How LTU Prepared Me

Hey everyone. Sorry it's been awhile since my last post. I came across a few busy weeks with work, online classes through LTU, and fighting off a sickness that swept through our apartment!

I've been thinking of what to post next. I was thinking and am grateful for the preperation that LTU provided for me to make the transition into a real world scenario. (LTU has not asked me to put this, so trust me when I tell you it's genuine). I'm a student and I've been through most of the classes in the curriculum now and I understand the "doubts" that architecture students might have when it comes to certain classes. From my experience at Disney so far... here are my tips.

1- Pay attention and put a good effort into actually learning what happens in Building Systems. There is such a strong emphasis on studios in school that other classes like Building Systems and Structures get put back and never fully focused on. I'd be willing to say that a solid 60% of my work here so far has been related to building systems. I'm going throw Environmental Systems into this discussion too. It's not that I'm performing and using the information learned in the class directly as of yet, but I am dealing with the people who do on a daily basis. Just the other day, I sat down and talked through a psychrometrics problem with one of the mechanical engineering interns. If I had put Enviro on the back burner like I feel a lot of students do, I would not be as valuable when working with the engineers.

2- Don't think I'm bashing studios up above! ha ha. They were important and essential in developing the skills that I am using in the office. A BIG tip about studios... learn 3D modeling and learn it well. You will become a valuable asset to an office if you are efficient and capable of doing it. For example, there is another architecture intern who I work with in the office. I have not seen anyone except her and I do any 3D modeling since I've been here. I've had a few small projects creating 3D diagrams for installation of certain systems and actually just started a 3D model for an attraction that I would be willing to bet almost everyone is familiar with! I'm pretty excited about the project and really enjoying it. The reason for this tip... I have 5 work days to complete the model while keeping up on the other work I have to do as well! If I had not pushed to learn 3D CAD in school, I would not have been able to take on this project and Disney would likely have had to outsource the project and pay quite a bit more for a final product.

Those are my two big pieces of advice of how school relates to the real world and how I've witnessed them already. I'm sure there is MUCH more to come, but I am appreciating the technical background that LTU provides to us in our classes because that is ultimately what I'm dealing with on a day to day basis.

I think I'll leave it at that for now. As mentioned before, if you have any questions or things you'd like me to talk about... leave a comment and I'll do my best to incorporate it in an upcoming post!

Until next time...

PS- A cold front came through. I think the high so far has been 65 or so. It was still well into the 90's all last week!