I am always surprised at the way in which architecture as a profession is romanticized. I blame Mike Brady...
I went through the process of getting my Masters in Architecture. It is a long and very arduous process and something you shouldn't do without being passionate or dedicated to the discipline.
The crazy thing about it is that you will end up spending most (if not more than you already do) of your time in front of the computer. Sure there is some hand drawing and model making, but the industry is digital now, and working on digital drawings, digital models, renderings, post processing takes so much time – even though the transition to digital was supposed to speed up the process...
And the other thing is the compensation. As people have pointed out, architects don't make that much money (although that doesn't seem to be one of your criterium).
With my degree I've become a design problem solver generalist. I work on architecture problems, business problems, programming problems, whatever is of interest to me – and hopefully that I can get paid for. In the past couple of years, the greatest insight I've had into the difference between architecture and software/web development is the time it takes to realize things. Architecture is a very long process. You might be able to make a drawing quickly, but getting it built will take a long time. A programming development project might have a long development timeline, but there are so many milestones that give instant gratification (i.e. enabling a new feature).
I went through the process of getting my Masters in Architecture. It is a long and very arduous process and something you shouldn't do without being passionate or dedicated to the discipline.
The crazy thing about it is that you will end up spending most (if not more than you already do) of your time in front of the computer. Sure there is some hand drawing and model making, but the industry is digital now, and working on digital drawings, digital models, renderings, post processing takes so much time – even though the transition to digital was supposed to speed up the process...
And the other thing is the compensation. As people have pointed out, architects don't make that much money (although that doesn't seem to be one of your criterium).
With my degree I've become a design problem solver generalist. I work on architecture problems, business problems, programming problems, whatever is of interest to me – and hopefully that I can get paid for. In the past couple of years, the greatest insight I've had into the difference between architecture and software/web development is the time it takes to realize things. Architecture is a very long process. You might be able to make a drawing quickly, but getting it built will take a long time. A programming development project might have a long development timeline, but there are so many milestones that give instant gratification (i.e. enabling a new feature).