Hi, my name is Kara Scheffler and I am an architecture student at Roger Williams University. Although I am far from being finished with my education, I am already very excited about becoming an actual practicing architect.

This past semester, my school went through the re-accreditation process. One of my projects, among many other's projects were displayed as examples of work that students have done in recent years and months. I was very excited about this particular project being displayed because it had been one of my favorite projects. It was a group project where we had to recreate a famous structure. We had the Garre do Oriente. It was a fun project and the Dean loved it among many others.

Although I am only beginning my professional career in architecture, my interest and enthusiasm towards it was evident long before I actually applied to any school. As a young child, in elementary school, I actually consistently drew floor plans of houses and 3-D versions of houses instead of flat ones. As I grew up these interests only grew stronger. In 8th grade, we drew a floor plan of a house in tech ed and it was by far my favorite project. After that project, I began to carry around a clip board filled with graph paper, pencils, and a calculator. This was taken EVERYWHERE. It was actually at a family party that my cousins wife noticed me drawing on some graph paper and asked me if I knew that my cousin was an architect. My cousin is now my role model. After I had almost completed my first semester I had the chance to show him my work and he loved that. I'm looking forward to future meetings and possible job shadows with him.

While architecture is my major, I do want to minor in a field similar to it. I have considered construction management and may also consider engineering. It's important to be a well rounded individual and being able to understand multiple fields will make all the more difference.

For my goals, I hope to have a good secure job and maybe my own firm someday, but what I really want is to create a charity in which I design and build or remodel homes for people who need them. My goal is to have a similar concept to Habitat for Humanity or Rebuilding Together.

My future plans are to get involved with Habitat for Humanity or Rebuilding Together in the future. As part of my philosophy for a successful career, I believe that in order to understand what I am designing, I must first build someone else's design. My hands need to touch hammers and nails, and they need to create wooden structures before I can consider myself an architect.

As for now, I'm just soaking in as much information as possible, enjoying college, and looking forward to building my first design.