Spring Semester

By: Jeremy Clow

            The times have proved rough, trucking through this semester and the graduate thesis. Each day provides a challenge and every week a deadline. With the traditional work load dedicated towards the thesis project and paper additional work can be over whelming. Keeping ahead is by all means necessary, realizing the due dates and working towards them weeks in advance can save from many “all-nighters”. With the global architecture course many projects are due throughout the semester. I find this particular course very interesting with the combination of culture and architecture. The papers, projects, and readings are very interesting as well as intellectual. The information soaked in throughout the course is detrimental to design and research for potential foreign sites. The understanding of the outside world is very important as well, realizing that not every location in the world has the same economy, climate, or social infrastructure that we have in the United States. The professional practice course involves a large amount of reading along with the weekly lecture. The assignments, readings, and quizzes provide a wealth of information regarding the legal structure for Architect’s post-graduation. Though some students may disagree with the usefulness of this information I find it very informative. As a business owner I understand how useful this information would have been prior to opening or getting involved in contracts, legal, and major financial decisions. The design-build elective course, the first one for the School of Architecture, proves to be worthy of its three credit hours. In one semester the team and I in this class will have done every aspect of the job from start to finish. Site analysis, client meetings, designing, construction documents, and actual construction. Before entering the field as a graduate each and every one of these courses will provide some necessary expertise and expectations. The work load can be very overwhelming at times as will the profession. Preparation for a career could not be addressed in a better fashion. I feel I will almost have mastered time management by the end of the semester. Three jobs, four classes, a family life, and being on the Downtown Committee of Carbondale my obligations are at all extremes. Making this far and still trucking is a feat in itself, especially after the loss of my laptop last week due to a corruption of the hard drive. Getting projects done from one class to the next, being on time for a meeting, getting a head in class, they are all things done by us graduate students as if it were natural. Losing my laptop for just a day proved problematic, once I realized I had to order one and was without it for five days I began to wonder if I would ever recover. The amount of due dates, deadlines, obligations, and potential work that could be done in those few days cannot be measured. Pulling and infamous all-nighter to sweep my crashed computer and start it from scratch to complete a few minor essentials gave me the ability to get a few minor tasks done while waiting for the new great piece of technology on its way. Now with the new laptop here and the old one working about as half as good as it used to, I am knocking as many things out as possible. Starting every day at 8 am and ending at 10 pm it is amazing what the human body can do. The information and abilities at our fingertips are endless, it’s amazing we can truly be anything we want to be.