Focusing on the Future

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I’ve decided I want to go back to school to study architecture. It feels as if everything since University, my travels and life abroad, has led me to this decision and provided me with the experiences and self-awareness to hopefully succeed.

Recently I started looking at schools. While doing this I came across the IPAL program, the Integrated Path to Architecture Licensure. It was created in 2015 and it is meant to decrease the time it takes to obtain your license by allowing you to take your license exams while still at school. The average amount of time it takes to become a licensed architect is twelve years and I’d like to get it significantly faster. There are over 150 accredited architecture schools in the US, but there are only around 15 with the IPAL program and only around 5 that I would go to.

In the last two months, I made a list of potential schools, those that offered the IPAL program, as well as schools that don’t have it. No need to limit my options. Living in Korea makes it extremely difficult to set up meetings, schools on the east coast are easier if they can talk at 8 or 9 am, but any later than that and I’m staying up past 11 staring at a computer. Schools on the west coast are almost impossible, 7 am Korea time, 3 pm PST, is the only time that works, any later and I’m at work and any earlier I’m still sleeping.

One of the main requirements for the application process and probably the most important is the portfolio. Every school mentions the need to submit a portfolio, but it like an abstract idea. Nobody gives any guidelines on how to make one, nor tells you what to put in it or how to arrange it. Luckily, I have taken thousands of photos of over the years and within the past year, I have done some sketching, so my portfolio will consist of these two things. I spent about a week going through all my photos and choose the best ones. I narrowed it down to around one hundred twenty-five and with the help of two friends, to around fifty. At this point, it’ll be extremely difficult to narrow it down even more.

Similarly to how just before surgery, I was wondering what I was going to do for food when in a sling and came across a Facebook post about a vegan meal delivery plan in Korea, I had no idea how I was going to make a portfolio. Someone told me InDesign was useful, but I had never heard of it. One day I was watching a youtube video and in the end, there was an advertisement for a website to take online courses. I clicked it, searched InDesign and a 12-hour online course popped up. I googled the course and came across another site called Udemy.com that was offering it for $12. With over 8,000 ratings the course has a 4.7 out of 5. I also liked how it was broken down into small modules, so I bought it. The course was fantastic and taught me the basics of InDesign. Enough that I can use it to put together a portfolio. Through my conversations with prospective schools, I learned that they don’t expect much portfolio-wise from MArch 3 applicants (those without prior architecture or design experience), however, I’d like to provide myself with the best possible chance of getting accepted and receiving financial aid.

Photoshop is something I’ve always wanted to learn, but I was recently told that while photoshop provides you with more freedom design-wise, Adobe Lightroom, a program I never heard of, is used primarily for photographers. So, I purchased a 14-hour online course on Udemy. I spent all of June learning how to use Lightroom and editing my selected photos.

Now the hardest part is figuring out the layout of the portfolio and writing a short text about each photo. I am completely lost. I know why I took the picture the way I did, but it’s difficult for me to put it into words. I was told a portfolio as a photo album isn’t useful, admissions want to see your thought process behind the photo, why you choose to take what you did. Was it an accident or was it deliberate?