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I began my curiosity in architecture when I began to look at where my interests were, and what types of careers involved them. My interests were in math and art, and I wanted to pursue a career that was continuously evolving. I came to architecture because of it's involvement in all my interests, and before I pursued applying to college as an intended architecture major, I wanted to make sure I was actually interested in the field. That was how I came to Flex. It gave me the opportunity to learn more about the field and allowed me the time to reach out to actual firms to get hands on experience and see if it was a true interest for me.
In order to send out the initial emails, I wanted to research more about each firm I would be emailing. I wanted to know what type of architecture they worked with and the different ways they were involved in our community.
These emails were the start of me learning how many different types of architecture there are.
April-May 2025
April-May 2025
In April of 2025, I officially sent out my emails to Stevens and Associates and Cotton Design. I only ended up hearing back from Stevens and Associates and I was able to set up a connection with Jess Hamilton.
The hope in these emails was to set a date in order to have a job shadow over the summer, but the firm was having staffing changes and couldn't host me over the summer.
Although the turnout of these emails wasn't ideal as I wasn't able to set up a job shadow. I was sent resources to look into. From these resources, I find multiple articles about architecture which I researched in more detail in late May and June.
May-June
May-June
Throughout the last months of the 2024-25 school year, I met consistently with Ms. Thielen every other week to talk about next steps in my Architecture Job shadows and set up what the next school year would look like.
Through May and June, I also spent time researching Architecture based on my previous emails. My main focus in my early research was getting to know Architecture through history, famous architects, and vocab. To gain this knowledge I read lots of articles, and researched every word I didn't understand.
August-September
August-September
The beginning of the 2025-26 school year started with Ms. Thielen and I decided how we wanted my Flex Study to run. We began by reaching out to Stevens and Associates, and then talking about the type of projects I wanted to complete in order to get a better understanding of Architecture.
Through the back and forth emailing with Jess, I improved my skills in sending professional emails while creating my own lesson plans with different projects for my Flex study.
September-October
September-October
From the end of September into October, I worked on researching vocab words from my architectural boat tour in Chicago. In these months I also reached out to the librarians and asked for help finding published books in order for me to get a variety of different types of sources.
My research in September led me to learn about different historical building styles, which would later lead me to researching the time periods more in depth.
My main takeaway from my job shadow, was how many different opportunities architecture had. Chip Dana, who I spent the majority of my time talking to, told me about his previous work in proton therapy and healthcare architecture. I was also given very valuable information on how to prepare for studying architecture in college.
November-January
November-January
These last few months my main priority was applying to college, but I allocated a couple days every few weeks to research more about architecture. My main research points was taking notes through a book called Understanding Architecture by Marco Bussagli and looking into how architecture has changed throughout different time periods.
(Final reflection about what I learned about Architecture and how my interest has changed throughout the months)
From the beginning of my Flex study to the end, my interest in architecture only increased. I enjoyed my job shadow a lot, and was regretful that it only happened once, and so late into the school year. I got very valuable information from shadowing at Stevens and Associates, that applies to both architecture and the real world.
My research into Architecture only scratched the surface, and I wish there had been time and resources to learn more about the technical side, such as experimenting with Rev-it and other highly used software.
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