Meet the RA: Ariana

Today I have another wonderful RA to introduce you to, Ariana. She’ll be a fourth year architecture student studying in Paris next year. An artistic and highly creative person, architecture is a great fit for Ariana.

Originally from Washington, she really loves that at Cal Poly you start your degree classes right away and there are lots of hands-on projects. Her favorite thing about San Luis Obispo is how easy it is to get places or run quick errands, unlike a huge city. It’s also easy to carry huge architecture supplies around. When she was in New York, she saw students hauling their supplies down the street or on public transportation, and it’s much easier to move stuff around here. She doesn’t know yet if she’ll get her architectural license after she graduates. She’s considered getting a minor in French, Construction Management (because it’s lucrative and easy to get a job), or a certificate in Digital Fabrication but she doesn’t know what she’ll choose if any yet. She’d enjoy working as a furniture or industrial designer or an artist. She’s been looking into internships at museums, like MOMA in New York, shadowing a curator. Although she wouldn’t want to be a curator, she loves to try out new things. Even without any experience making furniture, she entered a local furniture competition and learned a lot from it even though it wasn’t her best work. I think she’s a perfect example of that fearless creativity I talked about the first week. She’s a perfect RA because she really enjoys being a mentor. Her advice for future architectural students would be to find another creative outlet. Something for yourself and not your professor or boss, just to keep your mood up. Recently, she started B&W film photography and finds it really fun and entertaining. Even as a teenager she had a wide array of interests, from marine biology to fashion design. But today, she can’t even imagine herself studying anything other than architecture.