Is it more economical to be architecture adjacent than being an actual architect?

So, I am a geographer in GIS. I was always interested in architecture but was constantly warned that the cost of school, the amount of time in studio, lack of social life, horrible firms, horrible pay for the amount of training you need to go through, and long nights again getting projects done were not worth it and to pick another career. and progression is slow where you might get to design something you are truly connected with 30 years down the line.

Which is to be expected. Designing and managing a beautiful and meaningful building takes a lot of skill, thought, networking and wisdom. But the path to get there is treacherous, and most people have a disillusioned view of architecture as a field and then end up regretting the career (especially since the school does not prepare you for the work and its a massive culture shock).

So with that. is it just more economical to be architecture adjacent? And what I mean is that working in a profession that has elements of architectural practice without the major drawbacks of actually being an architect?

I am GIS analyst, and i work on blender, and coding and hazard analysis for environmental management and urban planning, revit drawings are are sometimes used in GIS and thats really cool plus GIS has GIS indoor which maps out the indoor spaces of buildings and you can do better analyses there. It seems most of the time companies already have standard plans for most buildings and what really matters is the marketing, hazard analysis, and predictive modeling of how it affects overall urban planning down the line. Which sucks for how our infrastructure has become but that is how it is atm.

That is how I would use GIS, and web development. Which is basically urban planning in a sense. But there are other paths that touches on architecture in meaningful ways but allows for better pay, social life, and flexibility.

And so I am considering of doing a masters in architecture just for the knowledge and transferable skills so I can do more of the GIS work I really love.

And that seems to be a path many people with architecture degrees are going, by using their transferable skills in other similar trades and coming out with better well being overall.