Year One.
What specific experiences in the past year have had the most impact on my personal and professional trajectory?
Critiques.
Before I came to the University of Cincinnati, I was pretty shy. I had tried to combat this with speech and mock trial in high school, so I was alright at public speaking, but I wasn't good at talking in front of my peers. As an interior designer, I will have to speak in front of coworkers and clients very frequently. For both my Design Lab Studio and Communication Skills, we had to present our work to our peers and professors through a critique. The first critique I had, I was so nervous to stand up and talk about my work to people I somewhat knew. Even worse was the fact that I was going to get critiqued. I am a people pleaser, so even after I got through speaking about my work it was really hard for me to listen to criticism of my work. At the start of the year, I took criticism very personally and it made me hate all of my projects after my critiques. However, after a year of critiques three times a week, I have seen so much of an improvement and it will have a huge impact on my professional future. I have learned to take criticism not as an attack on my work, but as something that can make my work even better. I can appreciate the work that I've made and still acknowledge that it can always get better. This will be so important for me professionally because interior designers have to take criticism and change their designs constantly. I will be so much happier if I don't take criticism personally. I am also so much more comfortable speaking about my work. I hope that with even more practice in the coming years, when I actually enter the professional field I won't feel nervous at all to present and talk about my work.
Extracurriculars.
Going into my freshman year I knew that I wanted to get involved, and the clubs that I got involved in had a large influence on my year. The biggest one to me was 4 paws for ability. I became a sitter for the service dogs in training, and I was able to learn so much about service dogs and people who used service dogs. Service was a big part of my life before college, so it was nice to find a new outlet at school. I was also able to form relationships with the other members of the club. Another experience for me was to become a DAAP Ambassador. This was so far out of my comfort zone, but for some reason when I got an email that said they were taking applications I went for it and applied. I got the position, and it had such a big impact on my first year. It helped me become more comfortable with DAAP in general. It gave me connections with older students in my major who gave me professional connections and helped me through my first year. The biggest skill I gained, however, was more confidence. It takes a lot of confidence to speak well on panels and to lead tours. I was able to do it when I first became an ambassador, but I was shy and unsure of myself. However, being a DAAP ambassador and getting experience on panels and in tour groups made me so much more confident speaking in front of others and taking charge. Being comfortable public speaking is a valuable skill I will definitely need in my professional life, but being confident while public speaking is even more important. Lastly, although it is not a club or school organized activity, I got a job in Over-the-Rhine second semester. I do not have a car, so I had to take the bus to work. This had two big impacts on my future trajectory - first of all, while I have had jobs in the past, this was the first time I needed a job to pay for expenses other than the fun money I earned in high school. I had to learn how to budget, which is an invaluable skill for the future. Another thing I learned was to be comfortable on my own and become independent in a new city. I am not from Cincinnati, so it was really scary for me to take the bus alone in a city I did not know. While it seems like a small thing, I had never taken a bus before this. My job pushed me out of my comfort zone in terms of navigating a new city and meeting new people all on my own. This will be a very important skill to have when I go on co-op and then after school when I graduate and potentially start working in a new city.
Year Two.
Spring Semester.
Co-op at LOTH in Cincinnati
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Fall Semester Classes.
Summer Semester Classes.
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What specific experiences in the past year have had the most impact on my personal and professional trajectory?
Co-op.
I had quite a few jobs before applying for a co-op this fall, but I had never gone through such an intense application process before. I was used to really laid back interviews for jobs in the food industry, so it was completely new to me to go through the process of making a resume and portfolio and attending professional interviews. I was really nervous every step of the way from making my portfolio to actually working at LOTH, the company I ended up co-oping at. This process had a huge impact on my professional trajectory because I feel so much more comfortable and prepared for applying for jobs and job interviews in the future. Beyond the soft skills that I learned while applying to and while on co-op, I also learned a lot of hard skills that will be really helpful for me as I continue on the interior design path. On co-op, I was able to learn a new program called CET designer. I also worked a lot in the materials library, so I gained a ton of knowledge on different types of materials and their manufacturers. I made a lot of connections in the short time I was at LOTH and learned even more. For next year, I want to use what I learned to get even more work and responsibility on my next co-op. This co-op I was focused more on getting used to having a full time interior design job and gathering knowledge on the interior design world. Now that I have that experience under my belt, I want to go into next year with more responsibility and I want to take more initiative.
COVID-19.
As with most people in the world, COVID-19 really changed the trajectory of my sophomore year. I was in the middle of my co-op, and in the middle of it I was let go and left with nothing to fill my time. I lost both my co-op and my job at Taft's which meant I had no stream of income, so I had to move back with my parents in Indianapolis for a couple months. The virus has had a huge impact on the interior design world, and it could potentially have a really big impact on me still in the coming year. I am currently in summer classes and they are all online, including my studios. I am supposed to be going on co-op next semester, but most companies aren't hiring for the fall because of the virus. At the start of my sophomore year, interior design business was booming and people were hiring left and right. I was expecting to enter the workforce under this environment but this has really thrown a wrench in my professional trajectory. Regardless, I have been trying to use this time to boost my resume and portfolio to help me in what will be a very competitive co-op search this coming semester.
Mountaineering Club.
At the start of the fall semester, my friend Emily convinced me to come to a mountaineering meeting with her. I went to the first meeting of the semester and every meeting for the rest of the year. I got really involved in mountaineering club this year and it really shaped my sophomore year and my personal trajectory. First of all, I was able to make a lot of good friends and good memories through mountaineering. I had a new group of friends to hang out with during the week and go caving with on the weekend. While this was really important in shaping my sophomore year, mountaineering club also shaped me personally. While I have always been an environmentally conscious person, this club has made me more aware of the impact that I have on the environment. I started to implement this in all aspects of my life, even interior design. While I was on my co-op, when picking materials I looked into and really considered the sustainability and environmental impact of materials. Mountaineering also personally made me more confident. I started climbing a lot this year, which is a lot of hard work and can be scary when done outside with a certain level of danger. However, when I went on different caving or mountaineering trips and was able to climb a difficult route or make it through a tough squeeze in a cave, I became more confident in my abilities and I have become more and more brave. I didn't go outside much at all freshman year and this year I really started getting out more and traveling. Looking forward, I want to carry the confidence I have gained in mountaineering into other aspects of my life. Over co-op, I struggled with feeling inadequate and wasn't confident in my design abilities. I want to bring the confidence I have on a mountain to my next co-op that I have and take more initiative.
Year Three.
Fall Semester.
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What specific experiences in the past year have had the most impact on my personal and professional trajectory?
Co-ops under COVID-19.
This year I had two co-op semesters, and the co-op search was so different this year than it was the previous year. My first semester looking for co-ops, I had no job experience but plenty of prospects. I had more than one job offer and never during the process was I afraid that I wouldn't get a job. However, my fall semester of this year, no one was hiring. I was reaching out to firms desperate for any job I could get. I ended up not being able to find a job fall semester, even though I had more experience and a better portfolio than my sophomore year. This was really disheartening for me, and it made me very nervous for when I graduate and a lot more is riding on whether or not I get a job. I spent my fall semester working at Tafts, the brewery I've worked at since freshman year, taking adobe classes and participating in design competitions, and throwing myself into my hobbies. As much as I would have loved to have a job, I think the semester off was really good for me to focus on myself and really reflect on what I want in the future. Fast forward to the summer semester, I threw myself into the co-op search, determined eta get a job. I really wanted to go to a city I hadn't experienced before - as a freshman, I had my co-op semesters all mapped out of where I wanted to go and none of my experiences had gone according to plan so far. I ended up getting a job offer kind of late in the search, and it was from Hoskins. I accepted the job because I really needed one at that point, but I was wary going into it. It was in Indy, which is where I grew up so I wouldn't be getting to experience a new city. It was also a job in residential design, which, before this semester, I had believed was not to me. However, Hoskins turned out to be an amazing fit for me. I love working in residential design, and I have been able to explore a lot of new parts of Indianapolis that I never knew of growing up. It is so different to live in the city as opposed to outside of it. I have had such a great time at Hoskins and love going into work every day. I still would much rather it be easier for everyone to find jobs, but I am a little grateful that I was forced to go outside of the box I believed I would be comfortable in. My great experience at Hoskins has impacted the way I look at my future and what kind of work I want to do - for my next co-op I want to push myself even more out of my comfort zone to really find what I like while I have the opportunity to.
My Friends.
As things began returning to semi normal again after quarantining for so long, I was still very conscious about how many people I was seeing and how big their bubbles were. This made me really evaluate what relationships were special to me and who I was willing to see, knowing that any time I hung out with someone I could risk getting COVID. These circumstances caused me to drastically reduce the number of people I saw on a regular basis. I spent the majority of my time with the same people that I really loved. I am normally the kind of person that has a ton of friends, and is always juggling multiple social events. However, being forced to change that made me develop really deep connections with people that I wouldn't have formed without COVID. The entire way that I view friendships was reformed - I am normally a big people pleaser, and would spend time with people because they enjoyed spending time with me. I was less focused on if I was having fun at a gathering and more focused on if people were having fun because I was there. This meant that I quite often put myself in situations where I would hang out with people or go to club meetings or events that I didn't want to go to purely because I wanted to have a lot of friends and a lot of people that liked me. I felt like a lot of my relationships were fake and superficial though. Coming out of COVID, I feel like I have developed really deep and meaningful relationships with a handful of friends that I genuinely really care about and love spending time with. I am going into this coming year with a strong support system that makes me feel more confident in all of my personal and professional endeavors.
Year Four.
Fall Semester.
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What specific experiences in the past year have had the most impact on my personal and professional trajectory?
My first pet.
This year has been my first year with my own pet, my cat Gilbert. I grew up on a farm so I have had plenty of exposure to animals, but this is the first time that one has been completely dependent on me. I feel like having the responsibility of a cat has caused me to mature a little bit. Not only do I have to worry about taking care of myself, I have to take care of him. I have to prioritize him if, for example, I want to go on a trip. I can't do it last minute anymore, I have to make sure I have someone to take care of Gil. Looking forward, I really want to get a dog in the coming year which is even more responsibility.
Moving to Portland for 8 months.
Deciding to do a double co-op in Portland was something that was very out of my comfort zone. In my past co-ops, I have always stayed in the midwest. I have never lived anywhere besides Indiana or Ohio. I have fallen in love with Oregon, and I am so glad I put myself out there to experience it. Throughout college, I have become a much more adventerous person. The mountaineering club got me more into the outdoors, and that love for the outdoors has grown even more in Portland. I feel happier than ever being able to snowboard every weekend. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I have been able to explore lots of places I haven't been before. I've gone up and down the coast through California to British Columbia, and have met a lot of new people. Professionally, Works Progress Architecture has been an amazing learning experience for me. WPA is an architecture firm, which is something I have no experience in. I have learned so much about the technical details that go into how a building is actually built, which has been so interesting to me. I have become more rounded as an interior designer by learning a bunch about architecture, which goes hand in hand. I have been given a lot of responsibilities on this co-op, which makes me feel very prepared for work post-grad. One great experience for me over this co-op was the opportunity to go to LA for a meeting. I spent so much time before the meeting creating renderings and design options, and then got to fly to LA for an in person meeting with the clients. It was a lot more responsibility than I have ever had as a co-op and I am very grateful to WPA for it. Looking forward to post-grad, this co-op has made me consider moving out to the Pacific Northwest after I graduate. I have fallen in love with this part of the country and I would be very happy to settle down here for a few years after I finish school. I am more confident in what type of design I want to do - I am a lot more drawn to Interior Architecture and exploring that avenue further.