The cycles of academic life consist of professional and personal expectations as well as the endeavours to acquire sufficient knowledge to subsequently determine the possibility of those expectations being realised. It is at the end of this cycle, or perhaps earlier, that one gains awareness of the possible utopias and the divergences between the dreams and reality based the possibilities the former have of being realised. Student life, in the midst of those who take part in it with the idea of starting a professional career, is made up of students who have, in most cases, reached adulthood. The difference between those who are on their way out and those who have just entered this new phase is not so great, as far as the uncertainty of the future is concerned.

The phase preceded by these cycles, and towards which all students are ultimately heading, with the ideal of being able to make it come true, above all the final year students, if they have the possibility to exercise the profession, is that of professional reality, with its expected duties and obligations, as well as the satisfactory feeling of entering into a new life phase, which, it is hoped, will meet the expectations generated, so that wishes, dreams and aspirations can be fulfilled. But the truth is that the perception of success, in terms of integration into the labour market, is in decline amongst students. This may be the result of the influence of the news that surrounds us, the reflections on the financial, economic, social and cultural crisis, or the comments that are typical for the university milieu, from students to professors, on the current risks involved in the profession of architect in Portugal. These cause some students, not all, to reflect on what the role of the architect is in this new environment that makes it so difficult to carry out the profession.

The romantic idea of the freelance professional realising his own project, designing, from his studio, new spaces in a close relationship with his client, who commissions the work, is currently in a crisis. More and more, students are giving up this initial idea, particularly when they enter higher education, to replace it with one based on assessment of their logical chances in the current scenario, seeking mechanisms that would solve the labour market integration problems. These reflections end up raising, above all in the student milieu, three prominent questions:

The first and most discussed issue is the relationship between recent graduates’ search for a place to begin their professional activity and the search for clients and work by already established architects and the offer on the side of those giving commissions, be they public or private. That relationship is very unbalanced and the availability of internships or places to begin one’s career is accordingly drastically reduced. The second is that, in this current reality there continues to be a high number of students going into higher education, who, having acquired a higher, quality training, do not have the opportunity to apply that training later. And finally, there exists amongst students the idea that it will perhaps be necessary to alter and modify certain stereotypes as to the exercise of the profession, as well as their methodology for preparation for the labour market. So, based on these reflections, architecture students’ expectations can be grouped into two separate perspectives for the future.

On the one hand, the future is planned on the basis of emigration opportunities and the benefits of gaining professional experience abroad, with many anxious to see if it is possible to launch a career in a country where the property market has not stagnated. The destinations are those countries whose real estate sectors are not in a crisis. There is the added attraction of the possibility of being able to find work in a renowned firm, or one that is at least valued locally. On the other, some consider the possibilities of this new generation making a contribution with a view to altering the position and role of the profession in Portugal. With the lack of rapid building, this generation can think in greater detail and with more time about the solutions to the crisis, which can be developed from the places where thought and reflection are at home: research and teaching. Revitalising these fields with new mentalities and ideas would be, in the expectations of this group, their possible contribution to changing the training and condition of the profession and to making this change process possible through new approaches to solving our current problems.

So let us not see these problems as ends in themselves but rather was the gateways to a new phase, new possibilities and new opportunities, so that the mentalities of action can change from the beginning in education and training, where debate and reflection serve the design practice that is adapted to this new society. While emigration can be an opportunity for success, there is also the need to adapt and to make success possible in Portugal. What we need is the hope that we can change what is bad and, if the solutions are lacking, that we can find the courage to overcome the uncertainties that bode badly for the future and to take the risk of applying new methodologies. Let it be the initiative of the few, if it must be. Perhaps the solutions may include drastic measures such as a reduction in the number of places in architecture degree courses, greater training requirements and changes in curricular structures and contents – all actively aimed at reviving the construction market. But may there be future and hope for the students of architecture to come.

Future and hope by investing in the ideas and the contribution young architects have to give – in practice, in teaching and in research. May their knowledge of the modern world, the ways people make connections and exchange life experiences, serve as the basis for changing mentalities, options and strategies in the most diverse areas. May they not be seen as just a new batch of professionals looking for internships, but may they be judged on their potential and the will to realise their dreams, no matter how impossible they may seem at the outset. So that, in some way, after facing down this Adamastor – the difficulty of beginning a professional career and the current precariousness of the labour market – they can achieve the dream of being an architect and see the passage through university as a place and time of good hope, for the current and future students of architecture.|

* [T.N.]: Adamastor is a mythological figure that symbolises the forces of nature the Portuguese navigators had to overcome in their voyages of discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries. In Camões’s epic poem The Lusiads, Adamastor fiercely guarded the passage around the Cape of Storms (later known as the Cape of Good Hope) to prevent navigators invading his dominion, the Indian Ocean.