It's been quite some time since I deposited anything into a relatively poor intellectual bank, but there have been some quite large developments, including a job!
As I tend to be doing far too much, I had just finished reading "Cradle to Cradle; Remaking the Way we Make Things." by William McDonough & Michael Braungart when I got a reply to an application for a placement I had put in about two weeks prior...I'm not sure if i have put anything on this blog about it...I'm guessing not. But I received an invitation to attend an interview and information day as the next step of the application. So I bought an over priced train ticket and a suit (tweed.....), and off I went. I'm not going to go into much detail, but I was fluctuating between a self confident "yeah, I can get this..." to a defeatist "fuck this, there are 5 doctorate candidates in my midst...no chance," all day long. The interview went well, I don't function particularly well under pressure, and what was worse for me was the recorded 60 second video CV...I've never blinked so much in 60 seconds in my life...
I have a (or I like to think i have a) fairly strong view on sustainability, one which I really do believe in and is best explained by Michael Pawlyn of one of my favorite practices, Exploration, so if you are reading Michael, I will do anything for a job.....ANYTHING....but take a few moments of your life and instead of creeping on friends through pictures on their social network page watch this...
I think I got my ideas through to the CEOs of Europax and Beam, as I have officially been offered a place on the program leaving January 16th for thirteen weeks. As far as I understand, I have to write myself a sustainability brief outlining what I believe in and what I would like to achieve over the 13 weeks. They then take my brief, my cv and my info to practices in Seville who will look at what I would like to achieve and then either offer me the placement and act as a host practice, or decline.
Over the past few weeks, The outcomes of this MRes have been playing on my mind, I'm really enjoying the intellectual research side of architecture but I'm starting to struggle with where I am going to be when spat out the other end with a Masters in my pocket. I think shifting the focus of my research slightly to include sustainability as well as identity and place-making might work quite well as it would improve my employment prospects and I would be able to use this placement as a study or research project...Then use my ideas of identity and globalization in Latin America, or more specifically the Amazon, as a part of....dare I say it....a possible Doctorate project.. In a perfect world, I would love to go on and study a doctorate after this, as I know my computer skills are presently not good enough to make the cut in a practice, and to be honest, after spending so long in education, I don't think I could enter into an office based job at the bottom rung of the ladder...I'm not willing to be a CAD monkey...
A Doctorate is something I WILL do in my lifetime, it's something I've wanted to achieve since primary school...I'm not even joking...is that sad? But in my mind at the moment, a PhD is....is something that i'm probably not clever enough for at the moment. Between now and the day I realize my dream, I have no idea what kind of job I could do... I've asked a few senior intellectuals how to go about getting a job with somewhere you genuinely want to work for instead of spraying CV's around Old Street in London like lead pellets from a shotgun...and I've been told take the place you want to work for, and just adjust yourself to be a perfect match for them...it might take years and years, but Architecture for Humanity, I'm coming....
Anywho, back to reality. This is a really boring post, I'll try find some pictures to brighten it up. I'm trying to bring you up to date, so I'll soldier on for now.
At the moment I'm finding it quite hard to balance a full time job, an MRes, a (minuscule) social life and now the added need to learn Spanish and write myself a brief. I am also aware of the project proposal and 6000 word essay due in very shortly...looks like I'm going to have to give up the job! I'm going to finish this post here, go make a nice mug of chai and then back on to hopefully tell you all about Katherine Willis' seminar we had today...
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