The Journey

The Journey of Refinement

By Adulsak "Otto Chanyakorn]

The end of Spring Semester 2013 is coming soon, which will bring some release to a lot of students. They will be able to have time to rest and take a summer break from school. Some of them may find the place to do internships or part- time jobs to gain more experience in their own field before they come back for the next year of school. For graduate students at the school of architecture at Southern Illinois University, the end of our study is not far either. We are going to have our final thesis defense in the second and third week of July. It is going to be an important day for all of us to present our thesis to the committee and show that we are ready to face the realities of the architectural profession. We will demonstrate that we have learned and improved our knowledge from them, and are ready to contribute our knowledge to our society, to present what we believe in. It is going to be a crucial time for us from now until then. Luckily, we finished work from other classes that distracted us from focusing on our thesis. Now, it is a good time for us to be able to stay focused on the most important work of our graduate school, and to keep working consistently and carefully on our thesis. The ultimate goal of this process is to present our work nicely, and demonstrate that we have mastered and harvested the wisdom from our kind professors, who have observed us from the beginning to the end.

            

For me, coming to the architectural graduate school is the journey of refinement. It is an important part of my life and architectural profession. I remember the time that I decided to apply for school of architecture at Southern Illinois University. I carefully wrote my statement of purpose because I knew that this one page of paper represents the entire journey of my architectural profession, what I believe in and what I am looking for. In addition, I spent time to carefully create my portfolio to demonstrate my architectural abilities and ensure that the committee believed I would be able to comprehend the complexity of architectural study at school of architecture at Southern Illinois University like other American students.

           

I remember how happy I was on the day I knew that the school accepted me into its program. Since then, I promised myself that I would work and study hard to improve my knowledge and to complete this complicated level of study. It has been a great experience for me to study at Southern Illinois University. I have had an opportunity to meet and share my architectural experience with wonderful classmates and kind professors. The wonderful experience has been shaped by sharing and helping each other to refine our work rather than competing against each other. The reward of this experience is seeing each other strive towards our dreams in this profession.

            

Thesis is our final work for our school time at School of Architecture at Southern Illinois University. When I see my studio mates building models, creating drawings, having discussions with each other about their thesis, it bring me great happiness. Our work has slowly manifested with profound care. Hopefully on the final presentation, all of us will have good work to share with the committee. For me, the journey of refinement has started since I stepped into the school in June 2012. I wish we will be able to retain the atmosphere of our studio to be a place to share, a place that we improve each other, a place that contains the full spirit of people who have strong passion and believe in the beauty of architecture and pass it on to the incoming students.