Internships have become common these days, which breaks the delusion that was created by the students in their college days. It reveals the bitter truth about a particular industry. Architectural internships play a major role in the architectural career of the graduates. From sketching, painting, trips, unlimited fun, site visits, and boom, a whole semester working in a firm for someone they don’t know, in many cases, many students discontinue this particular course because of the stress they have all been through. During internships, the stress level and the graph of depression, insomnia, and many mental problems touch the peak that they don’t deserve. Not every student knows everything, and not every college and lecture will teach everything to the students. The internship period has to be a practical class for the student to learn rather than work like an architect. Most firms were advertising with stipends, treating the students like junior architects, and making their lives terrible without considering them as students. These architectural internship periods played a major role in the five years of this particular course.
Interns, not workers
Nowadays, the internship period has become an open workers hiring period, particularly for small firms without sufficient architects and designers. They intended to take students to their firm with or without a stipend for the whole semester to complete their internships, but only 40% of the firms consider it their responsibility to teach the particular interns, allotting them time to teach particular details, often taking them to the sites and explaining the progress, making them explore more rather than drafting the plan already designed or making them draft the intricate details they aren’t familiar with. The time when students experience a drastic change in their comfort zone should become a period that is worth it rather than regretting every 90 days of the period.
In college, not every student has gone through the same knowledge they paid for; some will be interested in interiors, some in construction, and some will be doing site visits. These areas are open during the internship period, and the firms should make sure what that particular intern is doing in the particular area shines in the future and makes a profit for the firm as well.
The interns should be treated as interns, as they are the juniors in the firm. It is the responsibility of the principal architect to make sure they are comfortable; they should not be doing any work; they should learn, take notes, and get practical clarity on the standards; they should have notes rather than costly laptops. Small firms consider the interns as workers and give them tasks and extra work that aren’t about the design just to keep them engaged—isn’t that what a good teacher will do to a student? Every architect is a teacher who is teaching architecture as a particular language to the interns and architects who are aspiring to know it better.
As in the future, all these interns will become architects someday, but this particular period paves the way for their future, and this should be so beautiful and inspiring rather than horrible and depressing.
Internship program = Inspiring program
These programs can differ in universities; some will be in 90 days of a single semester, and some will be programmed for a whole year, but all these are not only for the grades and marks but also for the knowledge and students’ own experience in this field. Even the college isn’t responsible for the firm students choose, but the firms should be. They are still children who are getting to visit the ocean from the smallest river for their experience, so the firm should hold their hands and make them comfortable and experience the ocean rather than grabbing their hand and leading them into the race they are already running.
As mentioned earlier the students should be treated as interns rather than architects, they should be taught what they are about to do first, new environment, new software, and new people all these can anyone feel nervous and make lose their skills, like designing the architects firms with an interesting interior for the clients it should inspire the interns as well, even if they are struggling a lot for designing something basic they should be get taught rather getting scold like an architect, just because it is their firm and that particular intern chose that firm for various he or she should not deserve the discouragements words from an unknown they don’t know because they all have been paying the semester fees as well in the college for this particular semester and spending extra money for their daily expenses for this training program.
Every architectural firm should have another lecture class with practical sessions to teach their interns about better architecture in the future. Designing the plan, satisfying the clients, and completing the deadlines aren’t the only a firm should do; they should inspire this particular field and make interns aspire to be better architects one day.
Stipend, not salary
The 90 days spent somewhere they weren’t familiar with, even paying the college fees, and they had to learn somewhere they didn’t know with the money they had. Still, they are college students. How come they were able to manage all this sudden? Due to this particular reason, many interns will fall for the particular word ‘ stipend’, just because they don’t want to spend their parent’s money. But many firms are treating these poor interns as workers, advertising the word about stipends, and making them beg for stipends each month just because they did not perform up to the office standards in 30 days. Isn’t that fair enough?
Fortunately, 50% of firms mention to the interns that the stipend depends on their performance, or that the stipend depends on their performance, or about no stipend. The interns will make sure to choose the location of the firm for their comfort and expense, but some of the firms aren’t just because of their busy schedule; they won’t be teaching the interns what they should learn; they won’t make them feel comfortable; but they will make sure to treat them as workers, scolding them for what they couldn’t understand, and treating the so-called stipends as salary with their workload. Stipends aren’t salary; they are an amount that has to be given to the particular intern if the particular firm mentions it in the interview. They are a partial amount of fixed money that has been given to the interns to make sure their training program is bearable.
Architectural internships should be more realistic as well; they should not be so stressful and horrible; they can be beautiful, fun, and exploring with young talents. Architecture is not only about sketching the plan; it is also about inspiring a person to sketch what they are dreaming of as well. Fortunately, some firms are good at treating the interns and make sure they become experts after the internship period, even without being so horrible to them. Architecture is a language that has been created by individuals as so-called architects; they can even teach their way of architecture or inspire people to make their architectural language as well.
