To an idealist, I recommend based upon what I've experienced, to study to be an architect.

Architecture is an interdisciplinary field which requires both the textbook knowledge and the hands-on practical experience. If you are good at only one side of it, you end up becoming a skilled hand building house or an architectural critic who has to constantly appreciate other's works, but not your own. Communication and coordination is also the essential part of architect's job.

What an architect is doing is always consists of man and nature (or surroundings), the two most important elements of our existence, and no other profession does that. One can't emphasize one over the other, which all other professions does.

Maturity comes only after working in the hands-on field quite some time. Before that you should acquire textbook-based knowledge.

You have a suspicion that onle few architects practice that way? I said earlier that I recommend to an idealist to live through the platonic way. What I saw is if any architect practice the way as I described, he can't be famous, successful or making a living enough as an architect. It's the sad reality of living a mundane world, but it will satisfy your ego and idealism.

Although he might be labeled as mediocre, incompetent, and constantly complaining of other's building designs, you can be stimulated learning his design process of human dwellings and his surroundings, which might not be readily appreciated by most people. (Feb-20-98)