Daybreak Blog - February 8th
A little bit more about me: I am a design professional in the field of architecture (legally, I cannot call myself an “architectural designer” or “architect” until fully licensed by the national board). I held my first position in a professional firm in 2019, and graduated with my master’s degree in architecture in 2021. I’ve worked in three different offices since 2019 and have had very different experiences in all of them.
Currently, I am studying for the ARE (Architectural Registration Exam) and pursuing architectural licensure. While writing this, I have passed 2 of 6 exams and hope to complete the rest in the coming months. To become licensed, you also need to have experiential hours in different phases of an architectural project, which is called the AXP (Architectural Experience Program). I have submitted close to 5000 hours total amongst the different categories, and am 300 hours away from completing the experience requirements. My path to becoming an architect is coming to an end in the near future, and I am having to practice patience and daily discipline to continue studying and gaining the right experience.
I am hoping for the House of Daylight community to be a place where young designers, in any profession, can come together and give each other insight on their paths, offer advice, and also learn from more experienced professionals. We can all feel comfort in hearing others going through similar triumphs and trials and how they were able to get through them.
I have had a hard time feeling open to converse with co-workers about these career topics, because of office politics, or the feeling that they think I am on the verge of quitting if I say something negative about a process or the firm in general. It is much easier to vent, and bounce ideas off of other colleagues in the field who do not have the same person writing their checks to them. This community gives everyone the platform to be open about their situations, and feel no shame in receiving feedback from others.
Lastly, my hope for this community is for its members to be honest, open, and non-pretentious (i feel like me using the word “pretentious” makes me pretentious, but hopefully not). The definition of this word for those who do not know (i had to look it up):
pretentious:
attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.
Wow, that is a great word for how a lot of the architecture profession operates, in my honest opinion. We could all benefit from this type of attitude to be minimized and not try to impress everyone, all the time. Social media has made this idea even harder to find now with the constant editing and selective posting of life moments. We are all in similar situations and can learn from the not-so-great stages of everyone’s careers, or the areas where we need improvement in. It is actually normal to not be perfect, or not know everything about a subject. Offering up humility in this profession seems to be rare, and I hope to practice humility throughout my career.
Now that I have put my current standing in the profession on record here, we can start to get into why I have started House of Daylight and this blog to begin with. I feel that there is a large portion of young designers, especially in the architecture field, that feel their point of view or talent is irrelevant until they are licensed, or have enough experience. This may be better described as imposter syndrome, with a lack of confidence or an unknown that you belong in what you are doing and can contribute as well as any of your peers.
It is completely normal to feel this way, and I’m sure the majority of people, no matter what career path they’ve chosen, have thought similar things at some point. It seems to come with the territory when being new and young in a design profession. When you enter the field and are flooded with new information that you never learned in school and are surrounded by experienced professionals who seem to have forgotten what it's like to be thrown into the real world, expecting you to know everything they do, it is very easy to feel like you are suddenly behind the curve.
I have certainly felt this way throughout my first few years working, but have slowly come to the realization that there is some beauty in this stage of a career and an opportunity to shape the base of knowledge that will serve me for the rest of my time in architecture. I think there is something great about being inexperienced with a fresh perspective and no past to either hinder or help along the way. I also have to imagine there are thousands of others in the same place of their careers, without a community to assist them in navigating this beginning stage.
Anyways, I feel as if I am rambling, and maybe this isn’t the best formatted blog post, but I got all of my thoughts out onto this page, so it’s a win to me. This is my vision for what the House of Daylight community can offer to each other. I hope it is welcoming and appealing for many to join and share their experience.
I am especially curious to hear stories and experiences from other creatives in different design fields such as artists, graphic designers, brand designers, and everything else! If you’d like to join our online community, click here, we’d love to have you: House of Daylight Community
Thank you to those who took the time to read this, we will be talking more about design lifestyle, career experience/tips, and about other aspects of House of Daylight in future posts.
Have a great day.
