It is crazy to think the that last week of school just ended. I can’t believe how fast this semester went, it seemed like just yesterday I was back home in Colorado for Winter Break! Even crazier is to think that I will be a senior next year. That’s just too much to handle right now.
Looking back, there were a lot of great things that happened this semester. The most rewarding part of this semester was by far my building science project, which I presented and turned in on Thursday. As I’ve been mentioning in some of my blogs, we were to design a 2 story commercial building, with a first floor made of CMU and having a rigid diaphragm, and the second floor made of wood and having a flexible diaphragm. My group decided to design a community arts center that would offer classes in music, dance, theatre, fine art (painting, drawing, etc), tactile arts (ceramics, sculpture, fashion design), and digital arts (photography, graphic design). The idea behind our building was that as a interdisciplinary arts center, many different forms of art would be coming together. This was shown architecturally as our building being made up of different blocks that came together and formed one large building with different wings. We showed type of art each wing contained by our window design, so the windows on the music wing looked like a music staff, and the windows on the arts wing looked like Piet Mondrian’s famous painting. We also had to design all the structurally components of the building, including framing, columns, shear walls to resist lateral loads, and other components that were unique to our building, like a retaining wall to make the floor of our auditorium sloped. After spending so much time working on this project, it was really rewarding to present our project. Looking back to last fall, it is amazing to see how much I’ve learned in building science, and I’m so proud to say I can actually design a large building! Check out the pictures below!
My group posing with our project! #dreamteam
Besides classes, there were a lot of fun things I did outside of the classroom! Some highlights include working on the concrete canoe and going to Vegas for my hockey tournament, which I talked about here last week! I also really enjoyed attending Viterbi Ball, going to Ski Day with the Civil & Environmental Department, going to Disneyland with all the VSAs, seeing Misterwives in concert, being on my brother’s radio show, and going to a men’s hockey game with Betty and Ellen! Check out some pictures below!
Finally, as this semester comes to a wrap with only finals left, I am looking forward to summer. This summer, I will be interning in LA with Turner, a large construction management company. I’m still waiting to hear where within LA I’ll be specifically, but I should know soon! I’m excited to apply what I’ve learned in the classroom to real life situations, and gain experience for my career when I graduate.
I hope everyone has a lovely summer! Fight on!
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