After Hours: For Employees and Their Employers, Moonlighting has Its Merits and Its Perils (Practice‪)‬

An intern who is halfway through the licensing exams, Dan Nicely, Fargo, N.D., is experienced in the dark side of architecture. He graduated in 1998 and soon found his way to an architecture firm that does primarily retail work. But with a family to support, it's almost impossible to get by on an intern's salary. Plus, he wants to get some residential experience onto his resume. So he moonlights, designing houses evenings and weekends. By working two jobs, Nicely joined a long tradition of ambitious young architects who have done design on the side as a launching pad to private practice, whether openly or under the boss's radar. It happens almost by default. There's the brother who wants a beach house, the neighbor looking for a discount on a two-story addition. Then too, with the average starting wage for interns at $34,600, who can blame them for grabbing work where they can?