If someone breaks your model, have a drink immediately afterwards to calm the nerves. This may in fact be a good time to get hammered.

Watch The Big Lebowski in your first week of studio. For some reason its a cult hit among architects and way more popular and interesting than The Fountainhead. That way you'll know what all the inside jokes are about.

"The Dude abides."

Dear new architecture students:

change subject while u can... some schools may still have 7 days refund satisfaction guarantee.

LOL! More gold from OF. That truly, truly is the way to survive architecture school. I haven't had a haircut in months.

I must confess, I have not seen the movie, just saw the cover of the dvd once. I was going to watch it, but ran out of time. But its whichever guy has long scragly, grey hair, and is a bit bald.

shut the FUCK UP donnie

Very nice OF. I only found one mistake in your entire assessment. The shoes you refer to in the beginning freshmen semester are called TOPsiders, not docksiders. Its best if you invest in name brand.

Sperry Top-Sider

good luck kids.

how do you manage to exercise while in school? often, working out is the only thing that keeps me sane and i really want to make sure to keep it up!

lift your drafting table, repeat

Don't use the elevator when going to and from smoke breaks on your upper floor studio?

More Big Lebowski:

After receiving the news they found his car and creedance clearwater tapes:

"far out, far FUCKING out!"

that rug really pulled the room together

I've adopted a weird time schedule. I get up at 5 every morning and hit the gym. Then I usually make it to the Studio around 6:30 or 7. Basically I load up on B12 and Bcomplex and hit it hard. If I work straight through only taking breaks for class and food, I can usually make it home around 8 or 9 at night. It helps me avoid all the aimless conversation and drunken football throwing that occurs at 2 in the morning.

that said, i usually digress back to the late night schedule several times during the semester, but the 5am wake up is always my goal. If I know that late nights are coming on, I start sleeping in and then I just run for about 30 minutes to an hour right before I head to studio.

With my ridiculous blood pressure, not exercising and not sleeping are not an option.

OldFogey has been spying on my studio!

Don't forget, while doing this, you must continuously complain about the number of hours of sleep you get. I still can't believe how much people lie about this in studio, as if it makes their work better.

After studio, grab a snack then hit the gym. It helps calm you down, then you can shower, have dinner and head back to studio relaxed and focused.

Tumbleweed...that's totally what you have to do! I kept a schedule last year like rfuller's, early rise, work work work without distraction, then home at 8 pm to work on reading/writing assignments or relaxing. People would get into the "I've slept less than everyone here..." and I would be able to slip in a cool "I slept 6 hours last night."

I'd like to think I'm on the front lines of studio psychological warfare, but I'm not sure its true :^)

how the hell do you quote somebody?

Personally I use the < followed by an i and then a > Quote < and then /i followed by >. Not trying to be tacky, I just don't know how to show you without actually doing it.

awesome. thanks!

Fuck... life is going to be tough @ Penn for the next 3 years. What else can I say, I don't know.

Study abroad.

Be willing to learn from your studiomates.

Get a nice set of headphones with an extra long cord.

As someone who went at it in another country---

collect random trivia, no matter how silly. it helps with concepts when you think nothing else can. It can also give you trippy daydreams minus the *bleep* ;)

otherwise

listen to your classmates - it may be some of the best free advise
offer sincere opinions in return
challenge yourself - its the only way you will learn
try to draw everyday - anything doesn't matter, I still do this today
write everyday - ditto (the more you do it, the better you become)

and finally

improve your architectural lexicon by reading, analysing the work of others - they are called precedents for a reason

how much writing in M.Arch 3?

?

i second the nice pair of headphones comment

i just bought an 80GB video ipod for the fall, i'm going to get plenty out of it in studio

You can tell when I take my headphones off. That's when I get distracted and get on Archinect. I can work a solid 24+ hours with nothing but bathroom breaks as long as I have my headphones on. I'm a little worried about getting out in the work force. I hear several employers frown on wearing headphones.

as a project manager (not an employer) I have an issue with people wearing headphones. if you do it, don't ever bitch about being left out of conversations, about not knowing what's going on in the office, about not being taught 'the business', about not progressing up through the office.

with headphones on you miss all of the conversations going on around you which provide one of the best sources of learning how the place really works. phone calls, staff-to-staff discussions of how to do things, etc, all are important and you can absorb more this way than almost any other. what you glean through eavesdropping is at least as impt as a mentor, in my opinion.

if you want to work a solid 24+ hours and just be the cad guy, headphones are the way to assure it.

Good point, SW. Now if I can only break my Archinect habit between now and gainful employment...

steven,

i wear mine at work because i can't stand the ear-bleeding voice of this lady who claims to "work" near me

i agree totally with steven...

i have my own office now, so i just listen to my music through speakers...

but when i worked in an open office space i didn't wear headphones unless i was really cranking on a deadline that didn't involve interaction with others (usually some graphics stuff)... when doing CDs i'd have to yell across the studio to other people to coordinate what was going on too much to wear headphones... of course, we had a pretty casual office, so we usually had some music playing anyways... occasionally when i wanted to listen to my own music i'd use the ear bud type phones and only put one in...

"eavesdropping" is just as important in the real world as the "studio culture" is in school... i always learned a ton just by overhearing my project manager's phone conversations...

I used to wear headphones with nothing playing - just so people would leave me the fuck alone - didn't work well. And I don't do it now - gotta seem respectable

amazingly, i wear them sans-music playing, just so people dont interrupt me...

except for the time my job captain (who sits right beside me) claimed to have yelled my name three times, and upon my non-responsiveness, ripped out one of my ear buds. the sad part, she interrupted the white stripes, icky thump. to this day, i have no idea what our conversation was about.

in the office that i work at, everyone's computer itunes is connected to the firm itunes network so anyone can play whatever they want on the studio speakers.

Get youreself one of these...


MILF sold seperately.

when in doubt sharpen your lead, change your blade and wash your hands

dont use the green drawing mat as your "cutting mat", it fucks up my straight lines when I hit your grooves from cutting!

you couldn't draw a straight line with ortho on