The Architecture Major Effect

Today’s Topics:

• School For The First Time
• Studio Culture
• Stuck in my head

School For The First Time

Going into architecture school is like nothing you have ever experienced before.

You can go to open house, virtual tours, and many other things, but in order to capture the full essence of what it means to be an architecture student you have to be there.

From the first day of class, this is actually one of the few majors where you have absolutely no idea of what you’re actually getting into.

At Virginia Tech, our First-Year Studio course consists of four different majors for a more interdisciplinary approach. Our projects are more general rather than major specific and build on techniques, and design thinking.

My first day of class, is something I will always remember. We were given a stack of playing cards and I thought

“woah, we aren’t about to play card games right?“

Nope, not a chance! We used the cards to build things using the general concepts of a circle, triangle or square.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, WE COULD NOT USE ANY ADHESIVE!

Things like these is what makes architecture school so unique, because 9 times out of 10, you have never experienced anything like this.

Studio Culture

Something that you do learn about when taking tours and attending an open house during the school year is about studio culture.

Studio culture is mostly architecture specific and you will see a variation of it at any architecture school you go to.

Have you ever heard the rumor that architecture students have no social life?

Well that is not true!

The way we live is much different than everyone else, but if you have good time management, then you can learn to have a great work-life balance.

So what do I mean by studio culture?

To start off with, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, architecture students all have their own desks where we get to think, work, and learn.

Every week Monday Wednesday and Friday, we go into a 4 hour studio class.

Yes 4 hours each day!

And outside of these 4 hours, we spend even more time there working on projects, doing homework for other classes, and socializing while getting peer feedback.

Being in studio is an open environment for people to spread ideas, have fun and study together at the same time.

There’s also another rumor that you will have to get comfortable pulling all nighters if you become an architecture student.

That one is not completely true. It is all about time management!

Personally I have never pulled an all nighter in studio and the latest I have been there is 2 in the morning.

I am so passionate about my work that I would spend almost all my time in studio and wouldn’t leave until all of my other class assignments are done as well as my studio projects.

It is also interesting to see the trends of when people work. I’ve noticed that there is an early bird group, a midday group, and a night group.

If you’re interested in architecture school, I can tell you, it is a great place to be!

Stuck In My Head!

One of the BEST worst problems of becoming an architect is that it is always stuck in your head!

I noticed that I spent half as much time people watching, and 4x time building watching!

Ever since my first architecture internship I couldn’t help but start thinking of things differently.

I find myself always asking WHY?

What made this person choose this? Why do some rooms have crown molding and others don’t? Why are doors 6’-8”? Why doesn’t the floor in my house break through?

Studying architecture sparks a curiosity about the built environment inviting you to explore the world in a way allows you to find new meaning.

I cannot think of the last time where I did not wake up thinking about architecture.

---

Thank you for tuning into this weeks blog post, I hope you had a great time reading this! If you did, stay tuned for next week’s blog post! As always, Dream Big!