Now that it is mid-summer and I have had a couple weeks to readjust to a normal sleep schedule after a particularly grueling final semester, I am able to reflect on how much I have learned, grown, and changed in the past five years. Instead of going back-to-school shopping this summer, I have been reminiscing about the things I will miss the most and the least about architecture school.
5 Things I’ll Miss About Architecture School
Spending (almost) unlimited time on the fun stuff
In the unrestricted realm of architecture school, where the term “budget” is only brought up in a handful of technology classes along with a disclaimer that “you’ll figure out what that is once you get to the real world,” devoting extra time to schematic design, conceptual thinking, and research is no big deal. In fact, if you are really ambitious (or have poor time management skills) you could end up presenting a final project that is purely schematic and there is nothing wrong with that. Devoting a few weeks each semester solely to research and conceptual design was one of the best parts of architecture school because 1) it was fun and 2) it was teaching us how to think abstractly and how to do it quickly so that once we got to the “real world” we could move efficiently through the schematic phases without wasting a firm or client’s time and money.
Running headfirst into a design that was doomed for failure from the start
Learning to embrace failure is something we’re all taught from a relatively young age, and it is an especially prevalent lesson in the architecture studio. No matter how many times you hear someone tell you how important it is to learn from mistakes, nothing compares to a first-hand experience. I am sure many architecture students are familiar with the feeling of defeat when they realize they’ve spent countless hours developing a project only to hit a dead-end (that feeling is amplified if your professor knew you were headed for the dead-end all along but kept quiet and let you figure it out for yourself). Fortunately, mistakes like that are relatively easy to recover from while you’re still in the safety net of school. Instead of carrying repercussions, they keep us on our toes and teach us to avoid similar mistakes in the future.
When I was in high school, I dreaded college tours until I found a tour guide brave enough to walk me through the maze-like sea of desks in an architecture studio. The place was a mess, but I loved the idea that I could throw cardboard around and get a grade for it. In the five-year span of architecture school, it becomes almost impossible to define the studio as a classroom as it becomes more of a collective dorm room for a few dozen students (complete with hammocks, towers of empty coffee cups, and late-night relay races on office chairs). Granted, it cannot be healthy to spend more hours per week at a desk under buzzing fluorescent lights than in the apartments we were all renting, but the camaraderie we established couldn’t be replicated in any other environment.
Building off that, the thing I will definitely miss the most is being constantly surrounded by so many different but like-minded people. In a graduating class of sixty students, we all formed some close friendships that will undoubtedly continue for years to come, but there are so many people with whom we formed temporary friendships and alliances even though we will most likely fall out of touch with them. Sometimes the best people to have around were the ones who came running when you needed an extra set of hands as your half-glued model was falling apart or those who kept up everyone’s morale at 2am by assuming the role of studio DJ.
There is always one class each semester that seems like a waste of time, and instead of focusing on learning about humanities we find our anxiety building as we watch the clock until we can go back to the studio and continue working on our design project. The required core design course can easily become all-consuming, but fortunately, electives, minors, and semesters abroad exist to provide relief from the constant grind of studio. Of course, I will continue looking for chances to keep learning throughout my career, but it will never be quite as simple as signing up for a photography class because it sounded fun.
Without sleep, I completely lose my ability to function the next day. I managed to get through architecture school without pulling a true all-nighter, but I still put in my fair share of very late nights and very long days. I am looking forward to going through the next stage in my life without 1) going to bed sometime after the birds start chirping but just before the sun rises 2) confusing the words “today” and “tomorrow” when speaking about an 8am deadline while still working at 3am and 3) being on a first-name basis with my apartment’s overnight security guard because I came home so late and left for studio so early the following morning that the guards had not switched shifts.
The absolute worst thing a design professor can say is some variation of this: “OK guys, I just realized your crit is in eight days. We’re a little behind schedule. I need you to bring in three conceptual models at quarter scale, all representing different schemes of your parti. Make each one out of a different material. You’re not allowed to use glue. This is due at our next class along with a dozen diagrams explaining each model.” In five years, I never found anyone who could give me a reasonable definition for “parti” nor did I learn why the ability to put pieces of cardboard together without glue was a useful life skill.
Some days it came in the form of responding to emails while rushing across campus trying to make it to a 5:00 meeting with the Dean after a class that was supposed to end at 4:45 ran a couple minutes late. Other days, it was carefully strategizing how to divide tasks for the group project that aligned with one person’s work schedule and another’s obscure class schedule. Learning to deal with stress is essential, but it is nice to know that the working world operates around a regular schedule and has two whole days each week that are all yours.
I think this applies to anyone’s college experience, not just the architecture studio. As much as it was incredibly valuable to be surrounded by the same relatively small group of unique but like-minded people as we grew from shy freshmen into career-ready graduates, I am grateful for the chance to widen my social network a bit. Some days you do not want to feel like people are watching over your shoulder as you struggle with a new design challenge, you might not want to participate in the lunch conversation about a recent exam, and you’d rather not be kept up late at night by partying neighbors. I am eager to explore the world beyond our campus’ boundaries.
Sure, a lot of design work is done on the computer nowadays, but there is a lot of value in drawing and building models by hand sometimes. While that is my favorite part of the design process, I have had a few unfortunate run-ins with Xacto blades, lost my fingerprints to super glue more times than I can count, and spent the better part of the last five years with a graphite-grey palm from smudged drawings. I think my hands are thankful that I have finally put down the pencil and picked up a diploma last month.
