Blog 8

     For my winter Hawken Project, I believe it was very successful overall from our accomplishments to our learning. My main goal was to come out of the project with a general idea of what day to day life is like working as an architect with real world applications, and I believe we accomplished this and went beyond. Being assigned such a specific project gave us direct experience as this was a project our mentor would have worked on. At first, it was overwhelming for me to be thrown into such a real project, and having our mentor give us such little guidance moving along meaning we would have to figure so much out on our own. Although, once I got over the initial first steps, I began to appreciate how our mentor let us free because for me it made me learn so many things since I figured it out on my own instead of having it done for me or with heavy guidance. Also, I’m glad Alex and I took the whole three weeks for this project because there was such a variety of tasks to work on which allowed us to not feel too rushed working through things so that we could effectively complete each thing and ultimately give us more experience than we would have if we didn't have enough time to get through everything. Though I have previous experience with architecture, this project was so unique and beneficial for my learning because it gave us an actual problem of pedestrian circulation and a real world application that we have to create a solution to. Because of this, it brought so many more tasks like examining code and regulations, circulation, and factoring in weather and visibility which were all new things for us. On a different note, it made me more responsible for working on my own time and managing time so that we had enough time to complete everything. For others planning to work on a project, I would advise to talk with your mentor and make sure that they will be a teacher for you just the right amount so that you’re able to learn the majority of things on your own as I did because I believe it leads to much more learning rather than being taught secondhand. Similarly, I am very appreciative of my mentor Mrs. DiNovi as she aided me in learning so much and for the Case Western architects for allowing us to carry out our project and support us the whole way through.

Comments

  1. Ms. ShortJanuary 5, 2026 at 5:51 AM

    This is a really strong final reflection that clearly captures both your growth and the realism of the experience. You do a great job showing how being pushed into a real, open-ended project ultimately deepened your learning, confidence, and independence. The way you connect responsibility, time management, and real-world architectural problem-solving makes this a thoughtful and fitting conclusion.

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