It is no wonder that many architecture students, upon graduation from university, have left the field and gone into real estate (to actually develop and finance buildings), technology companies (to keep the digital tools of design within the digital realm and push technological boundaries), government policy (to actually influence the built environment at the policy or zoning level and set design parameters), or industrial design (to maintain control of the design at a human scale). It is no wonder that many others have gone into research or academia, because at the university there is very little need to engage in the messy and sad reality of real world construction and politics. It is no wonder that one of my own professors even warned me that architecture is a hobby for the wealthy, and that most middle-income architecture students become jaded and quit the field.
Where do I stand in this spectrum?