Graduation!

Last week I had the pleasure of graduating with First Class honours in Architecture. In fact, I didn't set out from school to have an architectural career. I started my undergraduate studies at the University of Sheffield studying biomedical sciences after having taken only science subjects at A Level. However in my second year of studies, I knew that actually I didn't want to work in any field related to my degree, and my parents could see I was unhappy too. Luckily I had a great lecturer who took me for a coffee and asked me to “forget time, money and where we are right now. What is it you really want to do?”. I told him simply ‘architecture’, and his response was “then do it“.

Architecture (though it may have seemed out of the blue to my lecturer) had always been an underlying passion, something I had considered at a young age but had been deterred from by the lack of design opportunities at school. The passion grew again when, instead of revising for my biomedical exams, I was procrastinating - more interested in my friends' architectural work, I would sneak into their studios to see what they got up to.

With the help and support of my family I exited my original course and sought out experience in local architecture studios, stained glass restorations, architectural metal workers; anything I could get my hands on. This all contributed to my personal statement on applying to The University of the West of England and within 3 days I was accepted for the coming September.

Fast forward through long days in the studio of (often literal) blood, sweat and tears, and struggling with dyslexia to practice the high levels of organisation and time management that architecture requires, the highs well outweighed the lows and it seemed that in mere months the course was completed, and I was nominated for The Architectural Journals student prize.

I’ve been thrilled to start a job at Barefoot Architects, an award winning practice, and within a few months of these milestones, I also got married (to someone I met when first moving to Bristol to study architecture)! Walking down the aisle of the cathedral at my graduation wasn't just a celebration of finishing a degree, it was the culmination of so much more. It represents a life radically changing in direction, and the effort paying off. For me, the day was also a celebration of my family and friends who pushed me through it, and of supportive lecturers who were patient with a dyslexic student with no design background.

Written by Adam Grover.