Marianne Cadio
Second year finished! I can't believe I'm almost half way through my time here at UC. I just finished one semester at school, and one semester on co-op, and am about to start my second semester as a second year on campus. This year has taught me so much in terms of architecture and international experience and has given me so many more opportunities than I could've possibly imagined a year or two ago.
ARCHITECTURE
This year we finally got to start on more legitimate architecture projects in school which allowed me to focus on different aspects I wanted to work on and polish. My first project was a pavillion in Burnett woods that left me very frustrated in my lack of decisiveness, something that I have decided to work on since then. Then we worked on a public bathroom project in OTR where I focused on the graphics for the project, and while I was proud of the resultant presentation, I wasn't very satisfied with how I did on the pragmatic aspects. And finally I tried to go for a very different style of architecture for my final project, a community center for OTR. The project pushed me graphically and really helped me to get out of my design comfort zone! Though I still could've done more, mostly on the interiors, it was a good wrap up to my semester.
SIDE QUESTS
Outside of my architecture classes, I dabbled in several other things to supplement my learning. First, I competed with NOMAS (the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students) in the yearly NOMA student design competition where we made it to the finalist rounds! In addition to that, I helped in setting up Rand Abdul Jabbar's piece for 'A Permanent Nostalgia for Departure', a CAC exhibition honoring Zaha Hadid. Both projects taught me an extensive amount on rammed earth construction, something I will definitely apply in future projects. I also got the chance to start my own club, a Japanese conversation table where I could finally find a place to practice Japanese and where I could help Japanese international students take advantage of their time at UC! The club is definitely something I'll continue until I graduate and am so glad I finally got the courage to start it. And finally, I got my hands dirty again, but this time with clay in the ceramics lab where I finally learned how to throw pottery and other ceramics basics I had been dying to learn!
1st CO-OP
My first co-op was in Tokyo with Tetsuo Kobori architects! The details are written on the Japan 2024 experience page, but I'll also touch on it a bit here. This internship taught me how to do many things. By working with a competition team I was able to experience architecture competitions for firms in Japan, where the proposals are much more thought out than the competition I did the previous semester, much less my first competition in high school. I also was able to learn an extensive amount of Grasshopper and Enscape, two programs that I'm sure will be useful in my future job searches and projects. Working in Japan taught me so much about the difference in work cultures, more so than stereotypes and online forums could ever teach. But it also helped me reflect a lot on my future aspirations, opening up the possibility of going back to Japan, or perhaps another country.
FUTURE
This semester I had the amazing opportunity to meet various architects and people from several countries such as Kuwait, Japan, Italy, South Africa, Korea, China, and France, to name only a few. Meeting those people has really helped me to understand the work cultures in different countries, as well as the university cultures there and has helped me to understand the reality of going to graduate school abroad, something I am less opposed to now than I was a few months ago. They also taught me valuable lessons on becoming an adult and jumping into society, becoming more confident in myself, and learning to take things as they come, of course I should continue to work hard, but I shouldn't be afraid of change or an opportunity when it comes.
All in all, this year was incredibly loaded in experiences, encounters, and opportunities that I'm glad I jumped on when I did. While I wish I did a bit better on a few of my initial projects, and maybe spoke up a bit more in both the architecture competitions I took part in, I don't find that I regret much of this year. Looking forward, I find that I want to work more on increasing the quality and depth of the in-school projects I work on, I want to push myself to getting into the flow of doing architecture competitions independently, and I hope to figure out more of what I want to do with my future, particularly in what architectural style/field I want to specialize in, and what graduate schools and cities I'd like to go to/live in after I finish my undergraduate years here.
