<p>First, as you’ve heard, the money just isn’t there. And second, it’s not as creative as you think- only the top .01% (and that’s an incredibly generous estimate) get to be in Frank Gehry or Thom Mayne or Norman Foster or Enrique Norten’s position. The rest of us start out drafting, occasionally designing little bits of projects, but not the way we would like it, the way we think our bosses would like it. The next level up deals with coordination between the various disciplines, like structural, mechanical, plumbing, etc. and gets slightly more design input, but mostly just from a very practical (‘damn this duct doesn’t fit, better put a soffit here’) point of view. The level up from that deals with the ridiculous demands of the clients, and construction administration, and gets intermediate approval of design decisions of their underlings, and works out a lot of details. Then above that are the people who actual do the concept design, but also do the wining&dining of clients, firm management and other tedious activities, because they’re the owner. They’re usually around 50+ years old. Very few owners own large enough firms that they can delegate all the tedious tasks and only deal with the good stuff. It’s very, very hard to make it to the point where you get the amount of design input we all want and all trained for in school without burning out. There are people who wouldn’t have it any other way, who live for the bits of design work they can, who become sole practitioners ASAP just so they can do the design, and can handle that. The fact is that most of us can’t. I’m not saying that you specifically can’t, but it’s good to be aware of the situation you’re getting into beforehand. You’re the only one who can make the decision.</p>