The Beginning Until Now

By: Nick Bosman

            Long, Long ago, I went to an open house for high school when I was just an eighth grader. I knew I wanted to end up doing something with drawing. I saw a booth for the drafting class. I looked around at the booth and thought that I should take this class to see what it was like.

 During my sophomore year in high school, I took drafting one and two. I had no idea what to expect. We each grabbed a laptop and opened AutoCAD 2000. If you have never used that year’s version of AutoCAD, well, all I can say it is a lot different than the 2014 version. I sparked an interest when we started orthographic projections of objects and soon we applied that to actual buildings. This is the time I knew that this was my path.

            Junior year in high school, we had the opportunity to go to the Kankakee Area Career Center for three hours a day for a trade. Seeing that there was a drafting course there, I chose to take it. This is where I used a newer version of AutoCAD and was introduced to hand drafting. The class had its problems as the teacher was a first timer, but I am glad I took it. It gave me a lot of knowledge I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t taken it.

            My senior year, during a job shadow of an architect, I asked him what he would choose between University of Illinois and SIUC for a degree in Architecture. He said he would go with SIUC because of the technical knowledge that it offered. I chose to take his advice, and after taking my first year of college at a community college getting a lot of general education courses out of the way, I Started at SIUC in the summer of 2011.

            During this summer, we did a lot of things I would have never guessed we would do. The class was basically like an art class. That being said, I kept going forward. Finally getting to the technical stuff I had heard about, I knew I was in the right place. The idea of a studio class never crossed my mind until I took part in it that summer and continued through my undergrad.

            Graduating undergrad at SIUC meant one thing to me, and that was what graduate school I would attend. Well, it was my plan from day one to go to SIUC for that, so I applied to SIUC along with U of I as a backup. I got into both programs, but I chose the SIUC degree because it was faster, cheaper, and I would learn more of what I wanted to learn.

            And here I am, a graduate student working as a TA for structures. I have a lot to do as I write this, but I am confident I will get it done. The summer semester was tough, but this semester seems tougher.