"The trauma of the failed first job is long lasting on a student's mind."
Ar.Varushi Jain, Architect, MBA.
The plight of Architecture students in India :
to be or not to be ?
Senior School newly over. Brimming with joy and possibilities of the youthful mind, we were ready to take on life with full force. The creative mind which refused to sit on a 9 to 5 desk job, with dreams to create something big and conquer the world, decides to pursue Architecture. And for the architecture colleges, they tell you the most amazing possibilities of future. They dazzle you with visions of architects, being the most important and intelligent beings to have walked on the face of earth, which is not completely wrong (see I am still under influence). But what they didn't tell you is the WAY to reach those goal. As students, we trusted the teachers that they will show us the direction to move forward, that they will tap our creativity at right moments and with right force for us to move forward. After all, if the teachers didn't tell you what was addition, 1+1 would be a meaningless statement. But this is precisely the situation of students of Architecture in India. We were taught everything in the visual imagery and not practicality. Not long and 5 years went by (longer for some) without realizing that the potential that needed to be unravelled was still under wraps. And the moment we realise the folly it was too late. We were thrown to the sharks of the practical world. What is more fearful than stepping into the unknown? But we did step into the unknown. Where Architecture firms and Architects, our mentors, with their changed ideologies expected us to know everything and we, to their dismay knew little to nothing.
The trauma of the failed first job is long lasting on a student’s mind. They step into another unknown realm of thoughts where they try to find the answer of what went wrong. But can a student know what went wrong if they don't even know the formula for calculating? How could a student understand that whatever they were taught was not taught in a manner that will favour them in a practical world? Is that not the highest responsibility of a teacher. And for the Architecture Firms of our time. Expecting knowledge from an intern is not all the way wrong but what about remembering the duty of a mentor. After all, many great architects were the nurtured product of their mentors. Is the value of taking an apprentice and nurturing them with knowledge is merely a myth now?