RGU student Thomas shares his experience studying Architecture at RGU and the benefits of practical elements within his course.
Tell us a bit more about yourself
I am a second-year architecture student from a small village outside Dundee. I play football for RGU’s team and I enjoy going to the gym.
I have always had an interest in architecture and knew it was the career I wanted to pursue. That’s why I tailored my high school studies to set me up as best as possible to do architecture at university and took to drawing and trying to understand building long before I started any degree.
Why did you choose RGU?
Having visited the campus and seen what the University has to offer, I was convinced that I wanted to study at RGU. The location, and the modern buildings and facilities convinced me that I would enjoy learning here.
What has been the highlight of your degree so far?
Looking back and seeing previous projects, even just months apart, highlights how rapid the rate of development is in this degree. For me, this is the best part of the course, when you get to the end and have the opportunity to display your work. It makes you appreciate how far you and your classmates have come and just how much you have learned in a semester.
Study trips and visits are also really enjoyable. Beyond being an opportunity for valuable learning and a unique experience, they are typically genuinely fun and bring you and your classmates closer.
Why are practice visits benefitial?
Visiting practices is highly beneficial for academic and professional development and architecture at RGU offers lots of opportunities to meet and talk with working architects. This helps you create connection within the industry and develop your understanding of how your day-to-day learning relates to the real world.
Our practice visits were at Bennet Associates and Smith Scott Mullen Associates. Both practices showed us different elements of an Architect’s job and the range of projects and tasks on which you can work. It also allowed us to understand the unique cultures that developed in practices.
For example, Bennetts Associates are very eco-driven and so their staff, process, and projects intend to have as positive an environmental impact as possible which creates a distinct culture around the practice.
We also got to speak with previous graduates from RGU in both practices at various stages of their careers which made opening conversations easier. My group was also taken on a visit to one of Bennett’s associates soon-to-be complete project which gave us a look at the scale and different elements of a project we may need to work with in future.
Do you have any tips for other architecture students?
My biggest tip would be to have an interest in the industry and to expose yourself to as much useful knowledge as you can. Even if it is just following architecture accounts on social media, it is important to develop as thorough an understanding of design as possible.
There is so much information and learning out there so the quicker you pick up the skills you will need, the easier it will be. It is also important to travel, even if not around the world, just seeing buildings, spaces, and places is important to build up a bank of knowledge and real-world understanding.
Thomas Duffy
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