Why write about ‘a humorous experience’, when every semester at an architecture school is laughing at our lives for being a joke. All of us can admit the fact that by describing one single humorous experience throughout five years of architecture would do injustice to all the other experiences. Let’s just relive the ‘pattern’ of each semester which was nonetheless similar, may it be odd or even, first or last, we all just beautifully procrastinated and passed every semester with the phrase “hang in there it is going to be alright”.
The semester begins with a hope of it being the best, however we are all slow paced. The first month is just ‘to feel’ the up gradation of the semester. It is a start full of joy and happiness, we tend to party at the weekends, chill with friends and life’s good. This is the time when the faculty members are friendly than ever.
When we enter the second month of the semester, our dreamy bubble bursts, we realise that life is not all about fun and we have to accept the reality of being architecture students. Our design assignments are still in the data collection and analysis phase and steadily we are trapped with assignments and case studies for other subjects as well. Luckily, we regain our power of multitasking by the end of this month.
By the third month, we try to get things under control for every subject and submission. This is when our loved ones have their complaints ready regarding lack of family/ friends time. Parents lecture us about the concept of time management and a balanced life. Little they know that time management for us only refers to timely submissions and managing the deadlines; a balance life is when we balance and focus on every subject equally. It is funny how we have our own definitions and meanings. “Work in progress” phrase is not only used at construction sites but also labelled in our day to day life. This month is full of endless scribbles, formation of ideas, changing of ideas, reworking on them and drafting all over again.
The forth month is the reality check, when we receive our final submission dates and we regret on not being serious since the start. We just miss attending those parties, hanging out with our friends and all those dreamy moments which won’t return in this semester, at least. The terror of submissions has taken over; we lock ourselves in our “bunkers”. We endlessly work day and night, we survive on mugs of caffeine; eating and sleeping are the two luxuries that only the blessed students can afford. We just work very hard in the hope that we will complete on time. Our eyes are glued to the screens until the morning of the submission when we manage to plot our designs.
Surprise! We have finally made it to the fifth month. The deadly submissions are over. Our next mission is to study for the exams and prepare our final portfolios for the jury. Exams for us are a bonus, which we are not at all afraid of or mind studying for. Also this is the time to correct our mistakes in the submissions and prepare an ‘aesthetic’ portfolio for our final jury, because some say presentation matters! Jury day is a happy day not because we know that our work will fetch us marks but because we will finally get to sleep. We have been craving for that one proper sleep for the past months. Deep down we hope for a liberal juror who appreciates our work, which is not always in our fate.
Just after the juror has pointed all the mistakes in our design and tell us how bad we are at designing, which is why we cannot be architects, we submit our portfolios and head back to our rooms to have that perfect sleep full of dreams. All’s well that ends well.
Well this is a typical semester pattern in the life of an architecture student. We all share more or less the same memories and problems. And at last I would just take an opportunity on behalf of all my fellow architecture students, to their family and friends that:
Thanks for loving us for who we are and not disowning for ignoring for months. We do not mean to not give to time and affection but that is all because of the pressure and work load we have. We are sorry for not giving you enough amount of time but we love you guys to the core.
At the end we all hope for better days after graduation and no matter how much we curse architecture we all are into it because we love it!
“Hang in there it is going to be alright”.
