On Monday, Nov. 18, Jim Miller, a landscape architect, came to speak to students about his career for the Career Spotlight series.
Landscape Architecture by definition is ” the design of outdoor public area, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes.” Landscape Architecture also includes urban design, site planning, and storm water management.
To be a landscape architect, students must consider these education choices: trigonometry, computer graphics, environmental sciences, horticulture, and calculus.
Mr. Miller says the field requires a lot from people specifically, time commitment, public speaking, organization skills, creativity/vision, travel, outdoor/indoor work, and teamwork.
Mr. Miller also says much of his background was designing athletic facilities and designs for planning playgrounds, but his career has not restricted him to just that. He has designed golf courses, parking lots, trails, and has helped the design for Bethel Park High School.
Mr. Miller said, “Construction is great, but you run into a lot of little snags along the way.”
During the presentation, Mr. Miller said that the annual salary for a landscape architect is about 40,000 to 50,000 dollars a year, but it all depends on where you work.
Mr. Miller said, “The reason I started this career is because there is so much you can do!”
His favorite part about the job is interacting with people and seeing them use the facility that he designed and created.
Even though he loves his job, there are some downsides to it.
“My least favorite thing about my job is trying to figure out how to charge people for my time,” he said.
At the end of the presentation, Mr. Miller had some advice for students aspiring to be a landscape architect.
“Do research, visit firms, see what they do, and understand you won’t be rich at first.”
Mr. Miller is always willing to let students shadow him so they will know if this is the career they want to do.
Mr. Miller said, “It’s always good to hear what people actually do.”
Landscape Architecture is an interesting and fun job, but it also requires many things from the person that preforms the job. So as students look into the career of landscape architecture, they must understand the time put into it, but the pleasure of creating landscapes of their own.
