Hello all!
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably applied to Grad school or are considering it. Either way, welcome to the Blog.
I am a fellow incoming student, and in exactly 18 days, I will be attending my first class in the Landscape Architecture Program. Yay! So exciting! Not really. Here’s why.
You may already know that it takes an entire calendar year from the time you apply to a program until your first class –– Or longer, if you also take into consideration the time researching colleges, working on essays or studying for the GRE, etc.
After all this, you’d expect things to look up, but the Universe had different plans for 2020. “These are uncertain times” is probably the most used phrase in the last couple of months. I wish I could come up with an analogy about how I feel. Like a vacation, you’ve been planning all year got canceled last minute. But you see, it’s not that either. It’s not like our lives got postponed, just changed. Overnight. Like literally.
We still have schools/colleges. The universities even came up with a fancy setup to normalize things ––Hybrid learning. It’s a few classes in-person and a few online. However, it’s just not the same. Is it?
The Architecture school for decades thrived on the Studio Culture. The Studio is your home. It’s your place of work. It’s where you ate, sometimes (often) slept. You made friends and memories. It also prepped you psychologically for your future. Now, thanks to the Corona Virus, we don’t have that anymore. Is then, the Architecture School still worth it? At least during the Pandemic?
It amuses me that my answer is still–– YES. After setting aside an entire year, in my case two (More on that later) for pursuing my Masters, even the Pandemic won’t stop me. How then, am I supposed to make the most of my time?
In part, this is why I started the student section in my Blog; To help other students like me (incoming/considering) share stories, educate each other, and mostly to say, “Hey! You’re not alone. We’re in this together”.