Architecture Alumni Panel

College of Architecture Author

08/03/2021 Added

72 Plays

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Alumni talk about their college experiences with new students.

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[00:00:00.242](upbeat music)
[00:00:02.850]Okay, welcome everyone.
[00:00:04.740]My name is David Karle,
[00:00:06.150]the program director of architecture.
[00:00:08.540]Today we've got a great group of UNL alumni
[00:00:11.570]that we've brought in
[00:00:12.580]as part of our first ever conversation series.
[00:00:15.940]So we were happy to discuss this
[00:00:18.660]and share their insights into what they're doing now
[00:00:22.150]and more specifically,
[00:00:23.800]really how the M. Arch program at UNL
[00:00:26.872]kind of influenced their career paths,
[00:00:29.430]but also helped them manage their time at UNL
[00:00:35.497]and what they found to be significant about
[00:00:38.480]attending UNL's graduate program.
[00:00:39.950]So I'm gonna introduce them quickly
[00:00:42.240]and then we'll get going with some of the questions.
[00:00:45.140]So first off Jazz Graves,
[00:00:47.520]graduated with a M. Arch degree in 2012,
[00:00:51.040]and she obtained an Undergraduate Degree in Interior Design
[00:00:54.470]from Wisconsin Madison.
[00:00:57.170]So welcome. Thank you for joining us.
[00:01:00.620]William Pokojski graduated in his M.Arch degree in 2019.
[00:01:05.927]Will's unique. He obtained a dual degree.
[00:01:09.250]So architecture and business master's degree.
[00:01:12.170]So thank you for joining us Will.
[00:01:15.000]Marcellus Kipruto graduated with M. Arch degree in 2016.
[00:01:20.120]So thank you for joining us.
[00:01:22.340]And there she is. Mallory lane.
[00:01:25.523]Welcome. Thank you for coming.
[00:01:29.010]Graduate with M. Arch degree in 2019.
[00:01:32.630]Thank you for joining us.
[00:01:34.440]So these are our groups,
[00:01:35.960]our panelists for today.
[00:01:37.470]I'm gonna kick it over to you guys with the first question,
[00:01:40.640]which is really setting up what you're doing now,
[00:01:43.520]but more importantly,
[00:01:44.360]how the M. Arch degree influenced your career path.
[00:01:47.920]So maybe I'll just throw that out
[00:01:49.760]to anyone who would like to take it first.
[00:01:53.950]Will do you wanna start off?
[00:01:54.783]Maybe I'll throw it to you.
[00:01:57.010]Yeah, I can start off.
[00:01:58.360]So again, my name is William Pokojski.
[00:01:59.880]It's nice to meet everyone.
[00:02:01.640]In terms of the M. Arch degree itself
[00:02:04.100]and how it influenced my career path.
[00:02:06.170]One of the nice things that I really loved
[00:02:07.830]about going to UNL and the degree program,
[00:02:10.330]the way it's set up,
[00:02:11.751]it was very attentative to a variety of topics
[00:02:15.310]with regards to architecture
[00:02:17.160]and allowed for a pretty broad scope and approach
[00:02:20.730]to education and architecture,
[00:02:22.270]because there's so many things to look at
[00:02:23.916]and to get into in detail levels
[00:02:26.190]that apply to the real world and how you work and operate.
[00:02:29.270]And in particular with me being a dual degree,
[00:02:31.390]that was part of the reason I really loved it as well
[00:02:33.097]was the focus wasn't just on
[00:02:35.650]maybe one particular area of architecture,
[00:02:37.760]but also the business of architecture as well.
[00:02:39.871]So that was part of the reason I got my MBA as well
[00:02:42.410]and did the dual degree program
[00:02:43.700]because they segwayed so well together
[00:02:45.910]and created an educational kind of direction for me,
[00:02:49.010]that fit within my interests
[00:02:50.530]and in particular something that I've used going forward,
[00:02:53.390]helping my firm with project management,
[00:02:55.550]business development,
[00:02:56.660]different goals that they've tried to attain
[00:02:58.500]or are trying attain as we're growing,
[00:03:00.538]because we're kind of in this kind of unique
[00:03:02.550]and interesting area where we're quite a large firm,
[00:03:04.670]but we still got a lot of new opportunities
[00:03:06.431]and different things
[00:03:07.330]that we're looking for and investigating.
[00:03:09.570]And so parlay pretty well into that.
[00:03:13.295]All right. Thanks.
[00:03:14.742](upbeat music)
[00:03:16.850]Up in next.
[00:03:19.010]So a little bit of background on me,
[00:03:21.180]David mentioned my undergraduate was in interior design.
[00:03:25.730]I also worked in the field for four years
[00:03:27.440]before coming back.
[00:03:28.360]So it was a bit of a process
[00:03:31.070]to really decide where I wanted to land.
[00:03:33.460]For me I was footing the bill for grad school,
[00:03:37.630]and that's a big decision
[00:03:39.120]when you're looking at a three-year program.
[00:03:41.170]Also, when you're looking on profession,
[00:03:43.622]I have physician friends
[00:03:45.494]who are making enough money to kick out their student loans
[00:03:48.660]in a couple of years,
[00:03:49.493]but really like what we're doing
[00:03:51.540]and where we're going with our careers.
[00:03:53.882]I was just cognizant of the fact
[00:03:55.810]that I was gonna have student loans behind me.
[00:03:57.880]So maybe not the most popular way
[00:03:59.970]to start this conversation,
[00:04:01.060]but I think it is important to think about the fact that
[00:04:04.250]UNL really offers an affordable degree,
[00:04:08.660]M. Arch degree,
[00:04:09.690]especially if you're entering the three-year program.
[00:04:12.030]And for me,
[00:04:12.890]I was going from a career and making money
[00:04:15.450]to going back to being a student.
[00:04:16.780]So the opportunity to be in Nebraska.
[00:04:22.235]And once I started to look at schools
[00:04:24.960]and mostly I was looking on the East Coast
[00:04:26.670]and then I was looking in,
[00:04:27.530]I was in Wisconsin.
[00:04:28.380]So I was looking in Wisconsin and in Nebraska.
[00:04:30.660]And what I found was the faculty at Nebraska
[00:04:33.810]was from all over the country.
[00:04:35.420]They offered a lot of different backgrounds,
[00:04:38.040]from engineering to architectural history,
[00:04:45.060]to folks that have worked all across the board.
[00:04:48.417]There's historians, there's folks that are registered
[00:04:51.020]there's folks that have been in the industry for 30 years.
[00:04:53.890]There's folks that are coming in and out
[00:04:56.170]or adjunct professors that are coming in and out
[00:04:58.160]from other programs across the country.
[00:04:59.750]So when you really look at that,
[00:05:01.430]you're getting an education,
[00:05:02.630]not just from folks in Nebraska,
[00:05:04.707]you're getting education from across the country.
[00:05:06.740]And in some cases, this won't,
[00:05:08.580]maybe this will be the case with everything virtual.
[00:05:10.330]Here I am in Philadelphia,
[00:05:12.290]I'm actually in Connecticut right now,
[00:05:13.360]but in Philadelphia,
[00:05:14.193]I work in Philadelphia,
[00:05:16.030]being able to connect with folks that are
[00:05:19.920]international as well.
[00:05:20.880]There were a couple of adjunct professors
[00:05:22.810]over the course of my three years
[00:05:23.980]that were joining us from Europe.
[00:05:25.760]So that being said,
[00:05:27.470]that's where I started my search.
[00:05:29.160]And what I found was,
[00:05:30.520]I went to visit UNL
[00:05:31.747]in a number of schools in the East Coast
[00:05:34.320]and what I found was the facilities,
[00:05:36.801]both from the studios, the building,
[00:05:40.550]to the kind of cross-disciplinary
[00:05:43.220]you're actually taking your structures classes in
[00:05:45.920]with the engineers,
[00:05:47.753]I think was a big draw for me
[00:05:51.400]and I had to relocate.
[00:05:52.450]So it was a big change of pace for me,
[00:05:55.340]but it was really exciting.
[00:05:57.490]What I found when I was there,
[00:05:59.147]was it just that,
[00:06:00.670]just the number of people that were,
[00:06:02.610]as much as you wanna invest in your education,
[00:06:04.500]people want to invest in you.
[00:06:06.630]You get the chance to be what would all call?
[00:06:09.100]And I don't know if I necessarily knew this
[00:06:10.650]when I came into the school,
[00:06:11.560]but you get to be a big fish in a little pond.
[00:06:14.120]So there's, if you were to end up at a different university,
[00:06:17.710]you may not have the attention of the professors
[00:06:19.910]like you do at UNL.
[00:06:21.097]I have made some incredible relationships
[00:06:24.340]and maintained them in the eight years that I've been gone
[00:06:27.592]with folks that have really been mentors to me
[00:06:30.590]in my career and silly stuff
[00:06:33.550]in kind of my extracurriculars that I do.
[00:06:37.990]So I am a co-chair of Women in Architecture in Philadelphia,
[00:06:42.080]through the AIA in Philadelphia,
[00:06:44.270]the firm I work with Karen Timberlake.
[00:06:47.051]I really landed there based on a lot of the
[00:06:50.320]the thoughts that came out of my thesis
[00:06:52.400]and from my thesis advise on the development of me
[00:06:56.180]and my kind of design ethos.
[00:07:00.110]So I think that the idea of your thesis
[00:07:04.490]and the folks that you connect yourself with
[00:07:06.630]as really catapulting your career
[00:07:08.860]in the direction you wanna go.
[00:07:09.970]I mean that's up to you guys.
[00:07:12.020]The folks are at UNL,
[00:07:13.170]that can make that happen for you.
[00:07:15.743]But that the onus of your careers is really on you
[00:07:18.643]and how you want it to move forward.
[00:07:26.070]Yeah and I kind of have a similar background
[00:07:31.740]as to why I ended up staying at UNL,
[00:07:34.160]but really kind of with what Jazz is saying,
[00:07:39.940]you, as a recent grad,
[00:07:42.230]I had the opportunity and you guys now have the opportunity
[00:07:46.070]where we live in a world
[00:07:47.880]where you can get information from anywhere
[00:07:49.990]and that's an awesome, awesome thing.
[00:07:53.220]You don't need to go to an Ivy League school.
[00:07:56.650]And that was definitely a consideration for me
[00:08:00.888]for grad school was just like,
[00:08:03.310]how do you compare?
[00:08:04.610]I mean there was definitely like this desire
[00:08:06.790]to get out for me.
[00:08:07.880]And I eventually did,
[00:08:09.733]but I was very strategic about how I wanted to do that.
[00:08:14.270]Because again financially,
[00:08:16.220]it's definitely a huge consideration
[00:08:19.000]and I wanted to be able to stay out.
[00:08:21.520]But also within the first year of working full-time,
[00:08:27.370]I have definitely realized that,
[00:08:29.980]and even principals, partners will say this,
[00:08:33.140]it doesn't really matter where you go to school.
[00:08:36.680]They just wanna see that you have a good work ethic
[00:08:38.890]that you can basically do what an architect needs to do.
[00:08:44.110]So just overall,
[00:08:46.510]I would say in my decision to stay at UNL for grad school,
[00:08:52.300]it was definitely a lot about
[00:08:53.770]what can I get out of this for me
[00:08:56.671]and what can I bring to an office
[00:09:00.750]that I think is valuable from UNL?
[00:09:02.180]And I definitely have found that
[00:09:04.440]it is a very competitive education
[00:09:06.860]and it's, you can,
[00:09:09.720]there's a lot of skills that you learn at UNL
[00:09:11.710]that you can bring to an office
[00:09:13.130]and they are very appreciative about.
[00:09:14.980]So just for example,
[00:09:17.530]one of those things was my design build experience.
[00:09:20.256]That definitely was a great conversation starter
[00:09:23.870]in my interview.
[00:09:25.310]They were very interested in CLT Construction
[00:09:28.830]that I did with Jason Griffis.
[00:09:32.190]And even to my thesis,
[00:09:34.070]just very specular to work for the office
[00:09:35.980]that I work at right now,
[00:09:37.010]but something that they thought was valuable to them
[00:09:41.065]because they wanted to go towards a direction
[00:09:43.920]or have part of the firm go in a more speculative direction,
[00:09:47.310]which they weren't used to.
[00:09:49.250]So I think the great part about the UNL grad program
[00:09:53.370]is that it's very flexible
[00:09:54.924]for what you want to end up doing.
[00:09:58.720]My first year in grad school,
[00:10:00.390]I did something more practical,
[00:10:03.043]did more of a design build.
[00:10:05.120]And my second year I did thesis
[00:10:06.990]and it was much more speculative
[00:10:09.000]and much more just being creative in two different ways.
[00:10:15.070]And I think being able to show
[00:10:16.130]that you can do that in two different ways
[00:10:18.350]is very important in the future
[00:10:21.090]and in your career.
[00:10:22.850]And I would definitely definitely say that
[00:10:26.150]the program does a great job at that.
[00:10:32.090]Yeah, for me.
[00:10:34.440]First of all,
[00:10:35.273]thanks for having me on this panel.
[00:10:37.980]So I being an international student,
[00:10:42.840]coming to UNL,
[00:10:43.920]was a very important thing for me,
[00:10:48.130]just coming to study architecture and land
[00:10:50.260]from the international,
[00:10:52.246]the international being an international student.
[00:10:54.670]So most of all is that the reason,
[00:10:59.610]lemme the influence in architecture,
[00:11:02.285]gives me the flexibility of within the UNL.
[00:11:06.800]Being a UNL student gave me flexibility for what I was doing
[00:11:10.500]and giving me the broad nature of topic starter.
[00:11:14.670]We do a blue profile in school
[00:11:16.590]and which interests me outside my,
[00:11:20.780]from the outside school.
[00:11:22.780]So as I transferred,
[00:11:26.150]I mean I transferred going to the working field.
[00:11:31.170]I learned that there is a lot of things
[00:11:33.440]that architecture in UNL gave me
[00:11:36.253]that the program in UNL gave me
[00:11:39.600]whereby you can fit easily into the industry
[00:11:42.840]from what they are offering in the school.
[00:11:45.830]And then also the connection that we had,
[00:11:49.330]the UNL has all over the,
[00:11:52.362]within the whole spectrum.
[00:11:54.772]The UNL has a lot of connections throughout the country.
[00:11:58.880]So it gave me better choice to outside there.
[00:12:05.040]Also doing the MA of Architecture,
[00:12:12.333]gave me an opportunity
[00:12:14.070]to learn from what they're offering from school,
[00:12:18.320]like the design fact
[00:12:20.096]design build and all that.
[00:12:23.230]So it was offering more than what I expected.
[00:12:29.470]So the more I learn,
[00:12:31.700]the more I got a lot of that
[00:12:34.040]to offer into the society,
[00:12:35.790]to go over into the community. Thank you.
[00:12:39.370]That's great. Thank you so much for your responses.
[00:12:42.770]I wanna transition on this a little bit.
[00:12:44.280]Most of have asked and answered this question already
[00:12:47.630]about how has and UNL influenced you.
[00:12:52.950]Specifically I think a few of you touched on this
[00:12:54.670]and I want you to maybe expand this a little bit,
[00:12:57.220]but how did you personalize your educational experience?
[00:13:00.880]Some of you have talked about design and build.
[00:13:03.000]Many of you were graduate teaching assistants
[00:13:05.090]when you were as a student.
[00:13:07.892]And I wanna throw that back to you
[00:13:09.180]and talk about the importance
[00:13:11.060]of personalizing your experience,
[00:13:14.200]because there are so many open electives that we offer
[00:13:18.300]that really can be for lack of better word specialized
[00:13:22.020]for a student or in Mallory's case
[00:13:24.380]strategically thought about
[00:13:25.700]as being practical and spectacle
[00:13:28.060]and honing that balance between those two.
[00:13:31.100]So maybe I'll throw it back
[00:13:32.820]and Mallory do you wanna maybe start with that?
[00:13:39.116]You have to unmute there.
[00:13:42.000]Thank you. Having so many issues.
[00:13:45.236]I swear I do this like five times a day.
[00:13:48.090]Anyways, yeah my experience at UNL,
[00:13:53.020]I definitely every credit was valuable to me
[00:13:57.970]in the sense that I was very, very open to
[00:14:02.260]not just the programs within architecture,
[00:14:06.000]but also the ones that were kind of nearby
[00:14:08.240]and helped me develop my architecture,
[00:14:12.720]my architectural thinking.
[00:14:14.550]So I took a lot of classes or electives,
[00:14:19.791]especially sharp ones.
[00:14:21.420]I loved taking those,
[00:14:23.830]but I also took a lot of psychology and neuroscience classes
[00:14:29.296]and use those in my architecture studies a lot.
[00:14:34.020]But I took women in design,
[00:14:36.520]all of those classes
[00:14:38.190]and they really gave me a great,
[00:14:41.750]a great balance of really,
[00:14:45.050]I guess they sprung me forward to a good,
[00:14:48.420]a good level of being a generalist architect,
[00:14:50.630]which is really what I would like to be.
[00:14:53.270]I would like to be able to have,
[00:14:57.350]be able to do a wide range of things
[00:15:00.240]and have a general knowledge of a lot of things,
[00:15:03.160]which is a lot of what architects do.
[00:15:06.530]You don't know a lot about one thing,
[00:15:09.710]you know a little about everything
[00:15:11.200]is kind of what we like to say.
[00:15:14.270]And I think that that's important
[00:15:15.730]is just having a wide range of knowledge across the board
[00:15:20.390]and through my classes,
[00:15:22.320]the design build definitely brought them
[00:15:26.390]very practical level of thinking
[00:15:27.990]and learned detailing through that class,
[00:15:31.931]learned a lot of things just about material properties
[00:15:35.570]and stuff like that.
[00:15:37.050]And then again just thesis,
[00:15:39.220]really learning how to research a project
[00:15:42.670]and even some of those
[00:15:44.840]those things of just putting a presentation together.
[00:15:47.340]I think those are really, really important today,
[00:15:51.110]especially now that our office
[00:15:54.210]is doing a lot of virtual presentations,
[00:15:56.220]it makes a huge difference.
[00:15:58.171]And I think we actually started doing
[00:16:01.490]more computer presentations in my undergrad at UNL,
[00:16:05.847]but it really made me ready
[00:16:08.070]for what has happened in the pandemic
[00:16:10.870]and prepared to make presentations in the office
[00:16:16.300]and have it go very fluid.
[00:16:18.010]So just a lot of overall things that I learned at UNL
[00:16:24.366]that I think helped me
[00:16:28.440]be able to give,
[00:16:30.050]be available to help anyone almost
[00:16:33.270]who needs help on whatever I can at least offer something.
[00:16:36.856]And I think that that was definitely
[00:16:39.100]probably one of the most valuable things
[00:16:40.970]that I took from UNL.
[00:16:43.020]And I think it was very,
[00:16:46.757]it was very apparent within my first six months
[00:16:50.890]that I was an intern at Olson Kundig
[00:16:52.900]and that's why they hired me.
[00:16:55.360]So it definitely was very useful
[00:17:00.256]to have a variety of skills behind my back
[00:17:06.910]that I think I really learned at UNL
[00:17:09.340]and I was also able to,
[00:17:11.500]like David said,
[00:17:13.370]I was able to TA,
[00:17:15.270]I don't know who's on this student call,
[00:17:18.730]but I'm sure a lot of you
[00:17:19.810]are in my previous students with Peter.
[00:17:24.070]And I think that that also
[00:17:26.660]that teaching element
[00:17:27.610]really helped me
[00:17:30.560]actually a lot,
[00:17:31.590]being able to have conversations about critiquing projects,
[00:17:38.840]that kind of skill was huge, huge.
[00:17:41.290]In the office every Thursday,
[00:17:43.270]we just had a crate yesterday,
[00:17:45.360]but being able to give constructive criticism,
[00:17:48.720]which I learned from Peter,
[00:17:53.240]is really important
[00:17:54.440]and it allows you to give feedback on projects in the office
[00:17:58.510]and people really respect your opinion
[00:18:00.340]when you're able to give constructive feedback.
[00:18:04.649]So I would actually say my TA,
[00:18:07.230]my teaching assistant background
[00:18:10.330]has helped me a lot in that sense.
[00:18:13.510]So I'll pass it on.
[00:18:16.670]Can I jump in there
[00:18:17.503]as we continue to discuss this question.
[00:18:19.490]I also maybe wanna throw in this additional question,
[00:18:23.000]which is about,
[00:18:26.384]preparing to make those personal choices
[00:18:30.950]in your education, right?
[00:18:32.410]You can just make choices,
[00:18:34.270]or you can be super strategic about making choices.
[00:18:36.620]And I think each one of you,
[00:18:38.350]whether it is about a GTA position
[00:18:41.300]or about balancing design build versus a thesis project
[00:18:43.828]or doing a dual degree like William,
[00:18:47.220]it seems like you all came into the M. Arch program
[00:18:49.940]with a goal or a mindset
[00:18:52.090]of how to achieve something
[00:18:54.210]or have a path into the program.
[00:18:56.710]I think that often times as a delineation
[00:18:59.210]that we like to make with fourth-year students.
[00:19:00.850]That the M. Arch program is different
[00:19:02.637]and you should be leveraging it to the best of your ability.
[00:19:06.420]So maybe I'll just add that to the conversation
[00:19:08.660]as a way for you guys to reflect.
[00:19:11.166]Right. I will just add one really quick thing on that.
[00:19:14.730]Is that I think a lot of people think that
[00:19:18.670]UNL graduate program
[00:19:20.100]versus the undergraduate program is very similar.
[00:19:22.760]And I would say it is if you make it that way,
[00:19:26.240]but that would be the same case if you went somewhere else.
[00:19:29.270]Really the only thing that's changing is scenery.
[00:19:31.250]So it's 100% your job as a student
[00:19:37.760]to push yourselves to develop continually all the time.
[00:19:43.170]And I know that sometimes change of scenery helps,
[00:19:47.430]but I think just like with my mindset
[00:19:50.560]as a fourth-year going into fifth-year,
[00:19:53.620]the big thing was that I knew I wanted to get out
[00:19:57.160]and really experience.
[00:19:58.540]And I was able to stay at UNL
[00:20:01.890]for grad school teach had scholarships.
[00:20:04.947]I was able to travel a lot in my last two years in school
[00:20:10.430]which was really great to just to have that experience
[00:20:15.070]and travel abroad,
[00:20:19.040]understand kind of architecture
[00:20:21.890]on totally different sides of the world,
[00:20:24.700]especially non-Western areas.
[00:20:26.770]And I think that that made a huge difference
[00:20:30.640]and then pulling me into Seattle,
[00:20:34.120]that was kind of the big move for me,
[00:20:38.620]that I felt like was,
[00:20:41.400]was that change in scenery that really pushed me
[00:20:44.610]and made me really wanna keep pushing after grad school,
[00:20:48.010]because it's so easy after grad school
[00:20:50.010]to wanna just be like, "I'm done, I'm done with school."
[00:20:52.940]And I think pushing yourselves away
[00:20:56.840]and continually like pulling yourself back
[00:21:00.070]and going through that rhythm
[00:21:01.400]is an important part of your career
[00:21:03.220]where you just need to find something
[00:21:04.870]that's constantly inspiring you.
[00:21:07.180]And I totally understand that
[00:21:08.780]like sometimes staying where you're at
[00:21:11.640]is really hard to stay inspired,
[00:21:13.220]especially during a pandemic.
[00:21:14.760]I have totally experienced that in the last year,
[00:21:19.430]but I think just really navigating
[00:21:22.620]and finding ways to keep yourself inspired
[00:21:25.570]wherever you are is really, really important.
[00:21:34.060]Someone else wanna take it-
[00:21:34.965]Yeah take it.
[00:21:35.798]Go ahead Marcellus.
[00:21:36.631]You can go ahead.
[00:21:37.929]Okay yeah as Mallory has said,
[00:21:43.357]and I had also said that before that about opportunities
[00:21:46.830]that are we are being offered in UNL
[00:21:48.940]that helped me outside in the field practice world.
[00:21:56.040]First of all is the broad program
[00:21:59.420]that they are offering
[00:22:00.927]and different I mean things
[00:22:03.420]that can fit into the market.
[00:22:05.840]Like when I did mention one of the projects
[00:22:08.550]that we did about the design build.
[00:22:12.770]Design build helped me a lot
[00:22:14.320]because of whereby we start from the first stage
[00:22:17.160]all the way to the final stages
[00:22:21.030]of meeting with the clients
[00:22:24.534]and the meeting with the community
[00:22:26.630]and discussing about how it will fit well
[00:22:29.133]into the community.
[00:22:30.850]So that's something.
[00:22:34.214]So the reason I moved to MA in UNL was because
[00:22:38.770]when I was in my undergrad,
[00:22:40.280]I saw that they were doing psych program
[00:22:42.324]whereby it will take you outside the community.
[00:22:45.008]And having you learn from the community
[00:22:47.728]as well as learning from the UNL
[00:22:49.420]whereby the UNL is works well with the community,
[00:22:52.260]which are surrounding it.
[00:22:53.990]So that was one of the factors that made me,
[00:22:56.300]and then just also other opportunities within the school
[00:23:03.400]that helped me a lot
[00:23:04.450]was being a TA student.
[00:23:07.530]Learning I mean,
[00:23:08.960]being a TA whereby I was learning from the students,
[00:23:12.250]that I was helping as well as they learn from me.
[00:23:16.060]And then also on the other hand,
[00:23:17.171]I was learning more about
[00:23:21.120]being on the two parts of their critic.
[00:23:23.070]Sometime when you had a student also,
[00:23:24.940]I mean they critique your work,
[00:23:26.040]but when you're a TA,
[00:23:27.640]you critique other students work.
[00:23:28.817]So it helped me having this,
[00:23:32.020]helping me a lot outside there because of,
[00:23:35.210]being direct with the clients.
[00:23:37.540]You need to be able to kind of
[00:23:40.340]knit all those things together
[00:23:41.920]and be able to explain to the client
[00:23:44.250]or communicate with the client very well.
[00:23:46.280]So at least those things like TA and design build
[00:23:49.340]helped me a lot.
[00:23:50.470]Also the facilities that within the school.
[00:23:55.940]I was working in the,
[00:23:56.990]I worked in the workshop, wood workshop,
[00:24:00.880]which I learned a lot,
[00:24:03.968]from 3D printing,
[00:24:06.310]and ceilings for 3D building and all that.
[00:24:08.430]Of which it's also extends to the market that we are.
[00:24:12.447]I mean the world is changing inside the way that
[00:24:15.580]currently, I mean we don't build models a lot,
[00:24:17.820]but we don't deal with physical models,
[00:24:19.860]but we go towards the 3D printing.
[00:24:22.630]So that's what UNL helped me a lot on
[00:24:25.432]giving that broad spectrum of being to the community,
[00:24:31.350]as well as critiquing and learning
[00:24:33.640]as well as also doing some 3D building and all that.
[00:24:39.320]So I think that's a very good thing
[00:24:43.028]that I chose MA in UNL.
[00:24:50.900]Thank you
[00:24:51.830]I can go next if that's absolutely.
[00:24:54.560]So for me, UNL
[00:24:57.300]the flexibility, the education
[00:24:58.890]and the avenues you can pursue in the M. Arch program
[00:25:02.100]was a huge factor in why I ended up going there.
[00:25:04.360]And mainly because my entire approach to architecture
[00:25:08.430]has been I love design
[00:25:10.020]and I love figuring out
[00:25:11.370]why people live in and head up and having a space
[00:25:13.660]and how they come together to form spaces.
[00:25:15.640]But I also enjoy the practicality behind it
[00:25:18.110]because a lot of things that go into a business,
[00:25:20.520]whether or not it's technical acumen to achieve something
[00:25:23.850]that somebody else can't show or represent,
[00:25:25.870]or in the timeline that you have to represent it as well
[00:25:29.170]as we all know,
[00:25:30.003]people want things yesterday,
[00:25:31.170]when you get asked for them nowadays, especially.
[00:25:33.540]And the idea is that as I progress forward
[00:25:35.970]in my education,
[00:25:36.970]I wanted something that balanced the world of design
[00:25:41.150]and the world of technical acumen and structure,
[00:25:43.320]but also something that looked at it,
[00:25:45.960]the deep kind of practical nature behind a building process
[00:25:49.840]that sometimes I think gets overlooked in a lot of places
[00:25:52.464]because design and ethos are fantastic to have,
[00:25:56.603]but you also have to deal with zoning codes,
[00:25:59.678]business development,
[00:26:02.530]different restrictions on how you provide funding.
[00:26:05.270]I just got off of a meeting talking about condo descriptions
[00:26:07.910]and how you lay out mapping in different descriptions
[00:26:10.340]for legal descriptions.
[00:26:11.630]And one of the things that was great about UNL
[00:26:13.170]was there was a lot of different classes
[00:26:15.030]that allowed me to pursue those avenues
[00:26:17.180]in various specific ways.
[00:26:19.030]Some of the ones that I particularly remember and like
[00:26:21.090]were the computational design ones.
[00:26:23.340]I do a lot of work in my office with data analysis
[00:26:26.440]and being able to structure and show data
[00:26:29.240]in holding me from rabbit into a model,
[00:26:32.060]into a description that somebody who isn't versed
[00:26:35.310]in the way that we interpret and build things,
[00:26:37.560]whether it's an owner, a lawyer, city developer.
[00:26:41.200]The other thing as well,
[00:26:42.033]that was really nice about you UNL's education structure
[00:26:44.713]and the way that as Mallory said,
[00:26:47.050]you have to push yourself to have a direction
[00:26:49.330]you have to make decisions to be
[00:26:52.260]thoughtful in your education,
[00:26:53.770]is UNL also helps you push that as well.
[00:26:56.850]The idea with me having the dual degree program,
[00:26:59.170]there was a lot of setup that I had to do,
[00:27:01.030]but it was already set up in a lot of ways
[00:27:03.260]that really helped me to structure myself.
[00:27:05.710]I mean it was a lot of work
[00:27:06.610]adding an extra year onto my education,
[00:27:08.440]but it was well worth it because there was a plan in place.
[00:27:11.160]There was people I could talk to on both sides of things.
[00:27:13.990]There have been thought from UNL's faculty
[00:27:16.170]with the College of Business' faculty,
[00:27:18.210]in regards to how you interact with those courses.
[00:27:20.510]And there was an intentionality behind it that made sense
[00:27:23.260]that fit into how I wanted to learn
[00:27:24.980]and what I knew I wanted to do.
[00:27:26.769]Additionally as well,
[00:27:28.739]the other thing that I really enjoyed was with UNL was the,
[00:27:33.690]not only the idea of what classes are offered,
[00:27:36.220]but also kind of the level of trust
[00:27:38.120]that people and faculty have in the students
[00:27:40.830]to do and accept and kind of move forward with things
[00:27:43.550]and in regards to like teaching for example,
[00:27:46.050]is that's come up a couple of times,
[00:27:47.749]I was a TA for a computational design course,
[00:27:51.440]which is something I love to do
[00:27:52.560]and I like to help teach.
[00:27:53.602]And it was a great avenue to not only help pay for school,
[00:27:56.470]but also to expand my abilities,
[00:27:58.409]not only as a public speaker,
[00:28:00.118]but also to improve how I design and critique
[00:28:03.450]as Mallory was alluding to.
[00:28:05.040]And then also it was something that parlayed into how
[00:28:08.160]I knew I would work in the future.
[00:28:09.938]I help people all the time
[00:28:11.600]with different technical questions in my firm even today.
[00:28:14.570]With different things
[00:28:15.403]because as you work in a real-world environment,
[00:28:17.820]one of the things you also have to realize,
[00:28:19.420]which you're not gonna help me to do
[00:28:21.170]was that you're dealing with people
[00:28:22.470]that are at different skill levels and skill sets.
[00:28:25.000]And so part of it is being able to communicate,
[00:28:27.830]not only to people who understand
[00:28:29.670]what you're saying more aptly,
[00:28:31.690]but also those who have a different perspective.
[00:28:34.430]And that's one of the nice things about UNL
[00:28:35.940]was the pool of perspectives that you're able to pull from.
[00:28:40.283]And the other thing was at UNL,
[00:28:42.458]the M. Arch program has an intimate feeling to it.
[00:28:46.770]You're not being lost in the kind of weeds,
[00:28:48.724]which I know that happened to a couple of my colleagues
[00:28:50.860]who were at other schools,
[00:28:51.693]they still love their education,
[00:28:53.070]but it was something that they felt was lacking
[00:28:56.340]and something that I knew professors would talk to 'em
[00:28:58.750]on a daily basis.
[00:29:00.040]There were people that helped me out.
[00:29:01.320]My first job I got
[00:29:02.153]was on the recommendation of a professor at UNL,
[00:29:05.087]and I still work for that firm today
[00:29:06.830]because I loved it so much.
[00:29:07.770]I just decided to keep building.
[00:29:09.980]So and the other thing
[00:29:11.120]I also really liked too about Nebraska,
[00:29:13.300]is it sometimes I think is something that's overlooked
[00:29:17.110]in a lot of ways,
[00:29:17.943]because people think of East and West Coast a lot of times,
[00:29:20.890]and they'd skip the middle,
[00:29:21.780]but there's a really great community of people here
[00:29:25.450]who care about architecture
[00:29:26.770]and have a breadth of touch across the world
[00:29:29.810]that you can really talk to and speak with and learn from.
[00:29:33.090]The other thing I also really liked as well,
[00:29:34.660]that the way that the educational system
[00:29:36.740]was set up for the M. Arch was
[00:29:38.100]they allowed you to not only pull in technical acumen,
[00:29:40.410]specific things to data visualization,
[00:29:42.260]data representation and business,
[00:29:44.290]but also looking at practical applications,
[00:29:47.060]such as the intern class,
[00:29:48.607]the internship class,
[00:29:49.690]being able to use your actual real world experience
[00:29:51.757]as part of your college credit,
[00:29:53.537]because that's the ultimate goal,
[00:29:55.270]is that you get out,
[00:29:56.140]you get a job,
[00:29:56.973]you develop yourself
[00:29:57.806]and you're able to become a well-rounded professional.
[00:30:00.320]This architecture is everybody's been saying
[00:30:01.547]is a long process.
[00:30:03.380]There's a lot of things that
[00:30:04.460]you're constantly learning and growing.
[00:30:06.560]And the program itself kind of helps you set up your mindset
[00:30:10.706]as you kind of work through it,
[00:30:12.810]to go forward into the field of architecture itself.
[00:30:19.100]I'll round us out on this question.
[00:30:21.580]So I'll get really practical with everybody,
[00:30:24.370]the end goal here, right?
[00:30:25.203]When you get out of your,
[00:30:27.908]you wrap up your education is you wanna get a job.
[00:30:31.670]And so if you're being strategic,
[00:30:33.960]I think about how you're structuring your M. Arch experience
[00:30:38.550]wherever you are,
[00:30:39.383]whether you're at UNL or elsewhere.
[00:30:41.860]You're really trying to hone your own value system.
[00:30:45.330]And you're really trying to become,
[00:30:50.083]you're trying to become someone who stands out, right?
[00:30:53.480]And I think one piece of that,
[00:30:55.320]for maybe there's a comical piece of this,
[00:30:59.560]but if you're a student from Nebraska
[00:31:02.120]applying for a job in New York city
[00:31:03.720]or Philadelphia or Seattle for that matter,
[00:31:06.940]you're seeking out.
[00:31:07.850]And I think that's a really positive thing.
[00:31:09.690]And I think that like it's certainly,
[00:31:11.480]I'm certainly valued in my firm for being
[00:31:15.490]from I'll be,
[00:31:17.540]I'm kind of in the group of those that are matriculated
[00:31:20.380]in the Midwest.
[00:31:21.690]One of the partners at my office is from Michigan.
[00:31:23.810]And I think he has some kind of like,
[00:31:26.440]he really feels like we're in tight
[00:31:28.420]'cause we're from the Midwest.
[00:31:29.760]But I feel like there's something really valuable
[00:31:31.860]about that and with that,
[00:31:34.200]I think the strategary
[00:31:35.450]that goes into you structuring the classes
[00:31:37.620]that you wanna take based on what's important to you,
[00:31:40.240]'cause you're really honing your value system
[00:31:41.297]you're really given the opportunity
[00:31:45.030]to ask the questions that you wanna ask.
[00:31:47.040]I think the most influential piece of my M. Arch experience
[00:31:50.620]was my thesis.
[00:31:52.260]And I would encourage all of you to do that.
[00:31:54.330]I know that there's some folks
[00:31:56.340]that enter into the M. Arch program
[00:31:57.730]that are really just never, never intend to do it.
[00:32:01.480]And I think that you're really missing out
[00:32:03.950]on the opportunity to really learn to,
[00:32:08.275]ask questions that you're interested in
[00:32:11.640]to answer those questions.
[00:32:12.570]So do the research and then also just to structure your day,
[00:32:15.840]the best best part of my last semester
[00:32:18.010]was the only scheduled class I had
[00:32:20.428]was the class that I was TAing.
[00:32:23.000]And what that gave me was an entire day,
[00:32:25.240]just to ask the questions and read the books
[00:32:27.280]and talk to the folks that I was interested in
[00:32:30.810]getting more feedback from.
[00:32:33.058]And at the end of the day like
[00:32:34.173]when you go into your professional career,
[00:32:37.320]there's no one that's gonna tell you how to spend your day.
[00:32:39.800]And I feel like if you can learn those that discipline
[00:32:42.980]and that rigor,
[00:32:44.100]and also hone your curiosity,
[00:32:47.390]your ability to ask questions.
[00:32:48.830]And I think folks on this,
[00:32:50.790]the rest of the panel has pointed out that
[00:32:53.480]being self-critical,
[00:32:54.313]being self-critical,
[00:32:55.810]and being critical of work that's around you,
[00:33:01.290]past work that your firm has done
[00:33:03.190]from the projects that you're not working on in your firm,
[00:33:06.160]that you can in your firm,
[00:33:08.632]that's happening at your firm
[00:33:10.060]that you could opine on those projects,
[00:33:12.680]I feel like it's a really important skill to have.
[00:33:15.780]And I feel like thesis is really great with that development
[00:33:19.440]Study abroad. I mean, I can't say enough about study abroad.
[00:33:21.860]Mark Henchman is phenomenal.
[00:33:24.060]I had an incredible time in London.
[00:33:26.450]I had an incredible time
[00:33:27.840]in the two weeks we spent in Barcelona.
[00:33:29.770]I had an incredible time in Egypt when we were there.
[00:33:32.206]I somehow made a really good pitch to him
[00:33:35.596]that I should do my final project in,
[00:33:40.100]on a different topic than proposed.
[00:33:41.750]And I felt like he thought,
[00:33:43.620]he must've thought that I made a really good case.
[00:33:45.580]So I got to do my final project.
[00:33:48.510]When I was living in London,
[00:33:49.910]I got to spend two weeks in Spain doing a competition
[00:33:54.076]rather than the one that he had proposed.
[00:33:56.680]So I think that just speaks to the fact
[00:34:00.320]that you really have the opportunity to craft
[00:34:03.770]your own investigation.
[00:34:08.140]I'll call your M. Arch education.
[00:34:10.596]You're developing hard skills.
[00:34:12.320]So you're developing the computer skills,
[00:34:16.260]but you're also developing the soft skills
[00:34:18.910]and the value system
[00:34:20.210]that's gonna really influence your career.
[00:34:24.730]I also took a class,
[00:34:25.610]I think it was called fact with Jeff Day
[00:34:27.600]where we worked a real world project
[00:34:33.810]with a community center in Kansas City.
[00:34:36.750]We went to Kansas City and we met with those folks.
[00:34:39.200]And then there was the fabrication side of it,
[00:34:40.960]which has been instrumental in my career.
[00:34:43.970]My firm is heavily research-based
[00:34:47.680]and we do a lot of prototyping.
[00:34:49.030]We do a lot of one-to-one building.
[00:34:50.580]We model real one-to-one details
[00:34:54.677]of you name it from a column structure to flashing details.
[00:35:00.488]So that was instrumental in kind of thinking about
[00:35:04.930]the design process both from drawing,
[00:35:07.940]but also making
[00:35:09.592]and everyone on this call has said,
[00:35:12.430]I mean maybe it's indicative of those of us that were TA's.
[00:35:16.718]We were heavily engaged in our own education,
[00:35:21.430]but also educating those in the undergrad program.
[00:35:25.680]I'll be honest with you when I first started TAing
[00:35:28.580]I didn't know how,
[00:35:30.270]I didn't know if I would even enjoy it.
[00:35:33.350]It seemed like something else that I was putting
[00:35:35.036]on my very already full plate.
[00:35:39.930]I got so much out of it.
[00:35:41.749]And it really in some way,
[00:35:44.450]in full circle I'm starting to teach in the spring
[00:35:45.940]at UNL through your studio,
[00:35:48.580]that it really showed me that
[00:35:51.426]I find it so gratifying
[00:35:54.480]to be able to have conversations with the undergrad students
[00:35:57.856]and you find yourself developing your own skills
[00:36:00.460]and you're learning a ton from other people.
[00:36:03.540]So I both from like a,
[00:36:05.620]I remember I TAed for Peter,
[00:36:08.950]I think all three years
[00:36:10.360]and yeah all three years
[00:36:11.330]and some of the studio classes that we had,
[00:36:13.690]just the things that people would construct models out of
[00:36:16.107]and just like the creativity
[00:36:17.560]that was coming from every angle,
[00:36:20.560]I feel like there was just so much
[00:36:24.080]that I can't really even put into words
[00:36:25.940]that comes from that experience,
[00:36:27.280]but it also again,
[00:36:29.520]is really good with time management,
[00:36:31.050]because if you're a studio TA,
[00:36:34.050]you are in that studio for the full hours
[00:36:36.190]there in that studio.
[00:36:37.350]So I feel like it's just a good way
[00:36:41.700]to develop time management
[00:36:44.187]and the other like soft skills that go with,
[00:36:49.749]managing this profession and the challenges ahead.
[00:36:56.220]Yeah. Thank you everyone.
[00:36:57.460]I also have a follow up question.
[00:36:58.513]Just knew some of you are alluding to this,
[00:37:00.390]but I want can you reflect on also non-GTA position related,
[00:37:05.310]but faculty guidance and mentorship.
[00:37:07.340]Some of you talked about this a little bit,
[00:37:09.874]but I hear that echoing in a lot of your responses
[00:37:12.610]and I maybe you guys can touch on that.
[00:37:15.470]What the role of that was?
[00:37:16.720]What the importance of that is?
[00:37:18.100]Either for you getting a job.
[00:37:19.500]Are you focusing yourself in school?
[00:37:22.200]There's a couple of ways you could take that,
[00:37:23.940]but maybe just throw that back to you guys.
[00:37:26.180]Will do you wanna maybe start?
[00:37:29.710]Yeah, sure I can start with that.
[00:37:31.650]So I have a couple of anecdotes for that,
[00:37:33.250]that I find kind of useful and fun for this one.
[00:37:35.320]So, as I mentioned,
[00:37:36.506]the position I work at now for the firm that I work at,
[00:37:39.300]the Clark Henderson Partners,
[00:37:40.590]my start here as an intern
[00:37:42.370]was actually on the basis of a recommendation
[00:37:44.870]from a professor at the time at UNL,
[00:37:46.090]from the downside.
[00:37:47.810]And so it was a really great opportunity
[00:37:53.050]because I started off in his studio.
[00:37:55.040]I showed a really high level of work ethic
[00:37:57.360]and interest in what we were doing.
[00:37:59.720]We meshed well on a lot of topics.
[00:38:01.300]We were able to have really good discussions
[00:38:02.291]about sustainability,
[00:38:04.240]designing those different things that you might find
[00:38:07.140]and factor into the design we were working on at the time.
[00:38:09.740]And then basically as a result his firm would reach out
[00:38:12.708]to somebody I used to work at
[00:38:13.920]asked if you thought of anybody
[00:38:15.020]would be a good recommendation.
[00:38:16.280]And I was able to get my first position in the field
[00:38:19.020]as coming in as a junior,
[00:38:20.730]which is pretty early on
[00:38:22.760]for a lot of people in some regards.
[00:38:24.580]And it was really helpful
[00:38:25.440]because it helped me to pair not only my education
[00:38:27.524]with the educational side of things
[00:38:29.940]and the research and the fine details you can get in
[00:38:32.374]and explore while you're in school,
[00:38:33.960]but also kind of the more practical real world,
[00:38:36.305]the shift that does occur
[00:38:38.110]when you kind of get into an office and eight to five,
[00:38:40.470]or well I shouldn't say eight to five
[00:38:42.400]it's never eight to five,
[00:38:43.280]but typical day for work.
[00:38:46.690]The other thing as well,
[00:38:47.523]that was great with UNL was I found professors
[00:38:50.810]who were not only willing to discuss design
[00:38:55.840]and their own research,
[00:38:57.210]but be willing to branch out
[00:38:59.330]and look at different areas of interests
[00:39:02.360]that weren't necessarily pertaining
[00:39:03.920]to what they particularly look at.
[00:39:06.140]So it was the idea of just having casual conversations
[00:39:08.174]about design, improving ourselves,
[00:39:10.420]also looking at practical applications too.
[00:39:12.626]I was going back to being a TA,
[00:39:15.710]but I worked with Dave Stysic
[00:39:17.480]who is an adjunct professor that came in
[00:39:20.220]and brought in a whole level of practicality and thought
[00:39:23.030]on digital realization
[00:39:25.120]and coding that I hadn't previously been exposed to.
[00:39:29.260]And so you were able to kind of have those discussions
[00:39:31.300]and branch off and see what they were doing.
[00:39:33.010]An architect who solely relies on computer programming
[00:39:36.370]rather than actual designing
[00:39:37.580]was kind of interesting to have that exposure to.
[00:39:40.510]Dave Newton was fantastic with me during my final year.
[00:39:44.180]To be honest doing the MBA and the M. Arch,
[00:39:46.190]I was a little bit fried by the time of my head,
[00:39:48.540]into my education.
[00:39:49.800]And as I was going through computational design class
[00:39:52.600]that he was teaching my final semester,
[00:39:55.110]he helped me tremendously in trying to understand
[00:39:57.400]what I was trying to focus my final project on
[00:39:59.880]and paper on with the development of the code
[00:40:01.860]we were working through.
[00:40:02.970]And it also helped me to kind of see
[00:40:05.920]where I wanted to go with the project as well,
[00:40:08.180]because, it's not a bad thing
[00:40:09.810]to admit as you go through school,
[00:40:12.350]that you're having to ask questions
[00:40:14.570]and to struggle with something.
[00:40:16.300]The idea is that architecture and design in general,
[00:40:18.890]in my opinion,
[00:40:19.780]is kind of a positive struggle
[00:40:21.190]towards achieving a desired outcome
[00:40:24.190]that everybody can really enjoy and work with
[00:40:27.110]and holistically use in as best way as possible
[00:40:31.652]with regards to the constraints that you have.
[00:40:34.360]And so having faculty that understood the practicality,
[00:40:38.870]the human nature behind architecture,
[00:40:41.170]and were able to have those discussions on varying levels
[00:40:45.310]was really useful.
[00:40:46.340]The other thing as well too,
[00:40:47.300]was I could bring up concerns
[00:40:49.080]that I was having in regards to business classes
[00:40:51.430]or different things like that,
[00:40:52.350]that weren't necessarily within the wheelhouse
[00:40:54.450]of the architectural college itself,
[00:40:56.620]but they had enough understanding and wherewithal
[00:40:58.700]to push those conversations forward,
[00:41:01.110]help me out,
[00:41:01.943]give me direction on certain things
[00:41:03.150]that I may have needed to ask.
[00:41:04.750]The other thing too that I really enjoyed
[00:41:07.260]about the faculty UNL
[00:41:09.130]was the idea that you,
[00:41:11.880]especially when you get into the M. Arch program,
[00:41:13.970]that you're really looking at it as a partnership
[00:41:16.250]of how you move forward and how you discuss things.
[00:41:18.950]The idea is not that it doesn't happen in undergrad,
[00:41:21.470]but in M. Arch you've developed yourself a little bit.
[00:41:23.700]You've been in the educational world for a while.
[00:41:25.770]You start to have a little more
[00:41:26.730]of an in-depth understanding.
[00:41:28.160]And so you're able to see that relationship grow and change
[00:41:31.273]in a very positive manner.
[00:41:33.410]That then as I'm sure other people
[00:41:34.660]on this call can relate to,
[00:41:36.030]affects your studio projects,
[00:41:37.440]how you push that forward,
[00:41:38.410]the direction those take,
[00:41:39.740]and then also the conversations that you can have.
[00:41:41.970]Like Jazz mentioned with being able to get approvals
[00:41:44.050]for different things that you normally wouldn't
[00:41:46.150]or wouldn't think to maybe ask so.
[00:41:52.898]Thanks. Anyone else wanna jump in?
[00:41:55.910]I'll hop in.
[00:41:57.680]I can't stress enough the value of relationships
[00:42:01.956]for your career path,
[00:42:04.070]both in your education
[00:42:06.200]and then once you get out
[00:42:07.570]and folks that are in your office
[00:42:09.520]finding mentorship is so valuable.
[00:42:13.565]I was on a call recently that said that 75% of jobs
[00:42:18.770]that are being filled are not being advertised.
[00:42:22.860]So having folks that can advocate for you
[00:42:25.740]and folks that find you pleasant to work with,
[00:42:30.300]find you to be a hard worker,
[00:42:31.570]find you to be someone who asks really great questions,
[00:42:35.730]has a curiosity
[00:42:36.780]and a great work ethic
[00:42:38.635]is really gonna push far in your career.
[00:42:43.550]As I mentioned,
[00:42:45.336]I still am in contact with a number of folks from UNL
[00:42:49.730]and my job came from a recommendation from Peter Olszewski.
[00:42:55.830]So I also had interviews in New York from some,
[00:43:00.210]certainly recommendations from Jeff Day.
[00:43:02.520]So I think just being able to communicate to people
[00:43:05.660]like geographically where you wanna be,
[00:43:07.230]I'm sure Mallory you had some folks that,
[00:43:09.880]maybe had connections in Seattle,
[00:43:11.330]but like getting a recommendation from a professor,
[00:43:14.650]namely your thesis professor
[00:43:16.535]or someone that you worked closely with
[00:43:19.763]is gonna get you on the top of the pile of resumes.
[00:43:26.040]I don't remember how it came up but a couple of years ago
[00:43:28.670]and I've been at my firm nine years in September.
[00:43:31.860]It came up that I had this glowing recommendation.
[00:43:34.760]I never read what Peter wrote about me, but I,
[00:43:37.830]it came up really casually,
[00:43:39.598]I was traveling with some folks
[00:43:41.760]to drone over a project I'm currently working on
[00:43:43.397]and it came up because I had this glowing recommendation.
[00:43:46.520]So trust me if people think that you're worth the effort
[00:43:52.380]to write a recommendation and to put your name out there,
[00:43:56.271]it's good for everyone.
[00:43:57.600]It's good for UNL.
[00:43:58.820]It's good for the faculty member
[00:44:01.960]who's getting to recommend someone
[00:44:03.570]who they see as doing a really good job.
[00:44:05.997]And it's I mean gosh,
[00:44:07.470]it can make or break,
[00:44:08.520]or it can definitely change the trajectory of your career.
[00:44:11.660]So I would encourage you to find again,
[00:44:14.570]the folks whose values align with you
[00:44:18.193]and what you want to really bring to the profession
[00:44:23.490]and get to know them and get to know their work.
[00:44:28.010]I mean, there's some really fantastic work
[00:44:30.380]that some of the professors have done.
[00:44:31.770]I remember when David was interviewing at UNL,
[00:44:34.987]I sat in on the interview
[00:44:37.800]and the project that you were working on at the time was,
[00:44:39.610]I think it was in Boston,
[00:44:42.120]was really phenomenal and really inspiring.
[00:44:44.980]And also a lot of the work that Peter did with his,
[00:44:50.180]PhD dissertation with machines was really just fascinating.
[00:44:54.610]Remiko and theory
[00:44:56.630]and what she's done in the work of theory
[00:44:58.570]was really inspirational for me for my thesis.
[00:45:02.510]So yeah there's it's,
[00:45:03.930]it's about finding what you're interested in
[00:45:05.690]and then really getting to know that person
[00:45:07.700]and they will be a wealth of knowledge for you.
[00:45:13.540]Yeah. I would just say with UNL faculty and staff,
[00:45:19.300]actually I'm looking at Stephanie now,
[00:45:21.830]but there's a level of investment that I got in my
[00:45:26.570]not just graduate,
[00:45:27.730]but also undergraduate
[00:45:29.840]that is very clear
[00:45:32.220]and is huge reason why I am where I am today.
[00:45:37.050]I would say I am at all thinking,
[00:45:40.970]but that really started with David Karle's suggestion to do
[00:45:45.270]and a spring break internship or externship.
[00:45:49.070]But, so I started that and I contacted Mark Bacon,
[00:45:53.300]who was also a previous professor that I had,
[00:45:56.550]and he set me up with someone he knew I'd also can do.
[00:46:00.480]So that was really how I got my foot in the door.
[00:46:04.230]And that was that week experience,
[00:46:07.220]was really the week where they saw,
[00:46:08.730]okay, this person really fits well here.
[00:46:12.680]We're gonna give her an internship after this.
[00:46:14.930]And then eventually got hired after that.
[00:46:17.810]But if I,
[00:46:19.870]that one week that really changed my path
[00:46:23.060]and I really wanted to work at Olson Kundig.
[00:46:25.030]I was very set to work there.
[00:46:27.590]It was an office that I wanted to go to
[00:46:30.160]and I was willing to find someone
[00:46:31.930]who knew someone to get there.
[00:46:33.880]And that's really so important.
[00:46:36.123]It's, I mean, everyone says it,
[00:46:39.280]it's not necessarily what you know,
[00:46:41.120]it's who you know,
[00:46:41.953]and that's very, very, very true.
[00:46:45.140]So with that being said,
[00:46:48.220]when I was applying for grad school,
[00:46:51.425]I do remember one school
[00:46:53.670]that was giving me scholarship offers.
[00:46:57.440]I was looking into more of the idea
[00:47:01.350]of what their grad program was like.
[00:47:03.466]And it was a big class
[00:47:07.130]where you definitely wouldn't get that
[00:47:08.540]tailored investment from both sides.
[00:47:11.140]And I think that just thinking now about how many times,
[00:47:16.620]I mean even in undergrad,
[00:47:19.300]David would come in early to meet with me
[00:47:22.930]if I needed extra help.
[00:47:24.670]I mean there's just so,
[00:47:26.720]there were so many times where it was like,
[00:47:28.670]I asked for help and it was always given.
[00:47:32.230]I don't think I ever heard like, "No I can't help you."
[00:47:37.034]And I think that that's really the great part
[00:47:41.070]about where I'm at right now,
[00:47:43.810]is that I'm not afraid to ask for help.
[00:47:46.150]I'm not afraid to say I don't understand the detail
[00:47:49.410]and that also really accelerates me moving forward.
[00:47:54.970]It's just one more thing
[00:47:56.401]that I am comfortable and confident doing,
[00:47:59.980]is just asking for help
[00:48:02.320]because I know that I want someone who invests in me
[00:48:05.750]as much as I'm investing in them.
[00:48:07.340]And that's really important looking forward
[00:48:09.240]when you find a job.
[00:48:11.090]You don't wanna just say,
[00:48:12.867]"I can give this to you."
[00:48:14.010]You wanna hear what they can give to you as well.
[00:48:17.610]And that was one thing
[00:48:18.490]that I think UNL taught me to appreciate.
[00:48:21.700]It was just like when people offer to help you
[00:48:25.380]really acknowledge that.
[00:48:26.820]And I would say the faculty and the staff at UNL
[00:48:32.160]were incredibly helpful throughout my graduate degree,
[00:48:37.423]even if it was just,
[00:48:39.880]I needed to travel to New York for thesis,
[00:48:42.390]they were able to help me figure out a plan
[00:48:45.220]of when I could go.
[00:48:47.816]And even Jeff Day was my thesis advisor,
[00:48:51.320]but he was able to suggest things to look at
[00:48:54.240]and really like take time to schedule out
[00:48:57.210]like what I should see,
[00:48:58.460]what I should do during that time that I was there.
[00:49:01.810]It was really helpful to get feedback whenever I needed it.
[00:49:06.910]So I would just say that that was probably
[00:49:09.670]a big, big reason why I'm very happy with where I ended up
[00:49:16.410]for grad school.
[00:49:23.947]Well Marcellus I think your next.
[00:49:25.325]Okay just sort on that
[00:49:28.656]as like the link of interconnection that UNL made
[00:49:34.337]was taking advantage of the career services
[00:49:37.236]that we had over there,
[00:49:39.130]whereby for me,
[00:49:41.280]the reason I got job outside,
[00:49:44.020]from DLR and all that,
[00:49:45.342]is that one of our professors
[00:49:48.832]was a friend to one of the guys who came for Career Service,
[00:49:53.700]who worked with DLR.
[00:49:55.310]And when they came in,
[00:49:56.530]having that relationship with the professors,
[00:49:58.901]all of them,
[00:50:00.530]I mean most of them,
[00:50:01.860]is that they get to know you
[00:50:04.100]and the way whereby it most of the professors
[00:50:08.001]sorta admin at MA in UNL
[00:50:12.150]is that they are willing to help you anytime,
[00:50:14.500]that's and when they are willing to help you
[00:50:15.583]anytime you get to know each other more.
[00:50:18.479]And for knowing each other,
[00:50:20.687]they know your weaknesses.
[00:50:22.210]I mean they know your strengths.
[00:50:25.238]So as Career Services was when they came in,
[00:50:29.530]they referred me to one of the people
[00:50:31.470]who was within the Career Services in DLR.
[00:50:36.298]And then that DLR also referred to me
[00:50:38.190]to one of their offices
[00:50:39.990]because when they talked with professor,
[00:50:43.468]I mean with Jeff Day,
[00:50:45.428]and the professor who had also retired
[00:50:49.330]the former Dean of Students Wayne Tuman,
[00:50:53.818]it helped a lot because when they had friends
[00:50:56.060]with those people.
[00:50:56.930]So that's what made me walk with them
[00:51:00.940]because, learning from them
[00:51:04.000]and then they know your strengths,
[00:51:05.400]they can pass a word to other people.
[00:51:07.140]So the reason I'm saying this is that
[00:51:09.500]most of the professors in UNL are very friendly
[00:51:12.000]and they're connected to the outside world.
[00:51:13.805]So the more you interact with the professors over there,
[00:51:17.587]the more you'll get in touch with the outside world
[00:51:19.681]as well the practice world.
[00:51:24.376]That's great. Yeah thank you everyone for your comments.
[00:51:27.205]We have a few more minutes left,
[00:51:28.730]but I do wanna encourage the guests to ask questions
[00:51:32.635]for the panelists.
[00:51:34.325]If you do, please write those in the chat.
[00:51:36.210]Stephanie, will monitor that.
[00:51:39.010]And while you guys think of some or start to type,
[00:51:41.800]I'll ask one final question.
[00:51:43.410]Some of you have alluded to this already,
[00:51:45.500]but during your time at UNL,
[00:51:47.580]what was the greatest impact for your professional career?
[00:51:52.060]What experience that you have while at UNL to do that?
[00:51:56.890]Marcellus, do you wanna start off?
[00:51:58.760]Yeah, sure.
[00:52:00.490]I think the greatest impact example at the TA.
[00:52:04.495]Being a teaching assistant.
[00:52:05.610]That one gave me a lot.
[00:52:09.500]I learned a lot from there,
[00:52:11.630]because of having being a student,
[00:52:13.690]as well as I mean helping other students.
[00:52:16.150]And then also from that helping other students
[00:52:18.093]there's the professors within you're own,
[00:52:20.950]they help you as well the option.
[00:52:22.390]So it's kind of interconnected together.
[00:52:24.450]So we came up as a team,
[00:52:26.110]being a team work whereby it helped me a lot,
[00:52:29.116]which created an impact outside
[00:52:31.850]because in the design field,
[00:52:34.050]mostly it's you work as a team member to ascertain,
[00:52:37.980]or you work in a studio
[00:52:39.260]or you work in a department of a certain
[00:52:42.560]dealing with a type of a project.
[00:52:45.210]So by being a TA,
[00:52:46.880]helped me a lot,
[00:52:47.850]to have created that impact for making me fit
[00:52:53.362]into that being a team team member outside there.
[00:52:58.680]Also, it's just the culture of UNL that,
[00:53:04.758]whenever most of the time when you say you are from UNL
[00:53:09.280]people they're I mean excited I mean
[00:53:12.120]because they talk of the football team and all that.
[00:53:14.580]So it's not totally about the MA,
[00:53:16.830]but as well as also the broader culture of the UNL
[00:53:19.850]that's taking us outside that there to the world.
[00:53:23.370]So those are the things impacted me a lot in the field.
[00:53:29.919](upbeat music)
[00:53:37.210]I would say thesis.
[00:53:38.740]I think just the idea that the provocation,
[00:53:42.400]the asking the questions,
[00:53:43.600]the personal research,
[00:53:45.500]the really coming up with what interests you
[00:53:47.930]and chasing that down.
[00:53:49.760]And then I think William you mentioned this,
[00:53:53.200]just the idea that there's a level of trust
[00:53:55.490]that's involved with basically saying,
[00:53:57.207]"Hey, like come up with your own project and do the work."
[00:54:00.741]And, you're meeting with your thesis advisor,
[00:54:03.840]but you're conducting the meeting
[00:54:05.910]and it's really setting you up
[00:54:07.092]to synthesize a lot of ideas,
[00:54:10.810]to collect information,
[00:54:11.840]to analyze that information,
[00:54:13.020]and then come up with whatever your conclusion is,
[00:54:14.920]which in my case was a built structure.
[00:54:18.710]So I think that hands down,
[00:54:21.610]I would say just the structure of thesis
[00:54:24.150]and then the personal development
[00:54:25.540]that happened over the course of that last year
[00:54:27.720]and truthfully like just it was really enjoyable.
[00:54:30.439]So I think that,
[00:54:33.638]again, I was coming back into to school
[00:54:37.080]from having been working for four years,
[00:54:39.700]that the idea that I had some freedom
[00:54:41.840]and some kind of leverage on my own time
[00:54:48.208]was really formative for me.
[00:54:51.118](upbeat music)
[00:54:56.920]I can go next if that works.
[00:54:58.930]I would say for me,
[00:55:00.090]it is kind of hard
[00:55:00.930]sometimes because there were a lot of moments in time
[00:55:02.200]to pin one down.
[00:55:03.670]But the overarching one for me was just deciding to
[00:55:05.937]and being able to do the dual degree that I did.
[00:55:08.567]I knew from the get-go,
[00:55:10.100]what I wanted out of my college career
[00:55:11.970]and where I wanted to be
[00:55:12.803]and what I hoped to be in the future.
[00:55:15.397]In terms of my growth,
[00:55:17.260]the level of responsibility
[00:55:18.820]that I have at my firm currently,
[00:55:20.520]even only working full-time for,
[00:55:23.347]I guess a year and a half now.
[00:55:24.920]Time flies sometimes.
[00:55:26.550]Being able to do the MBA alongside my M. Arch
[00:55:29.480]was a huge boost,
[00:55:32.450]to not only my education and what I can experience,
[00:55:35.450]but also a boost to my professional career,
[00:55:38.653]how people view me,
[00:55:40.400]the questions I get asked,
[00:55:41.460]the opportunities and responsibility I have.
[00:55:43.720]And then also as a means of expressing what my desires are
[00:55:49.203]and interests are,
[00:55:50.036]especially to people who I interview with
[00:55:51.930]or discussions I have,
[00:55:54.084]that I would say
[00:55:55.630]is probably the single biggest impact for me.
[00:56:02.280]And I would probably say the biggest impact for me
[00:56:06.450]was the level of investment from professor to student
[00:56:12.640]and also student to student.
[00:56:15.183]And that goes kind of along with the teaching assistants.
[00:56:20.182]I think that had a huge impact on me
[00:56:22.760]being able to give review
[00:56:26.440]or critique other people's work
[00:56:28.179]and be able to form a language that was understandable,
[00:56:33.510]but also receive it as well from faculty.
[00:56:38.600]And I think being able to
[00:56:40.430]kind of constantly circle in that motion
[00:56:43.070]really helped me moving forward.
[00:56:46.080]Just be able to move along the process of a project
[00:56:52.170]in a fluid way and not be afraid to ask,
[00:56:55.340]but also not be afraid to give
[00:56:56.830]and really know what you have to offer
[00:57:00.389]and be ready to accept
[00:57:05.980]any help at any time
[00:57:08.290]or ask for it.
[00:57:09.580]So I think that that's probably the biggest impact
[00:57:11.920]that I had.
[00:57:14.180]And then also kind of with going along with all of that
[00:57:18.380]is just the idea that I feel like that investment
[00:57:24.210]was really worthwhile,
[00:57:25.590]especially because I was receiving help
[00:57:30.470]in more ways than one.
[00:57:31.850]I mean with the teaching assistants,
[00:57:33.990]it's really such a great, great opportunity to teach,
[00:57:37.210]but it's also when you finish school and you don't have,
[00:57:42.517]over 100,000 in student debt
[00:57:45.370]that really puts you a step ahead of a lot of people
[00:57:47.920]and that's just gonna be very transparent.
[00:57:50.130]But I think that I seeing coworkers now
[00:57:56.390]have to deal with that,
[00:57:57.791]It definitely is hard on their professional career
[00:58:02.760]to get past that at times.
[00:58:05.110]So I would say that that definitely helped me.
[00:58:08.516]And I'm very grateful that mine is not at that level.
[00:58:13.300]And I also feel like I made an investment in myself
[00:58:17.056]that was very worthwhile.
[00:58:20.140]So that would me mine.
[00:58:23.400]Wonderful. Well, thank you everyone so much.
[00:58:26.353]I think we're coming up close to the hour.
[00:58:29.130]So I'm gonna maybe wrap it up,
[00:58:31.510]and I don't know if anyone has any last minute shout outs
[00:58:35.380]or statements to make.
[00:58:36.640]You've all been really wonderful.
[00:58:37.780]I really appreciate your insights
[00:58:40.126]and your thoughtful responses.
[00:58:43.080]So thank you so much.
[00:58:45.850]Thanks for having us David.
[00:58:47.290]It's been great
[00:58:48.330]Yes thank you. Appreciate it.

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Architecture Alumni Panel

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