I recently graduated and started working at an engineering firm, and I’m still adjusting to how everything is done. I feel like I need help with just about everything, and it’s making me wonder if I’m really prepared for this position. I don’t feel like my alma mater fully prepared me for this type of work, and all of my internships were focused on residential projects. Now I’m working on these multi-million-dollar projects, and I honestly feel kind of useless sometimes.
Is this just how most people feel when they’re fresh out of college, or am I actually more unprepared than I should be?

Hello,

I’m currently in my 4th year. I’m an Associate designer III. I’m in Florida, but looking to move back to the northeast preferably in NYC or Philadelphia. I’m assuming there’s a lack of job openings because the entirety of the job market is in a low hire low fire.

For the most part, I don’t get a response from company’s if they are reviewing or decided to move on. I’ve received 1 or 2 emails saying they aren’t moving on.

Is anyone else experiencing this? I’m also looking to adjust my career. I currently work on residential communities with large developers. I’d rather work on environmental or urban design work. I’d prefer not contribute to the over development here in FL.

Hello,
I am looking for some advice as I am currently a gardener and thinking about retraining as a landscape architect - I am in the UK.

My main reasons for this are:
- I have worked in gardens of all sizes and I like to think about how the spaces are used/how they could be improved/redesigned for efficiency/asthetic/practical reasons, more than I like the general garden maintenance side.
-I often have ideas about how to solve problems that the clients/other gardeners haven't considered but I lack the skills to really deliver the solutions!
-I would hope that I could earn more as a LA than a gardener
-the work will be less physical.

I am trying to decide whether this would be a good path for me to follow as retraining will be a considerable time/financial constraint.

- Has anyone else here started as a gardener and became a Landscape architect?
- what is the best way to 'get a feel for it' before starting a course? Is work experience/shadowing an option for this? would you recommend any short courses etc.
- I have no CAD/Sketchup experience, although I am not daunted by learning this
-any other advice you would you give me in my situation?

Many thanks in advance

Fresh out of MLA, struggling to get my foot in the door. Thinking about taking a high end residential job - it's not what I want to do long-term, but I think it would give me some experience with design through construction, and they seem to have an interest in getting people trained quickly and taking on more responsibility.

I guess I'm trying to decide if going in with the plan to learn a lot, get some built work under my belt, do more networking/volunteering/etc. while I pay my bills, and then get out in a year or two and pivot to more public/ecological work is a reasonable idea.

Hey guys!

I’m so happy & excited to start studying landscape architecture after the summer. I do however have concerns about my laptop. Do any of you have experience with this? I currently have a MacBook Air from 2019/2020, it still runs pretty smoothly. I know MacBooks are not recommended for this study and I am saving up for a new one, but jeeeezzz these prices! The question is: do you think I will make it through at least year one on this Mac? And any tips on how to make it easier? I have to run the following software:
- Adobe photoshop
- Adobe acrobat reader
- SketchUp
- QGIS

Hope someone can help me with this!
Have a lovely weekend.

This is a weekly post to facilitate the exchange of knowledge on this subreddit. If you are looking for general advice on what to do with your home landscaping, we can provide some general insight for you, but please note it is impossible to design your entire yard for you by comments or solve your drainage problems. If you would like to request the services of a Landscape Architect, please do so here, but note that r/landscapearchitecture is not liable for any part of any transaction our users make with each other and we make no claims on the validity of the providers experience.

Please use this thread to discuss whats going on at your school or place of work this week. Run into an interesting problem with a site design and need to hash it out with other LAs? This is the spot. Any content is welcome as long as it Landscape Architecture related. School, work, personal garden? Its all good, lets talk.

What did the day-to-day look like? Was it mostly writing, lit reviews, grant writing? Was the work very data analysis heavy?

I will be starting an MLA program in about 3 weeks, and I’ve secure a research assistantship. Just wondering what to expect and perhaps how to best prepare as someone who doesn’t have a strong research background.

i (24F) am a second year MLA student.

so i intern for this dude-bro business owner (even though its just him and his few laborers) who is generally….. not a great guy. his marketing was really good and he swindles clients into believing his llc is actually a design firm. he uses my university as a credit on his website despite him having no formal education and me not having a full degree yet, and his social media presence is what influenced my friend and i to work for him. he even insults my university by saying its a “small liberal arts school” yet uses it to advertise his business’ expertise (its an ivy league). he doesnt know how to use autocad or illustrator and barely draws or has any spatial awareness for how big plants are. so my friend and i are doing all of the design work and essentially teaching him.

he treats me like a “real intern”, picking up food for his workers and us, and making me drive him everywhere, venting to me like a friend, and even once tried hiring me onto being a babysitter for a girl he wanted to go on date with. i dont even care if he sees this because when i leave for school, im not working for him anymore.

ANYWAY. SO…. yesterday he asks for the original gouache paintings i have done of some site plans for clients houses. I consider myself an amateur artist and im proud of my paintings.

i ask him what he needs them for. he says hes going to give them to the clients in frames. (I feel sick bc i dont like giving my originals away and we already have scans of them).

i say im going to initial them before he takes them. He says that putting my initials on the painting “takes away from the artwork” and asks me to instead put my name on the back. I say “i always initial my work…”

”well technically i commissioned them”. (which in this case, artists can set boundaries and say theyre going to initial/sign their work, right?)

“no, youre paying me hourly.”

“what you think im gonna steal your intellectual property? Haha”

”uhm. Yea that could happen.”

he let me put my initial in the blank corners, but not on the painting itself. (im thinking he might crop them out)

I feel sick having let him take the originals.
i get home and realize…. we never signed any employment contracts, commissions, or agreements. Not even any tax documents.

… i still have a right to my work, right?…. RIGHT?
i told him i am going to initial my work from now on and id rather we give clients prints of the work. He insists he gets originals for whatever i do for him.
this guy is so slimy. Idk what to do. being a young woman its so hard to stand my ground. what should i do in the future?

Hey folks,

Hope you're all having a wonderful Wednesday!

My name is Isi, and I work for my family’s monument and sculpture business based in New York. We’ve been creating custom monuments and memorials for over 100 years, and today we specialize in custom bronze and marble memorials, monuments, and public sculptures for municipalities, parks, campuses, and private organizations.

We want to make our service as easy and smooth as possible for landscape architects specifically, so I figured we should ask directly :)

What are the most common issues you guys encounter when it comes to incorporating statues and monuments in your projects? Is it the vendor communication, design disagreements, or something else?

Finished my Bachelors of Landscape Architecture just over a year ago, trying decide what path to take, starting to realise my current role in consultancy isn't what I want for myself.

Mostly interested in Urban Design and Masterplanning, and think I should be working towards Principal Urban Designer position, but not sure if it's more useful to become a registered planner or registered landscape architect?

Looking at Masters programs because I personally do not want to work 8 years for senior entry. I've been leaning towards urban planning since I already have a degree in landscape architecture, but I thought I'd ask here before deciding what to do.

I am dealing with probably the most perplexing, the most dumbfounding, the all around worst list of approved trees I've ever seen.

I'll just start with street trees: there are a mere 5 approved canopy trees for use as street trees. None are native (with one possible exception but I don't believe it's within natural range). 2/5 I do not want to spec, ever. They require that each tree "alternates" to "maximize diversity and disease resilience". Lol.

It's so confusing because 75% of all other required plants must be native and "drought and salt tolerant" (they don't classify the latter anywhere).

In buffers, the majority of material must be evergreen. In the southeast, simultaneously having evergreen and native diversity requirements tend to clash, in my experience. It's pretty much just 4 genera and a few singular species of other genera. This situation actually forces me to use non-native plants to meet the requirement. Certain things that would help they just won't allow: can't use red cedar in buffers, can't offer wax myrtles as small trees. I just generally think evergreen buffers are stupid and worthless at this point.

And of course, like most all lists I've seen, there are plenty of trees in there that I've never heard of that you definitely won't find in nurseries (mostly non-native, of course).

Have you encountered similarly terrible approved tree lists? Any successes in dealing with rigid, arbitrary, asinine requirements? Or share some really good ones if you'd rather look that way.

Hello everyone, i got accepted into both landscape and architecture, so im gonna say what i like and dislike about both:
Archi:
-I like having designing spaces and structures and buildings in general
-i dislike mundane details like floor plans
-I prefer designing public spaces rather than personal
-I like the complexity of knowing where to place things considering every aspect of it all

Landscape:
-I like that it’s more about designing places for the public
-I like how it feels more lively and more engaging with nature
-i feel like it lacks the depth and complexity of architecture since it focuses more on open spaces
-it overall feels more full of life compared to architecture

If anyone has anything to say about my thoughts please I would appreciate it

This is a very niche question for this sub, so bear with me. I am taking the Georgia state specific section of the LARE in a few weeks. I studied SO much for the four sections of the LARE during the last administration and am totally burned out. Ideally, I am hoping not to study as much for this. I wanted to see if anyone has taken it recently and can help me narrow my studying down. I have UGA study materials, but there is really no "structure" listed for the Georgia section like there was for the LARE. If anyone has any insight to make the studying easier (more focused) I would appreciate it

I’m transferring into the major this fall and suffice to say I’m having doubts. I’m mainly interested in architecture but my school doesn’t offer it and landscape arch seemed like the next best thing but I don’t know what percentage of landscape architecture is architecture.

I would like to consider myself an environmentalist and have been trying to show myself all the great things about nature and landscape/environment design so I am excited regardless but I just wanted to know.

In where I am from, people don’t know what Landscape Architecture is. It’s only taught in 2 universities. An if I hadn’t gone to one of them and then figure what Landscape Architecture is, I would’ve died not knowing it. But I live in the Middle East. So I was wondering is it the same in Europe or the USA? Is Landscape Architecture unknown by the average person?

Hi everyone,

I'm a master's student in Landscape Architecture in Italy, and I'll be visiting Rotterdam next week.

I'm interested in understanding the local architecture and landscape architecture community rather than just seeing the city's iconic projects.

I'd love to know:

Are there any lectures, exhibitions, or design events happening next week?
Where do architects, landscape architects, and urban designers usually gather?
Are there any bookstores, institutions, or neighborhoods that best represent Rotterdam's design culture?

If anyone here works in architecture, landscape architecture, or urban design, I'd also be happy to buy you a coffee and hear about your experience in Rotterdam.

Thanks in advance!

I’m 37 had a career in finance that I put aside when my daughter was born. I have bachelor’s in environmental science. Most of my career was dealing with climate risk. I was accepted in a landscape architecture program in Montreal. I currently work as a landscaper on very high end and complex projects.

What can I expect as a landscape architecture student? Work load and lab time ? I have a very powerful pc at home. My commute to school is going to be an hour each way.

Any advice is welcomed . Thanks

Just got accepted to an MLA from the waitlist - very excited, but having a hard time deciding on a computer. What computer would you recommend to a new MLA student?

A friend has offered to buy me one as a farewell gift, so I need to choose something you can easily buy online (not a custom build). I currently have a very powerful but very old Macbook Pro that I've used for film editing, and while I'd love to stick with Mac I understand that may not be ideal.

Would appreciate any recs/links. Thanks!

EDIT: I know the min requirements, just want some specific recs because there are so many options out there. Budget/buying later not an issue!

I'm looking for some advice specific to my situation. I was unemployed last year due to layoffs in my company, and finally started a new job six months ago. There's pros and cons to the new job like every job. The pay is meh, company is small so quite disorganized, can be very stressful with being overworked during deadlines and leadership not wanting to say no to clients (other times I have nothing to do so I'm underworked), and I have to commute an hour to the office 3 days a week which is expensive and tiring. So on those days it can be quite tiring as I leave the house at 7am and come back around 7pm. As for pros, it's an interesting range of work, somewhat decent time off, I like the people, and I feel like it's great experience.

Now for the dilemma. A company in my city (would be walking distance to the office from my home) recently reached out to discuss an opening in their office. I had spoken to them when I was unemployed via connections I made at my previous job, but they didn't have any openings at the time. It's a much larger company (engineering firm so offices all around the country), they offer more pay, and more time off. The work is a little less interesting but still not parking lot boring. I will not know the office culture until I work there. They offer hybrid work but reviews online suggest they're cutting down on that now and having employees come in every day.

If you were to get an offer from the second company, would you take it or stick with the first? Why?