Architecture is hard, and architecture school is hard to study, especially if you don't know how to think about architecture. Weirdly, no one teaches you this. Part of the reason is that many people don't fully understand architecture themselves, because it's so broad.
It isn't just the hours
The long nights get the attention, but they're a symptom. Weeks of work lead to weak design outcomes, and students burn out trying to figure things out alone.
Architecture is unusually broad
Design teaches you to design with "something". Architecture teaches you to design with "something" and "nothing": spaces, and the things inside them. You design with time, culture, history, environment, human psychology and much more, at the largest scale and the smallest. There's no other creative field quite like it, and that breadth is exactly what makes it hard to learn.
No one teaches you how to think about it
You're taught tasks, software and drawing conventions. You're rarely taught how to think about architecture: how to see a site, form an idea, and carry it through. Without that, every project feels like starting from zero.
It gets easier when you know how to think
Once you understand how to think about architecture, the work stops being guesswork. You know what you're looking for, why a design is strong or weak, and what to do next. You work the same hours and get far better results.
Next step: Talk it through in a free introduction, or see Student Coaching and Mini Studio.