I'm not an architect but every college student needs to take the basic 4 hour accounting class, basic finance class (present value!) and as many. Statistics classes as they will let you take.
I got a useless degree (econ) but those classes will allow you not to be taken as a sucker in all life's big decisiona.
good advice
don't need to take the whole bottle of medicine and major in accounting (like I did) 
That was at least enough to make me want to go practice golf and avoid a life of bean counting 
GAAP!
There, did I scare you?
a little
haven't heard that phrase in a long time...
What scared me most (well almost as much as the guys and gals who used to wear suits to class in college
)
was the guy who did my final interview at Arthur Anderson who looked about 50.
Turns out he was 31.
I may have been the first person to ever turn them down, then go to work in a bar