What breaks do to architecture students

By: Daniel Roman

           

            Coming back from thanksgiving break I sit and realize how much breaks really throw people off. I understand that it really falls on the student to get work done, and more than anything to actually time manage each individual’s time. Some time it isn’t about time management but about the momentum that one carries into a break and what they come out with.

For instance and this will be only for the fall semester, you have fall break, and thanks giving break. Luckily for architecture students the third week in the semester is reserved for class field trips that end up being break.

            Besides the metropolitan area of Chicago, I never really did much traveling, so I try not to take these trips for granted. I have been able to travel to other cities and states, from St Louis to Washington DC. It just feels that the third week is the week where we are finally starting to get the ball rolling when out of nowhere we get this unexpected, but appreciated break. These trips usually take anywhere from just a weekend to almost an entire week. Once we return depending on the intensity of the trip, students are tired and lagging at times. Again it does depend on the students, eventually everyone bounces back into a steady groove and keeps the ball rolling.

            But no more than two weeks later at times, you get hit with fall break. It’s a short enough break where you can breath and long enough where it is worth to go back home for the weekend. Fall break takes off Thursday and Friday, and obviously you have the weekend. Once again the break catches you at a time where you are catching up and stepping up your game. One can probably deal with not going home, but it’s been long enough where you sort of miss home and wouldn’t mind going home for a nice home cooked meal. This has unfortunately has happened to me where I am on this break and I decided to take my laptop with all the intentions of doing some work. After the weekend is over and its time to head back I realized that I hadn’t even touched my laptop all weekend. So I return with reality slapping me right in the face. 

            The break that many people are looking forward to is Thanksgiving break, its towards the end of the semester so everyone is going crazy by then and really need a break. The only real bad thing about it is the reality that finals are around the corner. For architecture majors, that really means that final pin ups and reviews are nearing. Many professors do mention how this break is a working break, its to much of a break to let it go to waste and fall behind, time management really is key. One can spread the work load thru out or simply work a lot at the beginning so it could be smooth sailing at the end, the worst it leaving everything till the very end.

            When Christmas break comes, Quigley looks like it was taken over by a zombie apocalypse, people are in the studios sleeping after their final reviews. The delivery boy from jimmy johns has entered Quigley about a million times a day. That if the student didn’t decide to throw in an instant coup soup into the microwave. Architecture school is an interesting place, it creates a different breed of students. I see that every time I bring in a non archtiecrure friend into studio and see how shock they are of our conversations. To even how they are amazed to know that we have our very own desk and space to work on at any given point during the day.