My name is Danqing Guo and I am a Junior Architecture Design major. I was an architect assistant for Architectural Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua University Company in Beiing during the 2014 summer internship. After one-year architecture design study, I realized that I need an opportunity to convert my knowledge into practice. I began searching online and tried to contact architecture company via phone. At the beginning, I refused by many companies since they only offer position for two-year architecture study students and who can stay at least three-month internship. I cannot fulfill their requirements. Suddenly, there was a position about Italian architecture assistant pop out. I called the supervisor immediately about my aspiration to work with them and make sure that my second language English can help me get into this position. They asked me portfolio and resume. Few days later, I got accepted by the company. I am so lucky that I can get an internship that related to my major.
During the internship, I worked on three different projects. I work on a landscape design with an Italian architect and I was responsible for brainstorming; sketch design and language translate for the first one. In the first experience, I got a chance to show my personal ideas and finally my ideas were accepted by the architect. From the first design experience, I got familiar with the design process and I came up with an idea for project two in a short time.
I am proud of myself because my ideas were approved by the Project Party and they will become reality in years. This is the reason why I chose to be architecture major because of the sense of achievement. In the third project, I went to another city for field research about Chinese heritage residential buildings. Before the field research, I did a lot reading about Chinese residential buildings and took notes about the particular names for the components in the buildings. During the field research I documented the houses and did the damage survey everyday. The third experience is quite different from the first two, which offered me a chance to get to more about traditional Chinese building and I should be proud of myself as a
Chinese.
This experience clarifies my future plan, which makes me eager to have two-year working experience before I get into graduate school. I feel practice is more important than studying. The internship helps me get to know what I am lack of and I can make it up in later study.
