Last week was a very busy week. I was able to learn many new things and connect with professionals and other ISM students from different schools at the Business Symposium. I also was able to schedule an interview with Mr. Zapata on Friday.
At the Business Symposium, I enjoyed meeting new people and being able to connect with them. Sadly I was not able to meet anyone else that was doing architecture like me, but I met many students that were all studying different fields such as musical education, writing/editing, dermatology, and more. Even though we did talk about ISM most of the time, we also talked about other things like our interests and hobbies.
The professionals that spoke at the Business Symposium all gave great advice. First, the guest speaker, Dr. Brad, made me realize that knowing and clarifying my goal/vision is more important than calculating how to get to my goal because if my vision is not clear enough how will I know where I am going and what to do? He also emphasized how networking is required to see results, which is what ISM teaches us to do. His last piece of advice to us was to never negotiate our vision, which is something that can hinder our ability to reach the goal. From his speech, I realized that I need to clarify my vision and what I am exactly reaching for because even though my vision is fairly clear, it is not completely clear.
Other than Dr. Brad, one of the professionals that stood out to me at the symposium was Vanessa Sanford who is a therapist. She is not related to the field I want to study, but I asked for her information so I could contact her to be a guest speaker for the Mental Health Awareness Club. Since, for my original work, I am designing a hospital meant to improve patients’ health and well-being, I can ask her about what factors or activities act as stress relievers and improve people’s health.
Furthermore, last Friday I was able to have an interview with Mr. Zapata. The interview went really well, and I learned a lot about architecture overall. Mr. Zapata gave me some suggestions on books I could read about architecture and also gave me suggestions on architects to research about. He suggested I read the book Architecture of Happiness by Alain De Botton, listen to the Designed Podcast, and watch a documentary called Abstract Art of Design which is on Netflix. What I found interesting during the interview also was that Mr. Zapata mentioned how working with different designers is what makes architecture enjoyable, which makes sense because working with different it in that way.
At the end of the week, I feel like my social and communication skills grew significantly as I was able to converse and meet new people. I do still feel nervous when communicating with people, but I am not as afraid, and I know it is something that I will need to learn and be accustomed to if I want to reach my goals now and in the future.
