On a bright sunny day, I remember one of the teachers in school started asking everyone about what they had planned to become in life. We had just reached 11th grade with maths as our subject. I had not even decided what I would do the next day, so my career was still a distant utopia but it was not the same with everyone, everyone else had something in their mind on what they would like to become.
Like the rest of the country, half of the class had decided to be engineers while only a few with a different aspiration meanwhile I didn’t want to say something just to please everyone. By the time I was learning and exploring my way out to different domains, I found Architecture as a different genre of art that deals with abstract as well as the humanitarian side of the world and on my turn, I stood up and very confidently said, “I will become an Architect”.
Architecture fascinated me but I had never thought of it as a career but following that day I started reading more about it, I always had been in a plethora of emotions to display all these sort of things.
Into the School of Architecture
I went to give the exams for Architecture School, with a very basic idea of what the syllabus is. The exam happened and I tried to give my best and anticipated a good result. Results came and the result didn’t disappoint me. The counseling began, and a good college was allocated to me. I had no other ambitions by then, and I just wanted to explore the art and architecture around.
I was expecting architecture to be a relaxing exploration but soon college began and a comparatively new genre of the study was introduced. All of my emotions soon turned out to be a utopia. The workload was too much for a kid who has looked into books all his academic career.
Submissions, submissions and submissions
The semester schedule demanded a plethora of submissions which I wasn’t expecting. For being up to date with submissions, sacrifices had to be made, few to be listed will be no social life, no time for oneself, and no healthy sleep cycle. By the end of the first semester, I was all saturated by the work that I had done, and the next thing I know that I wanted to quit architecture school.
Architecture school boosted my stress levels sky high and at that time I was up for choosing any other stream rather than to be an architect. I thought I would not be able to do the number of chores required to survive in this stream. I was on the verge of calling my parents back home to tell them, ‘I want to drop out of college’. It took a couple of my friends an hour of a personal counseling session to make me understand that quitting the long dream isn’t fair on your dreams and that it is just a phase and everything will turn out to be good, and after years when I’ll be looking back at this decision and will be proud that I didn’t quit.
I worked it out and didn’t quit. I’m glad I didn’t. Architecture school was like an acquired taste. It took me a couple of years to make peace with it. I slowly started figuring out different domains in the field. I was keen to know about architectural journalism and architectural photography. I started taking interest in different fields indirectly related to architecture, such as UI/UX Design, web designing, graphic designing, and photo illustrations. Architecture school didn’t teach me all of this but all of it was related to designing and visual aesthetics.
Architecture, An Art Form
The future is uncertain and so is architecture. The definition of Architecture today might change tomorrow, but the good thing is that it evolves with time in accordance with people’s needs and changes. The legacy that will stay with time is that architecture will always be the art form that displays the cultural, traditional values and change in the evolution of humankind. A wide and never-ending domain of art, and in my eyes, the mixture of all art forms encapsulated in a single module showcasing the humanistic yet magnificent characteristics.
Journey yet
It has been a nice journey till now. Exploring different forms of art, meeting new people, learning new things, and enjoying every part of it. Being a backbencher in school suddenly coming to architecture school was a little overwhelming as it demanded patience and perfection, the only two qualities not found on the last bench of school.
Now, when I look back at what I was 5 years back and what I’m now, sure I’ve started studying less but I’ve been working hard since architecture came into my life. A little suggestion for the aspiring architects who are yet to get into architecture school, It may seem a bit hard at first but trust me it ain’t less than a bottle of wine, it gets better with time.
