Why I'm Glad I Graduated Late
Yup, your girl is now an architecture graduate! (((yaaaaay)))
It's been a long time coming. 5 years to be exact, when I thought it would be 3.
WAIT, WHUT?
I had an alright start despite essentially moving to a new country on my own at age 18, and when it seemed like I was on the home stretch (about halfway into year 3) I stumbled, and then I fumbled and in the end spent an extra-extra year as a registered student doing one module (subject) because of formalities that didn't allow me to do it the year before. Annoying, right?
Yes and no. Yes because ugh uni, what a drag sometimes. No because uni, what a time to do exactly what you want because you have the time and freedom! So I did that. I fell into the digital nomad life when I got a freelance writing gig which turned out to be a bit of a life-changer for the year or so that I had it. Regular work and earnings for the first time in my life. Working in bed or at the beach or in a new cafe every day.
It wasn't long before I decided to plan my first major solo trip with my new baller status.
Photos by Lwando M Photography
As if that wasn't enough to turn those last (often embarrassing to explain) 2 years into something of value, I picked up momentum on this here blog- my own domain name and everything!- started my YouTube channel, and landed some pretty sweet modelling gigs including a national hair campaign and my first fashion week.
This may or may not have happened if I'd finished university when I hoped to, but I would not have still been in Port Elizabeth (or South Africa) so that would have cancelled out the hair campaign and fashion week, and I almost certainly would be working at an architecture firm full-time or pursuing my masters, which would cancel out the freelance work and long-term travel. I'll pass.
I guess my point here is that as much as I value education, formal learning in an institution is not all there is. At all. Everything I did and still do that looks like a cute little hobby is something I learn from everyday.
Digital marketing, branding, surviving a trip where I need to know at least a bit of a new language every few kilometres, representing my country and continent well, managing time and people, figuring out a place to sleep the day I arrive in a foreign country...these are just not things I might have learned if things went "according to plan".
And I still get to know CAD software, surveying, how deep my foundations need to be for a 10-storey apartment building (I wrote the formulas down somewhere LOL) and who the game-changers were in post-modernist architecture.
