Cal Poly Pomona – Job Fair

As I sat in front of the alumni panel at the start of the Cal Poly Pomona job fair I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over my body, nostalgia for architecture school, for the east coast, for home. The young professionals spoke about their peers and all of the encouragement, networking and opportunity they have gained through them. They talked about the family environment of Cal Poly and reminded me of the same family I have found here at WHA. I was happy to have Louisa next to me, who was calm and cool the whole time, talking with old friends, knowing exactly where everything was and definitely on top of her game.

Nerves rushed through me as we moved back into the large studio and set up our table full of WHA mini notebooks, lanyards and project booklets. I wondered how I would relate to the students, if their architecture program was similar to mine and if I would have good advice for them.  As they slowly trickled by, some quietly, some with a little more momentum, they began dropping portfolios in my lap. I became more at ease as the “architecture talk” began; talk of schools, landscape competitions and multi-family housing projects filled the room, along with drawings, renderings and young, creative minds to back it up.

Quicker than expected our interview timeslots filled with names, Louisa and I signing students up for each other to interview, swapping quick lines like “you will like her, great portfolio”. As more and more students meandered their way to our table and the timeslots filled, interviews on the fly began.  There was a healthy mix of males and females as well as students from diverse cultures with a wide variety of architectural interests. We met students with interesting backgrounds; one had an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering and a few had architecture degrees from Iran.

All of the different people, with different cultures and different backgrounds ended up in the same place, with the same passion, to design their environments. It was a truly inspiring experience and an extremely successful job fair.