Architecture is a profession of passion, saturated with just as many failures as successes. It’s the obstacles that drive our design thinking and personal growth which ultimately determines each unique and refined solution. This is what has guided me the past two years in the architecture program at Drury University. I’ve noticed that design has a direct effect on people and that people adapt and change to these designs. This change allows architecture to truly become all that it can be for every community. I am motivated to learn more about this at every turn, which is why I have expanded my education to include Behavioral Neuroscience, Biology, and Psychology. I would like to understand the, “why” behind us as human beings and integrate this into my projects. I want to answer this in as many ways as possible: “How can my design respond to community as well as relate to each individual?”

          I still have a lot of growing to do, but this growth doesn’t end for an architect. I am excited to not just begin my next three years at Drury, but to make the absolute most of them. Professors here push us to exceed expectations and utilize our liberal arts education to evolve architecture into a something inspirational. Each problem we encounter has several solutions, but it’s through the synthesis of these solutions that architecture distinguishes itself. Within the next three years I look forward to unifying these characteristics of architecture. Music, mathematics, science, physics, graphic design, politics, fine arts, history, etc. all have their place in this course of work and allow us to provide people with something that isn’t just functional, but meaningful.

          Overall, I want to create smiles with my liberal arts education from Drury. As cliché and cheesy as that is, I can only relate it through personal experience. When you’re young, you feel a sense of heartbreak as you leave the home you grew up in. Or maybe, you feel overwhelmed and in awe as you enter landmarks that withstand the test of time. No matter what I’m designing, I want to design for connections. Architecture is something beautiful, it can both create or fully destroy an experience. It’s our job to determine what we want it do and utilize it to create memories that last for lifetimes. I am eager to learn from Drury’s professors how to best accomplish this in the coming years, and I look forward to utilizing what I have learned from them so far.