The mind is a beacon of possibilities, where the only limit is our imagination. We, humans, are observant species and we view the world in our different way. The way we experience things is specific, varying from person to person. And no two people can experience the same thoughts in reaction to a particular event. An engineer views the world differently from a doctor or an architect. The randomness of the mind is what makes us different and making our thoughts monotonous is only possible with proper programming which is beyond the scope of science, as of today. Thoughts can be different at the minuscule of levels and at times hard to differentiate and sometimes stagnant. But why are thoughts important and do we need to think or learn to survive?
Learning is as important as any other basic requirement. Skill and knowledge are essential for our survival, from the beginning of time. As the famous painter and thinker Leonardo da Vinci once said “Learning never exhausts the mind”, it is a continuous process that never stops. Man has honed a variety of skills over the period as a response to the changing surroundings and to protect themselves from different dangers. In life, we need to cross invisible obstacles and build bridges between our ideologies to go to those places we want to be.
However, over time and evolution, the priorities of people have shifted and changed towards a modernized world view. We have become architects of our own lives and imagine the person we want to become while trying to get to that point. This sort of visualization is taught in architecture. One understands the basic broad terms and principles and tries to imagine things with their specific outlooks. But as a freshman, none of us understand the concept of spaces and their implications, the presumptions made often end up being vague and the design is full of faults.
The world we imagine is often attached to the plans we draw on our sheets. We see things in three dimensions and even feel the presence, but a lack of experience or knowledge often leaves us viewing things like those on our sheets. We are fixated on learning new software to develop our artillery for future battles (assignments). These softwares open up new worlds for us, where we can model and render things with our imagination. This power to create worlds fascinates us the most and we spend a whole lot of time on it, learning new skills on the go.
However, with time the outlook changes, we start observing the surroundings and natural factors more clearly and emphasize the form and function of spaces. Now, we experience the emotions attached to spaces when we observe or live through them. These experiences we gather from our years in college largely determine the way we view the world. We end up with a broader mindset and open to numerous possibilities. Smaller things that would have naturally slipped our observations during our first semester become visible by the time.
What do we generally do when we are free? We either scroll through our Instagram profiles or look through Pinterest for inspiration. Along with academics, we tend to explore other fields of interest such as art, music, photography, literature, and so on. But this isn’t something that is directly taught in college and develops out of the environment we live in. We find people we can bond with and also learn from. Mutual respect develops and this becomes a group of like-minded people where one feels home. This is what they call a ‘home away from home.’ The college teaches us empathy and acceptance and gives us the space to introspect on things we do or have done.
So, what are the major changes we observe by the end of college? Architecture teaches us about spaces, and we learn to keep our eyes open at all times. We also learn to utilize our senses to understand the world that is around us. We identify problems more easily and can work towards changing for the better. But most importantly we find out where our interests lie and can easily work on them.
The most important experience from an architecture college is not in the classes or libraries but enclosed within the hostel walls. Here, we meet people from a variety of places, from different walks of life, which have different outlooks towards life and numerous long and short stories to share with people (a paradise for any writer). These stories we listen to and the experiences we share, helps us relate and develop learning from other’s experiences. These experiences are what matter in life and help us become the person we imagine ourselves to be. It is easy to imagine who we want to be, but tough to get there. It is the college that becomes the bridge between our childhood and adulthood.
