It’s been exactly a month since starting the Master of Architecture I program at SCI Arc, and I can confidently say that I am utterly exhausted. The intensity of architecture has been a mixture of what I experienced as a biomedical engineering and premed major at WashU, combined with how intense medical school was. It’s not as difficult as MRI or the material I experienced in graduate school, but I do feel that I’m working much harder: like 10-12 hours a day, every single day for six to seven days a week. Thankfully, my sleep schedule has not been disturbed much because of the curriculum itself, but it has been slightly disturbed based on the nature of my bipolar, which is interesting.
One thing that really surprised me about architecture is how smoothly I can do everything. With MRI, I sort of had these mini breakdowns in the workflow where I would get stuck because the material was just very difficult for someone with my training. But with architecture, everything in the beginning is relatively simple, and you just have to either follow the directions that are given, or you have to improvise a solution in response to a newly developed course, which, at SCI Arc, there were a lot of because the school is very experimental in nature.
It’s honestly been a tremendously positive experience thus far. The only minor issue is that I’ve noticed the upfront cost of the equipment needed for school is much more than I initially anticipated—though not prohibitively expensive. I’m already living a very frugal, artist life in Los Angeles: I have roommates, thankfully, in a modern, safe building, and I expect this setup to stay the same for a few years. My roommates are all professional people with advanced degree—or striving for one—and they pay their rent on time, so I’m not particularly worried about drama or anything with then, thankfully.
I know it’s still early, and there’s like 2.8 more years to go, but time moves fast, and I will say that a part of me cannot wait to get into the workforce and start working toward attaining my licensure, which apparently is not a small feat, as the architectural licensing examination consists of 6 hefty, standardized exams each with a pass rate hovering around 50-60%. The road ahead is certainly long and treacherous.
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