My summer was spent with a strong focus on architecture. I was fortunate enough to participate in a pre-college architecture program as well as intern at an architecture firm based in Dallas, Texas. The pre-college program taught me architectural fundamentals about how to relate spaces to one another, and the internship allowed me to apply what I had learned while experiencing the professional world of architecture. Although I learned more technical skills from the pre-college program, I found that what I learned from my internship about myself and my career interests were far more valuable at this point in my life. At the end of my two weeks working for the firm, the most important thing I learned is that there is a difference between doing what you find enjoyable and doing what you find rewarding.
The architecture program I was a part of took place before I started interning. In fact, it ended just four days before my first day of work. Within those four days, I told anyone and everyone who cared to ask that I, without a doubt, wanted to go into a career of architecture, but never specifying what kind of architecture. During my program I fell in love with the design and iterative process of creating structures by looking at form and function. But by the end of my first week of interning, I stopped telling people I wanted to be an architect as enthusiastically.
The firm I worked at is a residential architecture firm that works in designing private residences in and around Dallas, as well as in Crested Butte, Colorado. The people at the firm were some of the nicest people I have ever been able to work with. They were all incredibly welcoming and people from all over the office would come to my desk to introduce themselves, ask me about why I wanted to be an architect, and offer their help when needed. I was even able to participate in their company events about things like new construction materials and lectures from professors at top architecture programs. I can safely say that within my two weeks there, I learned just as much, if not more, about architecture than I could have expected to learn from any other academic program. So needless to say, my experience interning there was invaluable.
From start to finish, it was an all encompassing experience. I sat in over a dozen meetings and saw just as many projects. Throughout these meetings I was able to observe the entire architectural process from rudimentary sketches, more complete 2d and 3d renderings, to finalized projects getting cleared by structural engineers. I was able to gain a strong understanding of how the architects and clients interacted to develop personalized designs for every project.
I was also introduced to the social practice of architecture through my program and company.
Over the weeks I was able to listen to many guest speakers within the architectural world. One such speaker talked about a project they worked on in Mexico City. The project’s objective was to create a blueprint for social housing in order to help resolve Mexico’s lack of affordable housing units. The architecture firm that the guest speaker worked for conducted several site visits to gather information on how different families might want their homes layed out based on “geographical, social, and cultural variations”. The firm was then able to produce a configurable model for homes that could be affordably produced and provided for anyone who needs it while also having the ability to be customized for a wide variety of preferences. This kind of social project which can help millions upon millions of people is exactly the kind of work I find rewarding and would like to pursue later on in my life.
Now that I am coming up on the end of summer, I am grateful to be able to say that I have received a quality architecture education within such a short period of time. But I am even more grateful to be able to say that I am now able to look at myself more critically and really scrutinize my interests to determine where in this field I would like to work in to best serve my interests and the needs of others.
