter how much talent and education you have, you will not be nearly as competitive as those with that portfolio of built work. Then you would most likely take what you can get for work to try to build some kind of portfolio. The level of work that you can get from your portfolio is generally similar in scope and style as those within the portfolio. Consequently, the progress toward high end is rather slow.

The thing to think about is how far will you advance that portfolio in two or three yeas working that way vs. how much you will accumulate in two years working for a company in full production at that level. The latter is fast tracking to setting yourself up to be self employed doing high end. The former is fast tracking to being in business, but not entering it at the level that it sounds like you want to be working at.

Laag, I don't know why neither one of us seems to be able to reach the other on this issue, i think we will have to call it a draw. I do know i'm not going to get a degree in event planning or nursery management when I want to work as a landscape designer. I have plenty of other valuable skills gained from senior management jobs in Wall Street firms and from owning my own successful marketing firm to be such a complete dud in the job market that I'll have to go into denial and sell vegetables on the side of the highway or whatever it was you suggested I'll be reduced to. In addition, at that point I'll have at least two years worth of schooling in a masters degree program in either LD or LA, and hopefully those skills will be valuable to any design firm that does, you know, design. However, I will try to make additional contacts to find out what skills I can gain in my studies that will help to position me effectively. And since you are successful in this business I am interested to know what skills would you expect someone who came to you looking for an internship to possess?

Dave, I hear you about all the problems of going it alone! I think I will find the design end of things the most rewarding as well but I am curious about the way things work in the field and seeing first-hand what kind of disconnects there are between what is designed and what is built.

You didn't mention this specifically but I know I got, well, not lonely exactly, but I missed having colleagues to bounce ideas off when I went into my own business. One of the things I am looking forward to in school is some collaboration with other students. I'll definitely try to keep an open mind about the path ahead, you never know what will bring the greatest satisfaction I guess. That said, best luck on returning to being your own boss on your own terms!

And thanks for the advice on the LD vs. LA. I've heard much bettter things than i would have thought about the City College program. Their website annoyed me so much (not compatable with Mac's Safari browser!!!) that I figured they must just be a bunch of punks but as i'm making contacts I'm finding poeple who know people who went there and loved it.