Bachelor [Landscape Architecture] From North Dakota State University

The function and aesthetics of parks, housing developments, transportation corridors, urban plazas, zoos and campuses all reflect the acquired skill of landscape architects using both “hard” (built) and “soft” (planted) materials to both sustain and manipulate the natural environment. Landscape architects design exterior spaces with sketches, detail models, and working drawings for their clients as well as the companies and contractors that will use these specifications to bring life to the practitioner’s vision. The unique challenges for landscape architects span everything from small residential landscapes and large-scale urban developments to regional watersheds. Collaborating with architects, planners and engineers, landscape architects create compelling and memorable exterior spaces that affect the lives of people who inhabit them.

Career Opportunities

The majority of landscape architects work for landscape architecture services and firms, engineering, architecture and planning companies. Roughly one in five become their own entrepeneur after licensure.
The federal agencies that hire many landscape architects include the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, Soil Conservation Service, the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Transportation and the Veteran’s Administration. Many of these departments also exist at a state and municipal level, providing additional work opportunities.
Within all these job possibilities exists the opportunity to apply the ethical imperatives of conservation, remediation and sustainability to increasing challenges of energy requirements, overpopulation and impending scarcity of water in the early 21st Century.