New faces and old faces 3: One 17 has, for many years, tried to give work experience to as many students as possible within the limits of a busy, medium-sized office. Consequently quite a few faces have passed through the doors and many, despite our best efforts to put them off, have gone on to make architecture and design their careers. Several are kind enough to write us thank you notes and we have amassed quite a collection.
We do get the odd failure: one young lad recently lasted just two days. His mother rang to say he would not be coming back as he had been forced to sit in front of a computer for a large part of one day. Given that he had also been out to visit a construction site in his short time with us, I’m not quite sure what he (or his mother for that matter) expected from work experience.
Perhaps it’s something to do with what you get out relating to what you’re prepared to put in. Someone who put a lot into her work experience with us was Natalie. Quiet, introspective, observant but with a well developed sense of curiosity, Natalie showed quite quickly that she had a natural aptitude for three dimensional thinking. The fact that not long after her time with us, she was accepted to read architecture at Oxford Brookes University, suggests we were not the only ones to have spotted that.
We’re pleased to have Natalie back with us now for the summer following her first year of full time study. The truth is that we need some fresh thinking and new attitudes from time to time, and students, be they with us for their ‘year-out’ or on work experience, can give us the jolt we need now and again to look at things differently.
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