Life of an Architect Student
We generally hear people comparing architecture to engineering. In the beginning, we even thought this would be similar to the engineering field while we study in it. But let me tell you a secret! It is entirely different from an engineering student’s life. Every architecture student has his / her own lifestyle.
In the beginning years, we start feeling there is some difference in the subjects and what we thought we will be taught is entirely a different thing. Then we start feeling ‘It’s not just about subjects’. An architecture student has an entirely changed life from every other field. We are more clogged with our work, we are recognized with our T-scales and sheets. We sort of start love working differently but then work load and no time for ourselves let us make think- What Man!
Architecture student become night owls but not like engineering students partying outside. More of like working late nights rarely getting sleep, sometimes walking to classes even not brushing our teeth. It starts feeling like a work-sleep-eat loop and sometimes just work-eat loop where we start looking like real life zombies. We eat tiffin of our friends just because we don’t have time to go to the hostel or canteen for lunch – work it is. Well! It is not just about that only.
We also discover ourselves in group activities having midnight coffees and noodle sessions making models and sheets together. We get caught talking on the phone with our fellow students at any hour of the 24-hour day discussing work, cracking jokes, having fun. WhatsApp chats and Facebook groups are a big part for sharing data, discussing works, disturbing each other and having fun. Our social sites are full of stories including work and late night eating sessions.
Wait! It just doesn’t ends here. We go to educational trips and have a holiday along; go for holiday trips having education along. An architecture student can be seen in any class of the department in free time, staff rooms in lunch breaks and even in HOD’s office discussing designs and sometimes, just like that. We meet experts and get linked to them. Site visits are more of a fun time. Mentors are not just mentors, they are friends too. We can discuss anything with any other field like software with animators, structures or surveys or cost estimation with civil engineers, etc. We teach other students and we learn from other students no matter what year they are.
We can be caught with sheets or T-scales in malls, we can be caught working after college hours on sites, also watching movies in cinemas at the name of work. Architecture students party hard when a major submission is done and find a family in class. We make all sort of memories with them. One thing I know our whole architectural batch will never forget is- We started as one big single group in the first semester, we broke into multiple groups thereafter and ended as a single whole group in last semester. Farewell is not just one-day thing when we are together for 5 years.
An architecture student knows the stationary shop owners more than the canteen owners. We have sometimes more stationary than our clothes. We know the librarians better than any other stream students. Library becomes another hangout place for us.
I have one more interesting fact to tell. While in the beginning, engineering students tease us that we don’t get free and can’t party hard like them. We end up teasing them in exams for the same. Because if engineers are free in regular classes, we are damn free while giving exams.
There are music sessions, department events like Le Corbusier week, discussions on life – all together. Because we don’t have some 50 minutes class. We take our own kind of breaks in 3-4 hours of classes that we have. And every teacher has their own way of teaching. We try to distract teachers at the name of ‘Please not today’ as a single whole group and have some fun sessions with them too (Getting lucky sometimes).
And yes we do sleep with our stationary around, on the sofa, on the table, and on the ground.
Every Institute and every batch has its own story of lifestyle in architecture. What is yours?
