Work Experiences
If you struggle to find work experience opportunities through family, friends and employers, get in touch with the Minerva Network, we have an extensive contact list of employers and professionals who are willing and able to give Minerva members work experience.
Read on to hear about work experience gained through the Minerva Network.
In July I completed two weeks of architectural work experience at Building Design Partnership’s office in Sheffield. I went about arranging this placement through a contact of a friend after already having written to many architectural practices in both Sheffield and Chesterfield.
I wrote a letter of application to this contact explaining both why I wanted to do some work experience in architecture and what I thought I would be able to give as a work experience student- enthusiasm, interest and curiosity in seeing my artistic and scientific interests being applied to a practical application. The manager of the office wrote back and told me I had received the placement.
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As far as I was concerned the main objective of my work experience placement was to gain an insight into what architecture would be like as a career. I wanted to see a running architecture practice and possibly have the opportunity to do some design work myself.
When I arrived on the first day I was really nervous and excited. I was placed in the education part of the office- with the architects deigning schools and university buildings. First of all I was set to work familiarizing myself with the computer aided design software architects use. Later on that day I was introduced to my task for the two weeks- to design a house for my family on a nearby, central plot of derelict land. Over the fortnight I visited the sight twice with two architecture students who helped me to perform a sight analysis of the area, prior to design. |
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After researching, using the internet and many books, considerations and style in housing design I set to work designing my own house. I found this design process both challenging and fascinating. After designing the house I used software called Sketchup to produce a 3-dimensional model on the computer of my design. I also learnt how to combine exported images from this program with photographs from the site so I could show my design how it would look like if it were actually built. At the end of my placement I presented my whole project from my initial research to my final outcomes to the educational team of about thirty architects. I found this a really useful experience because it was very scary but is what architects have to do all the time in presenting plans to clients. |
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Overall I loved my fortnight at BDP and really enjoyed working with qualified architects to help my own designs. I feel the experience has given me a real insight into what becoming an architect would be like in ways that simply researching the profession could never have done.
Alison Andrew, Sheffield High School
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