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I have always wanted to be an architect…well, almost always. How did it happen? The short version is it chose me. Not everyone will have a path like mine, so if you're interested, keep reading. Maybe I can influence you positively.

The longer version of my story started when I was in fifth grade as I was mastering (in my mind) the art of drawing Marvel Comic characters. I was bored in school being advanced beyond the curriculum given me so I used the extra time to draw. I was learning to draw and to think about it critically. This skill was more than figural representation, but an ability that would prove very valuable in terms of thinking about space.

Soon after this I saw something that actually trumped Spider Man and Iron Man, yet I can't recall what it was. However, I found myself drawing houses, buildings and what I thought was architecture. The passion was ignited. That's when I started to realize it chose me.

It must have been that Christmas in 1979 that my mother bought me my own drafting board and T-square. During this time I went to my public library and found a book written by an architect about being an architect. Wow. The drawings and drawing methods amazed me. How do they draw like that? How do they know what to draw? How can I do that? I want to do that. I must do that. For the next seven or eight years I spent my free time drawing, sketching and dreaming.

After a year at another college, I transferred to Kent State University in 1986 to pursue my Bachelor of Architecture degree. My world opened up quickly. I had never seen this stuff before. I saw the early Richard Meier houses and I was mesmerized. That's really a house? I began to eat, sleep, and dream architecture. If I wasn't hooked before, now I was for sure. Of course one of the first humbling experiences was the second day of studio when I looked around at what the others could do and realized that I was surrounded with the best of the respective high schools represented. It was a level playing field, and it was time to respond.

They told me right before I graduated in 1991 that I had received the AIA Medal of Honor for being the top in my class. It had never crossed my mind that I could even achieve that. I had my own obsessive agenda. Then I returned to a job I had during my breaks in college.

Four years later I had finished my IDP requirements. I took a new job and I fell in love with architecture all over again. That June I sat for the A.R.E. after preparing several hours a day, every day for over six months. Most of it is a blur, but what I will never forget is the last of four-day exam during the eleventh hour of the twelve-hour design exam. I was reviewing my work when all of a sudden a nose bleed. I'll spare you the rest other than to say the intensity of the test caused it. It took until September 1995 to find out I had passed all of it--the first time! I had achieved my goal and it was good.

They say the most satisfying things in life are those that come from a long arduous but consistent pursuit. In this case it was sixteen years long. It was time to set new goals in my career as an architect.

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11y ago

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