Tag: student life

Study Hal: Week 2 – Work Space

Leila Mullison Leave a comment

Hal’s back again! After being home for months, Hal finally got to set up his ideal study space… in his childhood bedroom. Perhaps he should use this time inside as an opportunity to redecorate?

In case you missed the first post last week, Hal’s a U-Mich student stuck at home during the summer of 2020. He’ll be here every week to share with you some good, bad, and plain unexpected things that come with moving back home during a pandemic.

Study Hal: Week 1 – Quiet Time

Leila Mullison 5 Comments

Everyone, this is Hal! He’s a student at the University of Michigan. Through the summer of 2020, he’s stuck at home like the rest of us. He’ll be back every week to share with you some of the good, bad, and plain unexpected things that come with moving back home during a pandemic.

This week, Hal’s been aching for some alone time. He wants to enjoy his book, but it seems like everyone else has other plans for the afternoon… Is there ever a moment when someone isn’t mowing their lawn?

In the Eyes of An Architecture Student: What Music do you Listen to for Studio Work?

themichiganarchitect Leave a comment

Hi everyone!

Hope you all had a wonderful, restful MLK weekend!

I’m back again this week to discuss my answer to the question: What music do you listen to as you’re doing studio sketches or modeling?

First things first, I’ll just say, I have always been someone who’s been easily distracted no matter the context. So, getting me to focus and stay still to focus on specific tasks under a seemingly far away deadline is like pulling teeth. Whenever I do my structures assignments, I’d say that I listen to anything really, I find that classical music is alright too (I did used to be in orchestra, in case you were wondering how I don’t fall asleep listening to it for two hours straight). For any assignments that involve in-depth writing, like essays or reading, I listen to instrumentals. Again, orchestral music is great with me for this. I also really enjoy listening to dub step or even just instrumentals to tropical pop songs, and even remixes. I’ve even done quite well listening to non-English music. As soon as I hear English music, I find it inevitable that the lyrics will end up somewhere in my paper haha. As for my studio design sketching and modeling, I guess I do not really distinguished playlists for either of the tasks. I enjoy listening to anything really, as long as its upbeat. So, pretty much anything within the genres: pop, EDM, tropical house, and synthetic instrumentals, I find quite inspiring to my work actually. Besides the fact that sometimes I will find myself awake or still-awake at unearthly hours, I just find that anything upbeat and catchy just sets a great groove for me to “settle” into the work that I need to do. I oftentimes find that the beats and catchy lyrics keep me energized for hours, as I’m usually doing some sort of tedious, repetitive task either with my knives on the cutting mat or on my laptop with the software. I do also think that the devices that I use to listen to my music influence my ability to make this work as well. Sometimes. if there is just too much linework, or powerful renderings that need to be done, I will go to the BT Lab (our PC classrooms with very powerful computers) and I just end up listening off of their PC with my earbuds. If I’m at my desk doing my work on my laptop, I’ll just listen off of my laptop with my earbuds or my wireless headphones- the only downside with the headphones is I often get too warm or my head starts to hurt from the weight and pressure put on my ears for the extended period of time. Now, if I’m modeling, I find it immensely more convenient to use my wireless headphones- you can imagine, there’s a ton of materials and blades and sketches scattered on the desk, so the last thing you need or want is a tangled wire of your headphone getting caught on stuff, as you’re constantly re-positioning in order to produce the most effective cuts. I’ve definitely forgotten to charge my headphones and ended up using earbuds, and the result was just some wasted minutes to untangle things, or bring my phone and headphones along wherever I moved. Aaanddd, here’s what you would consider the click bait of this post: an excerpt of my playlist! I hope ya’ll will give it a go, whether you’re sprawled in bed or doing your own work. If you do, (or don’t I guess) and have comments or suggestions, feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments below, or reach out to my instagram at: themichiganarchitect Ciao 🙂

TheMichiganArchitect Work Playlist Winter 2020 🙂

Mike Perry feat. Tessa: Stay Young

Sistek feat. Tudor & Amy J Pryce: Pitfalls

Doja Cat: Say So

Far East Movement feat. Jay Park: Sxwme

Maggie Lindemann (Cheat Codes and CADE Remix): Pretty Girl

Bazzi (Bazzi vs Young Bombs Remix): Mine

Timeflies: Once In a While

Timeflies & Shy Martin: Raincoat

Alex Ross feat. Dakota & T-Pain: Dreams

Ali Simpson: Guilty

Allie X: Catch

Overstreet: Carried Away

Lovelytheband: Broken

Jax Jones & Ella Henderson: This is Real

Arizona: Electric Touch

Kim Petras: Icy

Alexandra Stan: Little Lies

Adventure Club & Crankdat feat. Krewella: Next Life

One Republic (Arty Remix): I Lived

The Knocks feat. Foster The People): Ride or Die

Austin Mahone: Better With You

Tiesto feat. Stevie Appleton: BLUE

In the Eyes of an Architecture Student: Answering “What class is your favorite?”

themichiganarchitect Leave a comment

Hi everyone! I know it’s been a while, with break and everything, but I’m back again this week to open a discussion about my answer to the question, “what class is your favorite?”

And yes, I am well aware that this is one of those cliche icebreaker questions, but it’s actually also a common question you’ll hear people in studio talking to each other about from time to time, whether it’s asking for peer suggestions on what class to replace with another, or just curiosity. With that said, I’m also well aware that prospective students are probably wondering the same thing and probably worried about the answer I’ll give like, “oh jeez, will I be able to enjoy such a class myself?”

Again, in no way am I representative of the whole body of architecture students here at the University of Michigan, where we all have different values and aspirations, so each one of our answers to this question will likely vary.

***

Over the years, I’ve taken a great mix of courses.

  1. I will say that the first year, I took mostly prerequisites such as calculus and English, and this is similar to what other majors do as well. within the first year. Is this enjoyable? Well, you definitely will still be adjusting to college lifestyle and workload to a certain degree, but it seems to me that this is the closest you will get to high school courses. I personally see prerequisites as bridging the gap between your high school education and the educational standards at the University of Michigan. These courses are just the bland standard to me, they’re just in place to ensure you can handle survival at this university, and they’re just in the way to the actual excitement of your discipline, which is to come! I believe you only get a peak at your discipline in the first year. I remember taking a few basically introductory courses to architecture, and feeling hungry for more of it.
  2. In the second year, you’ll be finishing up prerequisites and taking more official architecture courses to set you up for the studio life that’s to come. This includes actually purchasing expensive drafting equipment, constructing your first models, learning studio sharing culture, along with being thrown into a few different software programs that you’ll be expected to learn either on your own or with your studio mates. Honestly, this year is both exciting and frustrating because you’re finally tasting what it takes to become an architect, but you’re also held back by the fact that you can’t really do “real” architectural stuff if you haven’t intermediately mastered such materials.
  3. In the third year, you’ll be using everything you’ve learned in the past two years and applying it to hypothetical, yet realistic scenarios in studio. You will (likely) become more digitally oriented because of the amount of work asked to produced in both the forms of drawings, renderings, and scaled models. And you’ll probably also be getting a nice camera to document all the amazing work you’ve done so that you can create your own portfolio that’ll lead you to internships.
  4. In the fourth year (my current year), you’ll be sort of be given more freedom in terms of deciding on what aspects to focus on when creating the project, but you will still have a structured prompt given to you in studio, along with a professor who will oversee your work and give you suggestions, but it’s definitely a more self-oriented year where you can take more electives as well, to ensure that you can get more flavor into the architectural experience that you’d like to get out of the university. I’ve actually taken my non-architectural electives during my sophomore year, but I’ve been taking more architectural electives these past semesters. A bit off track, but I’ve finally been able to get into a health design course that I’ve been looking for for awhile (it’s a completely new course) and I’m VERY stoked that the professor seems amazing, and this course is so valuable in that it provides interdisciplinary perspectives to architecture and its effects on both physical and mental health. Anyway, I was just really happy about that and wanted to share that with you all!
    With that said, I would have to say that my hands-down favorite course, out of all of the courses I’ve taken all of these semesters here at the University of Michigan in architecture is my first studio course, UG1. People claim it is the “weeder course” because it is the first time you are asked to apply a plethora of newly-acquired skills into a real world scenario, with many projects thrown at you. But I personally found that it was the most imaginative studio. And, hear me out. Yes, you are asked to do all of those things listed above as a newly developing designer, but you’re also given less restrictions because at that point we have not quite understood building code and real-world spatial regulations. You’re able to freely express yourself and that is what I found the most refreshing, because all options are “on the table” so to speak.

***

Unfortunately I gotta launch back into my assignments again, but I’m so excited to hear your comments and thoughts on this blog! Once again, if you haven’t already, if you want to see more of my photography and what studio works I’ve been up to, give me a follow on instagram: @themichiganarchitect
Ciao 🙂