Motivations of young people to study landscape architecture

Abstract

Landscape architecture is a field of interdisciplinary education in the built environment that struggles to recruit young people. This project seeks to understand the possible reasons for this through an exploration of first year student expectations, sources of motivations and career aspirations at an Australian university. The findings have shown that student motivations were often linked to their love of the environment in their daily lives. Expectations of university study were part-time, low-cost, ‘on-the-job’ training based on earlier life experiences. Aspirations focused on improving the built environment through working in a commercial design practice. This research concludes that recruitment practices need to invite school teachers, vocational educators and community group leaders in the arts and environmental sciences to experience landscape architectural practice. Further work is needed to identify the best ways to connect these key people to practicing landscape architects to aid in understanding the career possibilities of this interdisciplinary field.