#394 - Your Architecture Degree Isn't A Dead End

Summary

Archispeak Episode #394 Summary:
Your Architecture Degree Isn't A Dead End
Hosts: Evan Troxel & Cormac Phalen
Date: July 27, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this candid and insightful episode, Evan and Cormac dive deep into a recurring question among young architects: What do you do if you realize, after six years of education and entry into the profession, that you don’t like architecture? Their discussion, rooted in personal anecdotes and mentoring experience, unpacks the anxieties around career direction, passion for the field, and the myth that an architecture degree is a one-way street. The episode is a must-listen (or read) for emerging professionals questioning their place in the field, seasoned architects reflecting on their journey, and anyone wondering about the versatility of the architecture degree.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Encountering Doubt After Graduation (00:00–04:03)

• Cormac shares a recent experience meeting former students—some thriving, others disillusioned. One student openly admits she "hates everything about it" (02:14).
• The recurring narrative: "You may not like school, but you'll like the profession" often proves false for some grads.

Quote:

"What do you do if you’ve gone through all that schooling and you just don’t like what you chose to do? That’s the question."
– Cormac (03:36)

2. Is This Normal? Reevaluating the “Dead End” Mindset (03:53–07:48)

• Evan urges normalizing these feelings: “I don’t think that this is abnormal and I don’t think it should be labeled as such.” (03:53)
• Cormac and Evan stress that an architecture degree opens many doors—not just in traditional practice.
• Advice: Explore adjacent fields, leverage your network, and understand that your education is broadly valuable.

Quote:

"There’s a multitude of different things you can do inside and outside of the profession with this degree."
– Cormac (04:05)

3. The Search for Fulfillment: Factors Beyond Project Type (07:48–10:14)

• The importance of asking oneself "Why architecture?" is highlighted.
• Dissatisfaction can stem from work environment, office culture, project type, or team dynamics—not just the field itself.
• Cormac reflects on thriving in environments he sought, but acknowledges not everyone finds the same fulfillment.

4. Punctuating the Grind: Finding Meaningful Moments (12:02–13:52)

• The hosts discuss moments that make the struggles worthwhile—such as seeing designs built or client reactions—yet admit “those are farther and fewer between.” (12:24)
• Teaching and mentoring bring new energy, especially for Cormac.

Quote:

"For a regular architect, that might be the next project or a new client or a pursuit…there are things that are just extremely challenging and difficult, but also makes it worth it."
– Evan (12:56)

5. When Passion Isn’t There, and Debt Is (14:12–15:56)

• Evan shares his wife’s story—great student, but architecture sucked her energy, leaving her unfulfilled and struggling with the sunk cost.
• The hosts advocate due diligence (“put in some effort to see if there are redeeming qualities”), but firmly stand: Don’t commit your life to something that drains you.

Quote:

"Do not put your life into a thing that sucks your energy and zaps you. Because how are you going to be a great contributing citizen if that's the state that you're in all the time?"
– Evan (15:40)

6. The Power of Attitude—Contagion and Culture (16:35–22:31)

• Bad attitudes are contagious and can poison a team (“It grows, it grows...it becomes the normal culture of the studio.” – Evan, 18:37).
• Good energy inspires, and most work cultures are shaped by interpersonal dynamics.
• Cormac highlights the importance of choosing your job and ownership of engagement: “You chose the job. They didn’t choose you.” (18:00)

7. Teamwork, Ego, and Learning (22:31–24:50)

• Collaboration, mentoring, and an openness to learning are essential—ego rarely helps. Evan underscores a key paradox: "Clients expect you to have a lot of answers. But at the same time you have to be willing to say, I don't know, I'm going to find out." (23:56)
• Group dynamics are dissected: Positive teams lift one another, negative teams spiral.

Quote:

"If you want a certain outcome, guess what you got to do. You’ve got to teach them."
– Cormac (22:31)

8. The Reality of Project Work and Expectations (26:33–34:10)

• The challenge of setting expectations and supporting growth for emerging professionals—even amid pressing schedules.
• Teaching opportunities are often lost due to lack of time or rushed project delivery. Cormac describes a turning point when he realized mentoring must be intentional.
• The profession tends to assume knowledge based on years, but success depends on clear communication, support, and learning from mistakes.

9. Changes in Practice: Technology’s Double-Edged Sword (34:10–41:27)

• Reflection on how CAD/BIM have diminished in-person mentoring—old-school hand-drafting enabled more organic learning.
• Revit and AI: Risk of accepting imperfect output and losing connection to materiality (“That’s the way Revit draws it”—a dangerous default).
• The importance of seeing real construction and understanding impacts beyond the screen.
  Memorable anecdote: Cormac spots a misplaced fire department connection during a site tour—a minor mistake with outsized visual consequences (38:07).

10. Reframing the “Dead End” Narrative (42:54–46:37)

• Architecture has many specialties—specifications, coordination, marketing, management. Early tasks often fail to showcase this spectrum.
• The need for firms to do a better job exposing new grads to a range of experiences, not just “grunt work.”
• Making a connection to what makes the field valuable: understanding systems, seeing built work, and knowing why details matter.

Quote:

“We do ourselves such an injustice when we immediately pull a recent graduate...to just, like, immediately throw them into, hey, you’re gonna be doing toilet room details…it doesn’t give you the broad stroke of what architecture is."
– Cormac (43:30)

---

Final Takeaways & Advice

11. Fulfillment Is a Context—And Control Lies Within (46:37–50:36)

• Meaning is found at the intersection of internal (attitude, goals) and external (environment, team, resources) context.
• Honest self-assessment is crucial; sometimes the solution is a change in environment, role, or even profession.
• RESPONSIBILITY: The power and duty to steer your career lies with you—not your boss, degree, or circumstances.
• "You control your own career. Don’t let anybody else dictate your career." – Cormac (49:00)

Quote:

“You may or may not find fulfillment in this profession, and I don’t care if you went to school for it or not. You don’t have to do it. No one is making you do it and no one’s going to change it for you.”
– Evan (46:37)

Quote:

“Don’t let anybody else dictate your career. Dictate it for yourself. That’s the only way you’re going to be happy.”
– Cormac (50:00)

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “There’s a multitude of different things you can do inside and outside of the profession with this degree.” – Cormac (04:05)
• “Do not put your life into a thing that sucks your energy and zaps you…” – Evan (15:40)
• “Attitude is contagious.” – Evan (16:59)
• "If you want a certain outcome, guess what you got to do. You’ve got to teach them." – Cormac (22:31)
• "You’re not doing any good for yourself, for the project, for the client, if you hate your work every day." – Cormac (15:56)
• “You control your own career. Don’t let anybody else dictate your career.” – Cormac (49:00)

---

Key Timestamps

• 00:00–04:03: Student stories and the "what now?" question
• 04:03–07:48: Degree = opportunity, not single path
• 12:56–15:56: Passion, fulfillment, and when work becomes draining
• 16:35–22:31: Attitude, culture, and team dynamics
• 24:50–26:33: The learning paradox of responsibility and ego
• 34:10–41:27: Mentorship, technology, site visits, and what’s lost
• 42:54–46:37: Rethinking roles, exposure, and new grads
• 46:37–50:36: Self-determination and career control

---

Episode Tone & Language

Archispeak’s signature is its honest, thoughtful tone—relaxed but unfiltered. The hosts lean into lived experience, offering support, a touch of empathy, and more than a little hard-won wisdom. The language is direct, reflecting the realities of both joy and frustration in architecture, and urging listeners to own their futures.

---

Bottom Line

Your architecture degree is not a dead end.
It’s a launch pad—for roles in, near, or even far from traditional practice. Emerging professionals are advised to reflect, experiment, and embrace the obligation (and agency) to shape their own path—inside or outside the field. The only dead end is relinquishing control of one’s career to someone else.

Transcript

[Cormac]

Yesterday I was on a construction tour and I saw a couple of former students. One wasn't actually in my studio, but was in the year level of the other student that was. And so we just got to kind of talking after the tour was over. What did you like about the tour? Is there anything interesting about it? You know, I even kind of lamented. It was just like, these are the kind of things that I would love to be able to do more often in studio is to take students to see construction tours, to kind of understand the complexities of all of the, like the things that we keep asking them to put in the, you know, in their projects so that they understand the complexities of buildings and all that other stuff. And so as we kept talking and stuff and I, I was listening to them talk about like what they liked and didn't like about the building that we were looking at. I had asked them, where are you all working, you know, or how are you enjoying the profession? Because this was my, these were students from my very first semester of teaching. So they've already graduated with their master's degree and they've, they're already, they are now officially 100% in the profession. No more school, no more nothing.

[Evan]

Emerging professionals.

[Cormac]

Emerging professionals. And I'm getting to the, I'm getting to the question, but I needed to

[Evan]

set, you know, what I was thinking,

[Cormac]

Cormac, I needed to set the stage. And so the one person who was in my studio, she's, this is like, I'm really enjoying it. I'm learning a lot. You know, I really, I kind of enjoy doing this. I'm like, great, that's fantastic. Then there was a guy with them that was basically their year level new emerging professional. And he leaves again. I didn't know him, but he kind of offered up his, about his opinion about it. Then he got to the other person who was from the university. She said she hates, hates everything about it, hated it when she was in school and everybody, but she was a really good student. Let me, let me just preface it all by really good student.

[Evan]

Basically explaining my wife, like this was her experience as well. Really, really good student, hated school, hated

[Cormac]

everything about it and hated the, and hate and hates the profession. And, and so the question is, and since you have firsthand knowledge of, of this and experience from inside the calls coming from inside the house, what do you do now? I've had this experience with a couple of other young emerging professionals that I've worked with in the past. What do you do when you've gone through five years of school, six years of school in their case. And you didn't like it when you were in school, but you thought, as everybody told you, oh, don't worry, the profession is going to be a whole, whole lot different. You'll like it when you're out in the profession. And then you get into the profession and you're like, nope, I really don't like it here either. And. And I went, I dug a little bit deeper and I was just like. We were standing in downtown Detroit and there's, you know, a whole gamut of different types of architecture. Some nice turn of the century, beautifully detailed architecture. There's these, the new building that we were just leaving and then everywhere in between. And I was just, you know, look at this. She's like, yeah, there's nothing speaking to me there it is, it is falling on deaf ears to me. What do you do now? I offered up some advice and we could talk about that as we go along, but what do you do if you've gone through all of that schooling and you just don't like what you chose to do? That's the question.

[Evan]

I don't think that this is abnormal and I don't think it would be. It should be labeled as such.

[Cormac]

It's absolutely not. Really. I totally agree with you.

[Evan]

There's so many things you could do

[Cormac]

because as you probably are about to say in what I told her was there, it was like, you would not believe the multiple multitude of different things that you can do inside and outside of the profession with this degree. That does not mean that you have to follow the traditional path of archetypes.

[Evan]

So, I mean, one of the most concerning things is with your follow up. Right. Which is like, none of this is speaking to me. And I think you kind of have to get into some stuff to see if it speaks to you rather than just, I just judge it all from the surface.

[Cormac]

Right, right, right.

[Evan]

And because I think extra weight could be putting into the feeling of the situation based on current environment and context. And so if there's really kind of a. You wake up and you have this kind of sense of dread about going to work that day, that's very different than the architecture around me isn't speaking to me in any way. Right. Like, those are two very different things. And I think both of those could be addressed. Like, I'm not, I'm not trying to minimize the way the person's feeling because you kind of, you do have to sit, you have to go inside and be like, okay, where is that feeling in me. And then, and then try to figure out why it's there. And I think the only way you can do that is have that really honest conversation with yourself. And the point isn't even to your point to say, start over, because maybe that's not an option. And so I think it could become an option at some point, but I don't think that's the immediate answer, which is like, go do something else completely.

[Cormac]

Yeah, well, I think, I think some of her friends, in fact, you know, one of the, the other student, she, she had thought that that was the course of action that she had to take is like, oh, you know, oh, my God, you just finished, you know, six years of school, you've got your master's degree now, and you know you're going to have to just start all over again. And I was like, not necessarily. I mean, there, there are so many things that, you know, a degree in architecture, you know, a multitude of different doors can be open, and it's just, you know, gaining experience, gaining, you know, and, and I told her, I was like, one of the great things about both in the profession, in school, going to, as we said a couple of episodes ago, when you go to these conferences and stuff and you, you meet a bunch of people and so you're building this network, I mean, you can network out and find other things. And of course, what some of the things that I told her is like, you got to listen to X podcasts and y podcasts. 1 x being troxel and Y actually being out of architecture and go and go and like, listen to these. Because there's a lot of people on your other podcasts that were in the profession that found a life outside of the direct profession that still are having impacts on the profession that you couldn't do if you were just a regular architect. It doesn't sound right, but anyway, just a regular architect. And then, and then there's others. There's like, okay, well, maybe, maybe you don't necessarily want to be in the AEC industry, but you've got this degree. What do you want? You know, what can you do?

[Evan]

Adjacent. There's so many adjacents, like real estate, like interior design. There's. There's a lot of, of options, I think, when it comes to working in and around the built environment, where you would be bringing that expertise that you got in school to a different point of view and, and you would actually be adding something there rather than being one of the same kind of points of view within that sphere of Influence.

[Cormac]

I asked them yesterday, and this is how I kind of got to some other, you know, kind of just pulling more information out of hers. Just like, were you ever. I was like, did. Did you ever ask yourself or were you asked? Because I've done this. I did this, you know, last semester with my younger students. I asked them, why architecture? It's like, this is not an easy profession, you know, this is not, you know, like something that you just choose, you know, randomly or something.

[Evan]

Oh, my gosh, dude. And then you got off a phone call yesterday with somebody who's been in it for a long time who is very disenfranchised. So, yeah, it's.

[Cormac]

Yeah.

[Evan]

Did ask those questions early.

[Cormac]

Oh, yeah. And ask the question. I mean, is, you know, is this the path you want to go on? And, you know, and it's actually, to be quite honest with you, this is probably the best time for her to be asking herself that question, you know,

[Evan]

like, you can have asked it before if you never asked it before. Right. So the next exact time is now.

[Cormac]

The next best time is now, you know, and. And I can say that, you know, there's plenty of. Plenty of times when people, you know, would say, why architecture? To me, and I'm just like, you know, how long do you have? You know, I can give you.

[Evan]

Part of it is. I mean, I could ask the questions like, well, like, like, what is it that. That really. So. So it started in school, but now, like, what's keeping it that way? Because it could be the people you work with. It could be the kinds of projects you're on. It could be the culture of the office. It could. There's variable upon variable here.

[Cormac]

Yeah, yeah. And all of that is, you know, the more and more I get into architecture, and the more and more I get exposed to things outside of and architecturally adjacent and stuff, the more and more it kind of just reaffirms that this is what I want to do, you know, But. But it is also one of those things that I sought out and looked after, looked towards, getting into, look forward to, getting into. Thrived when I was in school and felt like, you know, I've, you know, pretty well thrived one way, shape or form since I've been out. Now, that means that, you know, I've always been asking that question, and for somebody like her or even like your wife, that they asked the question or they hadn't asked the question, but then they got into the profession, said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not quite what I want to do.

[Evan]

And you know when, you know, when I felt that seriously, the last time I really felt this was during the. Are processing.

[Cormac]

Yeah.

[Evan]

Oh my God. It's like, it's not worth it. It's not worth it at that point for me. And I did it anyway.

[Cormac]

What was, what's funny though is like, think about when you took the Aras and take. Think about when I took the ARS and how far out of school we were when we actually finally got around to doing that. And then to say, oh man, should I really, should I really be doing this? Like, or do I want to really do this? You know, it just kind of, it, it was so. It struck me as is is an interesting just kind of like, you know, question to, to ask is like, you know, I mean really, in a way, I'd love to just ask everybody, why architecture? Because again, you know, like if, if you're. I always promised myself and I, I think I've told this story before. There was this guy when in my very, very first internship and I would come into work, you know, here I am, the internal bright eyed bush tailed, you know, like just, you know, here, let's go, you know, let's go into the world and create. This guy complained every single solitary day. It was explicative this, explicative that. I mean, I mean just everything, dude. It was just a bad attitude. And it wasn't like, look, I've had bad days or a bad project or a bad client where, you know, I may complain about it, but projects come and go, clients come and go. You know, just that bad day comes and goes and you just move on, you know, and it's just like, well, sometimes we ask ourselves, absolutely ask ourselves, why are we doing this? You know, why do I, why do I put myself through this?

[Evan]

And then there's because, because things are hard, right? Like life is hard, work is hard. And like, yeah, you, you are put in that position because it's not the ideal state.

[Cormac]

And so how many times do you and I then figure out a way to. Or a time or a place or whatever to say, oh yeah, this is why I do this. Whether it's a reaction from a client or you go into a building, you're like, oh my God, this is amazing.

[Evan]

Those are farther and fewer between though, right? Like, those are, those are the punctuation in the sentences.

[Cormac]

You know, I mean, to me, I also, I absolutely love going into, you know, the university and going to the architecture studio and just see all of these, the ambition and the drive and the love for Getting into some. The new challenge and seeing the looks on their face. And so I've got the new something to invigorate me in the teaching aspect of things. But yeah,

[Evan]

for a regular architect, that might be the next project or a new client or a pursuit or. And so I think there is kind of this striver, I think, for what's next and better and seeing the possibility. I really don't think you're going to thrive in architecture unless you're an optimist in that way. Yeah, I feel like true thriving like, like what the, the sense I'm getting from you and your attitude is, is through this striving for better. What. What's that next thing? What's the thing that's going to, that is really going to fuel me energetically so that I can look forward to whatever that is. But, but then there is a real calling out of the day to day. There are things that are just extremely challenging and difficult and, but also makes it worth it. Like when you accomplish through that accomplishment of doing those hard things.

[Cormac]

Right, right. You said striping. And then of course I just thought of, you know, the little Netflix formula. One thing I was just like, thriving to survive or thrive to survive.

[Evan]

You need a good tagline. We need marketing taglines to make it through.

[Cormac]

Yeah, there you go.

[Evan]

Well, okay, so just to go back to my better halves situation, she's never solved this issue. There's definitely things that she's passionate about that are outside of architecture. And there's also this very real, like, I spent a lot of money on this. I am in a lot of debt because of this decision. But like, the example you're sharing, didn't like it during school, like had a different idea of what it was versus the reality of what it was. Learned that through school. Stuck with it because she's not a quitter. And like, oh, just it actually zaps her energy. It actually sucks it out. It's like it leaves her lifeless in that way and she hasn't found a recipe for happiness in it at all and would rather do anything but this. Right. And so she's not doing it. So she's not doing it. And I also, I would also make the case that if I think you have to put in some due diligence into this to see. I really like your, your idea about the out of Architecture podcast and the community there because, because the education is so useful in so many other ways. And at the same time, like, you know, you put in that due diligence and literally, if you can't find any redeeming qualities. Do not do it. Do not put your life into a thing that sucks your energy and zaps you. Because how are you going to be a great contributing citizen if that's the state that you're in all the time?

[Cormac]

Because you know, I was thinking, and I was as, I was, you know, telling my wife this and, and we were talking about it. It's just like, you know, you, you do all of this and then you go into work every day and you absolutely hate it and you don't like what you're doing and stuff. You're obviously not doing any good for yourself. Good for the people well being. Yeah, but, but then there's that. Then there's. You're not doing good for the project, good for the client, good for the, the team around you. You know, I mean, you may come in and try to be as positive as possible, but you know that that feeling is going to leech out of you. And you know, the just like, I can't believe I'm still here. I can't believe I'm here.

[Evan]

Can we just talk about how important attitude is? And I am not just talking about architecture. I mean in all situations. There are so many times, especially recently as this has just become more and more apparent to me when I see a bad attitude. It literally, I hate to actually use even the literally word. It's, it's so overused. But it's like one of those things where it's like a guarantee every time.

[Cormac]

Yeah.

[Evan]

Oh, that just drained me dealing with that person in.

[Cormac]

Exactly.

[Evan]

It's a complete opposite when it's a

[Cormac]

good attitude, like their negative attitude. So I'll give you a couple of examples of just this. And, and I mentioned this to my kids every time. Let's just say we go through a drive through and we're ordering food and

[Evan]

the differences of a good somebody there is starting.

[Cormac]

Exactly. It's just like if you get, you know, if you like go through and you just have this like, it is like angry attitude that comes across the, the speaker and you just, you know, yeah, what do you want? And you know, whatever it is, what do you want? And then you go to another place and, and I'll say that, you know, I, I think it's company policy whether they. Chick fil A fighting through Chick fil A. I'm calling it that, you know, that they are positive and chipper and cheery and they think.

[Evan]

I wonder how much of, of the, the hiring process is based on attitude alone.

[Cormac]

You know, what in. But I always tell my kids, like, you got to understand, you choose the job. They didn't choose. I mean. I mean, yes, they hired you, they interviewed you, but, I mean, you choose the job. Just go. I mean, you. You chose to, you know, apply to this job, get this job, do this job. So do it as best as you can, you know, come in with a good attitude and just. Just do it. Even if you don't like it. You chose to do it. If you choose that you don't want to do it, then, you know, we're right back to where we, you know, started this conversation. Then, you know, it's your decision to figure out what to do next.

[Evan]

So in the studio, I have worked with people with a bad attitude and what I would call, like, just. There's a black rain cloud hovering over them, right? And so there's a shadow on my face right here that is contagious because it's like, okay, if I can get somebody else commiserating with me, okay, now it's two. And now it's just, yes, it does. It grows. It grows. And. And then it becomes like, well, this is the normal culture of the studio, which is at some point, it becomes. Everybody's complaining about stuff all the time. And it's amazing when either that is removed from the equation or we become very aware of it to make a change about it, how much things shift and how fast they shift in a different direction. Have you seen that in studios, too? Or even in school? Like, in school where you've got a bunch of students, and if you've got one like, I. I bet you can.

[Cormac]

So the. The studios. The studios that I've been involved with in school, they're. They're typically group projects. And. And that is, you know, this is their introduction to working in teams. And the first semester that I was working there, and I think a few fringes of the show that, you know, one of them I know for a fact listens will and. And teaches with me, will attest to the fact that it was a. It was a horrible semester. There were. So. There was. There were teams that worked great, and even if there was maybe one or two people within that team that wasn't terribly strong, they were, you know, the. The team kind of like, gathered around them to help them, and it was just a positive energy within the team. Then there were other teams that they were just fought like cats and dogs. And we're always arguing, and even in our reviews, when we would just sit down and talk about Architecture that, well, this was their idea and none of us really like it, and so we just let them go ahead and do it, but now we're stuck with this. And. And then it was just like. And then they just starts bickering back and forth. It's like, well, if you could do it, then you should have done it. But since nobody was doing it, I did it. You know, it was just this weird, like, negativity. And you just watch it, and you just watch it. And we tr. You know, in. No matter how much we tried to, like, teach through that or, you know, try to explain to them about, like, you know, teamwork within the profession and how even if you don't maybe have, like, the strongest of team members, keeping some. Keeping a positive energy around, it is. It's. You definitely get used to it. I think we can. We can safely say no one is going to be as good as you are on a pro. In your mind.

[Evan]

In your mind.

[Cormac]

Just please. Oh, I can't believe they did that. I wouldn't have done that. I mean, how many times is everybody. Everybody said that about somebody else when they're doing group work or stuff in. In. Instead of using it as an ex, you know, a learning opportunity to say, okay, they may not know exactly everything that I want, you know, that I need them to know. Okay, this opportunity to teach them or, yeah, they don't do it the way that I do it. Okay, well, if you want a certain outcome, guess what you got to do. You've got to teach them. I mean, it's all of these opportunities to mentor, to help people grow, to, you know, or maybe just maybe put down your ego for a little while and say, okay, this is the way that I wanted it to be done, but I see that you're doing it this way. And you know what? It's not a bad way to do it. And it might be easier, you know, learn something from somebody else.

[Evan]

I'm almost certain that an ego has never helped a situation ever.

[Cormac]

Almost certain almost every condition.

[Evan]

What's. What's the saying? The saying is like, you're only as smart as, like, your. Your five closest, you know, confidants, friends, whatever you want to say, you know, it's. Be careful who you surround yourself with. And in a way that the thing that I think that starts to point to, which is not this, not a new idea, is that you want to be the dumbest one in the room. You. You don't want to be the smart seen as even the smartest one in the room. Because then what are you, what do you have to learn? And so if you're going into a situation where, okay, I'm going to surround my people with, with something I strive to become in some way, there's some characteristic or some trait in that situation. And so when you're looking for a job or you're looking for a team, or when you're trying to assemble that team to do accomplish a certain task, that's what you want to strive for. If at all possible, you don't always have control over that, but you then need to look for those opportunities in that situation to be the one who is willing to always be learning and never the person that says, I've got all the answers. I mean, that's one of the things about being an architect that I think really shifted for me at some point, which was, I think at some level clients expect you to have a lot of answers.

[Cormac]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Evan]

But at the same time you have to be willing to say, I don't know, I'm going to find out.

[Cormac]

Right.

[Evan]

And I think that applies on the day to day in your work team as well, or in your school team.

[Cormac]

Now how hard is that for an architect though? It's really hard. In your experience.

[Evan]

Well, you've been trained. Yeah, you have been trained to do it all yourself and to have all the answers and the justifications and the reasons and the. Yeah, for sure it is hard.

[Cormac]

You know, it's like, have you thought about this? Of course I have. Or do you know this? Of course I do.

[Evan]

I'm gonna make something up right now.

[Cormac]

Or, or can you do this? Of course I can. You know, and it's, I mean, there's

[Evan]

positive, there's, there's positive traits to that too. There's positive outcomes to that. Like, oh, can you do this? I've never done that before. But yeah, I'm willing to try. Right. And being honest. But I, but part of it is really being self aware and saying, oh yeah, yeah. Like, is this ego really serving me?

[Cormac]

Right.

[Evan]

Or is it just pissing people off and making me look like an A hole? You know, I, yeah, that's more often

[Cormac]

the case in, in you were talking about developing a team and would you look for, I mean, everybody, including the project managers or the project executive or whoever is the leadership of the project. Everybody should be coming into that as an eager sponge. If I can get it out, you know, it's everybody's one. What is the opportunity that we have in front of us? What can we all Learn together. I'm always asking people at the beginning of a project, what do you want to get out of this project? What do you personally want to get out of this project? You know, some people, they're early in their career and they want to learn, you know, hey, I'd like to learn exterior detailing. Or I may have, you know, I, I've never done, you know, program planning before. And so, you know, I want to kind of maybe work with the, the program and see how that all lays out and all of that other stuff and learn how to mean the schedule.

[Evan]

Cormac,

[Cormac]

I see what you did. Well done. But I mean, and so, you know, you've got, you know, you, like, everybody should have, like, an opportunity to grow in the project. You know, in. In it should also be. It's like, okay, well, project manager says, these are the, the basic things that we need to get, you know, done in this project for this project to be a success. But even that project manager should be looking at an opportunity to either improve the workflow or improve the way that, you know, or whatever.

[Evan]

But let's talk about the reality here. Let's talk about the reality.

[Cormac]

Why do you gotta do that?

[Evan]

Inside baseball time. Cormac, what do you do when you send somebody an assignment of accomplishing a certain task on a project? Let's just say it's a detail or something. And, and it comes back not at all like you would expect maybe somebody of their level to have been able to achieve. Maybe they didn't ask any questions. And there's a. There's a lot of what you see is a teaching opportunity or at least, you know, a mentorship opportunity, and you don't have time to do it. Like, okay, so, so what goes through your mind at that moment? Because I want to talk about the realities of working.

[Cormac]

I'm going to go and I'm going to tell you what goes through my mouth. Forget my mom because. Because I've learned. I seriously have learned through so much trial and error that when I'm assigning somebody a task, they may have never done it before, or they may have, you know, they may be a master at it. I hate that I ask is like, do you understand what I'm asking you to do? Or can you summarize what I'm asking you to do? I was just like, but please understand, if you've never done it before, this is the time to ask how we accomplish it, what, you know, the expectations are. You know, do you need me to go through? Do you need me to show you examples. Do I, do you just. Can you do it with maybe me giving you examples? I'll, I will try to set them up for success first and not try to set them up for failure. I, I've done the opposite. I've.

[Evan]

You're not, you're not just throwing them in the deep end and saying, I learned the opposite.

[Cormac]

And you, you know, you know, you've heard me say, it's like when, when somebody assigns somebody a task and they have a desired outcome of what that task should be. I mean, I've heard so many times, well, you know, I mean, they're 15 years in their career, they should know what to do. But I've seen people who are 15 years in their career who know exactly what to do and then they do it the way that they think is the right way to do it and then still get chewed out for not doing it the way the expectation was. And, and I would, and then I asked that person with, you know, the so called, you know, like the anger from the expectation, he was like, did you explain to them exactly what you wanted to say? Well, no, they, they should have known. You know, I was like, no, no, they knew how to do the job exactly the way that they've done it before in the past. And in what I see they've done is right. It's just not the way you wanted it.

[Evan]

So if you want super common.

[Cormac]

Super common. So if you want it. Oh, absolutely. So I was like, so if you want it done the way you need it done, either you do it yourself or you tell them how you want it done or how you would do it so that it gets to, you know, it meets that expectation. Otherwise, if it is done and it is correct and it meets, like, you know, let's just say the, you know, it's a warranty detail, you know, warrantable detail and all of that other stuff. What's the problem now?

[Evan]

What happens when you give that assignment and you set them up for success and then it still comes back as crap because. Not, not because they didn't ask. Well, yeah, because they didn't ask you because they said, I've got it.

[Cormac]

I had that, I had that, that very issue with a junior, you know, emerging professional. And he, he would always, he was very uncomfortable with feeling like he didn't know what he was doing and also was, you know, just, he, he didn't like that other people thought he didn't know what he was doing. And so when they would assign him a task and they said, well, you know, let's give you a deadline of, you know, a, a week to get this stuff done. And then after the end of the week, you know, let's, let's get together. Or in, in my case, it was just like, you know, okay, you know, I've got this, this, this, and do I need you to do this, this, this and this. Do you understand? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got, I've got it. I, I know what I'm doing. Okay. And then come back. Oh, you don't know what you're doing. And there was a couple of times where, you know, I just kind of like, let it pass. I was like, okay, well, you know, I'll, I'll either fix the detail or I'll have somebody else fix the detail. And then, you know, look for an opportunity to maybe like, you know, pulling back a little bit and stuff. And then. But on the one project, you know, my overseas project that was just so fast tracked sometimes I couldn't, I couldn't come back and check all the time. And so there was a lot of times where there's a little bit of frustration, festering and all that other stuff. And I, and I decided, I'm like, look, you know, this isn't the right way to be treating this guy. This is not the right way to teach this guy. And like, let's have the conversation with him. Like, look, I don't care if you don't know what you're doing. In fact, I expect you to not know what you're doing. What I expect you to do is ask if you need help and recognize that you need help and feel confident in being able to ask the question and not feel like you're going to get berated or, you know, treated poorly because you don't know the task that you were given. That was, to be quite honest with you, that was like the turning point for both me and, and most certainly for him. Me as in understand that when you assign something, no, not everybody understands what you're asking them to do. Make sure that you, you know, are, you know, you have that conversation with them. Be there for the support regardless of how, you know, crazy the schedule is and everything else. You know, it is your job. At the end of the day, it is your responsibility to make sure it's all done right. And if you're tasking somebody else to do something, you gotta make sure that they can do it right. And the only way that they can do it right if they've never done it before is do you Use that as a teaching and mentoring opportunity to teach them how to do it. So, trust me, I've lived through it. I've experienced it on my own. You know, on my own. The thing that I loved about one of my very first employers, in fact, actually the very first employer after graduation, he would. He basically, I would say, you know, hey, Mike, can you, you know, can you show me how to do this detail? He's like. He's like, you got a lot of books around you, you know, graphic standards. You got, you know, the suites, catalogs, and you've got all these different manufacturing details. Try to pull together the detail as best as you can and then bring it down to me and, you know, we'll. We'll walk through it together. And rather than him just, like, going off on the handle and saying, oh, my God, Cormac, this is absolutely the worst thing that I've ever seen. Why did you draw it this way? You know, this is trash. He basically said, okay, you know, here's. Here's where, you know, you went wrong. Here's where this detail does this. Here's where the waterproofing does this. And this is why, you know, this is to do this. And had the patience to sit down and teach me how to, like, go through all these things and learn from my mistakes and learn. And really remember, how we always talk about is like, what does that one line mean? You know, that line means something when you draw it. You know, he took the time to actually sit down and say, this line. This shows the waterproofing. If you put this line here, then, you know, here's the path of the water, and it's getting into the building, and now your wall is leaking. But if you put that line here, guess what? It's keeping the water out. You know, and it's just the simple little things like that. Just show them. You're like, oh, okay.

[Evan]

Don't you feel, though, like the profession used to have more opportunities for that kind of thing to happen? And it just.

[Cormac]

It.

[Evan]

I hate to say, like, this happened to us because on some level, we're responsible as well, right?

[Cormac]

Yeah, yeah.

[Evan]

Or more than half of the percentages. But the thing that is hard to come by nowadays is the time to do that, let alone the attitude and the willingness to do it, but the time.

[Cormac]

Well, one of the things that I heard, and this is, you know, this could be like the old timer comment and stuff, but one of the old timers, in fact, you know, that boss wisdom. Well, you know, so Mike came up to Me. And he was just like, one of the things that I really don't like about, you know, this switch from hand wrapped into CAD is, is like when you had, when you were hand drafting, I saw everything that you were working on on your table. I could walk up and take a look at it and we could be able to like sit there and look together at everything that you're working on. He goes, right now everybody's zoomed into one little thing and I'm just seeing like a bunch of little lines and stuff like that contact. And then I say, you know, like, hey, let's zoom out and all that other stuff. So we don't really get a chance to see the same, the same things that we used to see all the time, you know, and so we're so like, you know, in this, like, you know, blinders on tunnel vision, staring right at like the little things that we don't really know do. How much do we take in, take time to first ourselves zoom in and zoom out, you know, see the Mac review and the MIC review and then keep going back and forth with that, but then also have other people to look at the Mac review of the micro view together and say, oh, oh, oh, hold on. You know, I just noticed that this was, you know, doing this and what it really needs to do is this. And you know, so like, there's not even that like, level of kind of communication because we're in such a rush to get things done that like, you know, even the simple qaing of your own work sometimes, you know, falls by the wayside.

[Evan]

Yeah, you're talking literally about coordination.

[Cormac]

Right, right, right.

[Evan]

And. And coordination is a macro job and it's a micro job. And exactly when you are coordinating conditions on a project on a detail sheet to a wall section to a detail, it's like, well, you gotta take all that into account. And here's a huge issue with BIM is coordination is done much more for you, right? Well, coordination is difficult. Like, let's be honest, there's been a lot of things that have gotten missed because you moved a thing over here in the elevation and then nothing else updated automatically. You had to go back with your eraser shield and your pencil and redraw. And that now is solved. And it's solved at various levels, but not all of them. Right. And so it's actually made us, unintended consequence, lazy in that regard. Which is same thing we're seeing nowadays with AI and LLMs, right? Which is accepting the output as it's probably Fine. Right. It's not something I'm going to spend time checking because it's probably fine. And I'm just saying, like, this has happened slowly over time.

[Cormac]

I'll give you this weird little example that I just saw yesterday on that construction tour that I was telling you about. So we're. We're standing outside, the project manager from the architectures architect side, as well as, you know, somebody from the contracting team. They were out there and they were talking about all those projects and stuff. And I was. I'm typically always in the back anyway because apparently I've got facial expressions that, you know, I can't hide things.

[Evan]

You can't be front and center.

[Cormac]

I can't be friends.

[Evan]

You've said too much with that facial expression.

[Cormac]

Exactly. And so I'm sitting in the back and there, you know, it was. Happened to be talking to this. This one guy that I had met yesterday. And he was. He saw this look on my face. He's just like, what are you thinking? Or he was like, what do you think? And I'm like. I was like, I don't know if I can give you this, you know, this big grand assessment of everything, because I'm hyper focused on that, you know, fire department connection right there. And he, like, looks over. He's like, what about it? And so there was this one little facade, and it had these three recessed panels of brick inside. You know, so, like, the whole thing was brick. And then there was like, let's just say two courses of brick that were proud. And then two inches back was, you know, a series of two. Two courses that were, you know, recessed, and then, you know, then two courses, and then two courses recessed and then two courses proud. And. And so. But the thing was, is that the. The fire department connection was straddling both of them. Oh. And so there was this big gap.

[Evan]

Did they literally say, what about it?

[Cormac]

They did say. They. They said, well, what about it? And I'm just. And then I'm like, they could have chose a surface to. To be on.

[Evan]

Yeah.

[Cormac]

Like, do they want to be on the proud surface or the recess surface?

[Evan]

I like how you're giving that the option to the fire, to the connection itself, not the person. Yeah.

[Cormac]

And I. And I was. It wanted to be somewhere other than where it is right now. And I was just like, I'm just so now hyper focused on that. I was just like, now, you know, so wrong. And before we walked in there, I was just like, you know, now I have low expectations, you know, because that just, that one little detail is just like. Are you serious? Seriously, you put that, like, you've, you've gone through this effort of articulating that brick facade, and now you've got this, this one, like, missed coordination item of a fire department connection that literally now looks so out of place.

[Evan]

Yeah.

[Cormac]

And. And then, you know, me, you, you, you definitely to me. So I'm sitting here standing there. It unraveled from there because now I'm looking at, like, they've got these two different, you know, alucobond surfaces. And so they've, you know, they've got a whole bunch of panel joints coming together, and some of the panel joints are aligning and some of them are way off. And it doesn't. It is not a mistake or. It wasn't a design decision or something like that. Sorry. It wasn't a design decision. It was a mistake. It was just the fact that they, they missed the coordinating of all of these things because then you try to like, align those joint with say, your mullions and your windows or the handrails up above. And then like, the big panel design kind of just keeps pushing off. And. And it was just like, you know, these are the things, the things that, you know, as we're talking about that you zoom out, you zoom back in, you zoom out. You're like, okay, are these lines exactly where I want them to be? Do I. Am. Am I purposeful in the fact that the other lines are just below it in another panel very similar to it is now completely way off.

[Evan]

You know, so the thing is, it's like at some level, people are thinking this stuff will take care of itself.

[Cormac]

Right. And. But you don't, you know, like, what you should be, you shouldn't be expecting is the contractor to be able to. But we used to make a design decision. Yeah, we used to be able to

[Evan]

at least know that we were going to have a conversation about it.

[Cormac]

Dave Pruding, you know, he would, he would, he would have. He would at least ask the question, funny enough. So fast forward to today. I had, you know, my contractor for the building in Baltimore, he had texted me a picture, and he's just like, the drawings show for this light to be here, but every other one of your fixtures, you know, your card reader and your strobe and everything else are all aligned. Do you want the like to be shown where it is on the drawings, or do you want it to be aligned with everything else? And so he sent me a photograph, and I'm like, I want it aligned. Thank you for asking. And, you know, that was the. That was the symbiotic relationship that we had because, you know, he was like, yeah, I know you don't really want it there. It looks at me. Even to me, it looks.

[Evan]

Another set of eyes and another set of eyes question in the. In real time just solves that issue.

[Cormac]

Exactly.

[Evan]

So, okay, so how does this all relate to the initial question with. With the. The emerging professional who's.

[Cormac]

Well, so. So in a way, you know, I. I even asked her. I was just like, if design isn't your thing, do you think maybe, you know, like, coordination or management or specifications or, you know, or even marketing or. Or some of the things that are within that. That you can find a niche to specialize in certain aspects of the project delivery? Does any of that interest you, you know, above and beyond, you know, just like, you know, okay, if design doesn't really interest you or, you know, like, what is there any.

[Evan]

That person is. Is. That's. Their role is.

[Cormac]

Well, I mean, they're. To be quite honest with you, they're, you know, they're so new in the career that, you know, as you can imagine, what they're being, you know, tasked with is just, you know, either, you know, grunt work or maybe they're doing something. It's like, oh, you were really good at Photoshop. Hey, we want you to do some Photoshop. Or, you know, ooh, you know, indesign. Hey, we've got a report for you to help, you know, pull together. Yeah, and so, like, that doesn't give you the broad stroke of, like, what architecture is. And that's why I think, in a way, you know, we do ourselves such an injustice when we immediately pull a. A recent graduate who may or may not have had some internship, you know, opportunities during school to just, like, immediately throw them into, hey, you're gonna be doing toilet roll, you know, toilet room details, and that's gonna be your role for the next, you know, couple of months on this project. Instead of taking the opportunity to say, let's introduce you to architecture. Let me, you know, like, one of my favorite things to do when I, you know, had the opportunity to was, hey, you're new to the profession. Hey, you know, you're new to this firm. Let's. Let's go and take you out onto the job site. Let's, like, look at what it is that we're trying to achieve when we start assigning you, you know, the task to draw those toilet room plans or, you know, do these different details or, you know, start drawing on a project that you don't even know anything about what it is that we're asking you to do. Let's go take a look at the effects of it all. Like, let's look at a, you know, a poorly, you know, detailed, you know, or poorly placed FDC and why it matters for you to pay attention and all of these other things and just teach them the importance of what it is that we're doing. Because again, you know, like, if we're. And you've heard me say this so often, it's just like when the default response to a problem in the way that they've done something is that's the way Revit draws it. It's because they don't understand the systems that they're putting together. And so the workaround of like, you know, knowing what the system's supposed to look like so that when Revit draws it wrong, say, it doesn't join a corner or something like that, and you know that that's wrong, but you just leave it that way because you don't know anything any different. But if you know what the systems are supposed to do because you've seen it in practice, you've gone out on site, you know, you've been exposed to, you know, construction site, you've been exposed to, like, you know, the way a good, you know, successful design and, you know, bad design come together and stuff, and you sort of understand the materiality of things. When you actually draw it and Revit can't close the corner, you're like, you know what? I got to fix this. Because I know that that's not what a corner actually does. But when you default back to it and say, this is what Revit does, it's because we didn't do enough to educate that person into knowing what it's supposed to actually look like, what it's

[Evan]

supposed to actually do, or how to do it, but.

[Cormac]

But. Or how to do it.

[Evan]

But I really feel like the, the big picture here is like finding meaning in architecture or elsewhere. That's true too, because if you're not fulfilled, it's. It is 100% based on the context that you're operating within. Now, there's two sides to that. There's the external context and there's the internal context. Okay, so the internal context we spoke a little bit about with attitude, direction, it can be boiled down to just a very small number of things, right? It's like, how are you approaching the day and where do you want to go? How are you letting people know about that? How are you accomplishing, taking steps to get there? But that external one, I think you have more control over that than you might think. Meaning you can change it if it's, if it absolutely is out of your control and it's having that big of an impact on you because you have to have some control over your environment and feel like you are making progress. And so that has to do with the people, it has to do with the tools, it has to do with the resources, it has to do with all kinds of things, right? So you have to take an honest assessment because what you want to do is you want to be able to align two things so that you figure out where your meaning in this world is. And then you will find happiness through pursuing that meaning. It's not the other way around. You don't, you don't operate at a happiness level and the meaning happens by itself. Like, you, you literally have to find it. And so that introspection to me, by looking at the data, okay, what's going on inside of here? What's going on on the outside? What changes can I make to both of those? To. It might have to do with, okay, maybe you need to exercise more, maybe you need to eat differently, maybe you need to go to bed earlier, maybe you need to find a job that's closer to you. Like, there's all kinds of little things you can do. And I feel like, man, if you, because you may or may not find that in this profession, and I don't care if you went to school for it or not. You don't have to do it. You don't have to do it. No one's making you do it and no one's going to change it for you. So, like, put on your adult pants and let's, let's make things happen, right? Like, you've got to be responsible for your own self and not be a victim of, of this thing, because complaining about it isn't going to get you anywhere. You got to do something about it.

[Cormac]

I don't know if I've ever told you the advice that I usually give to all of the young architects that ever have ever worked with me. And it, it's basically something that you and I do all the time. Like, you know, the, the advice that we give all the time on here, and you just said it, but I summarize it a slightly different way, and it's, you control your own career. You control what happens to you and your career. Don't let anybody else control, you know, your career.

[Evan]

Don't. Because that power to somebody else, if,

[Cormac]

if you, if you let somebody else dictate your career, you're never going to be happy in what you're doing in your life. It's, it's exactly what you just said. So I can't really. Some, I mean, the, the, the quick summarization of what you just said, you know, but I just want to put that to the side and say, you know, rewind this for a few seconds. Repeat, you know, like, re. Listen to what Evan just said. Because that actually is the point of this is like, you know, if you're in this profession and you don't really like it or you don't like something about it, it's you who has the opportunity and the responsibility to change it for yourself. And it's, you know, if it's going through, you know, maybe it's a health thing, maybe it's an environment thing, maybe it's. This just isn't the right thing, you know, then it's you, not anybody else. Don't let anybody else dictate your career. Dictate it for yourself. That's the only way you're going to be happy.

[Evan]

Yeah, and I, and I, I will go back to. Because you're an emerging professional, like, really try to find that here, unless you absolutely don't think it's worth it. Right. But, but to Cormac's point earlier, like, there's a lot of things that you could do a lot. And in the profession, adjacent to the profession, outside of the profession, I think that there's plenty of opportunity out there. But, yeah, you're the person who has to figure it out.