We're now in our third and final week in Singapore, and I'm not gonna lie to you: I’m ready to go home. You know how toward the end of your leg day gym session, when your quads are wobbly, sweat is rolling down your back, and you're just ready to go home? That's how I normally feel toward the end of a school term, but this summer it feels different. I've had other architecture terms (albeit, in my first year, when I was still learning time management for this field) where every other day, I'm up until 2 am, working a part-time job, and taking an extra class than I should. That's hard. But this Singapore study abroad has pushed me over the edge… I've never pestered my professor with more questions, walked less than 10,000 steps a day (one time was a whopping 30k steps! 😭), been clacking away writing my assignments as consistently, or taken as many pictures as possible of the most jaw-dropping buildings I've visited ever before than in my current classes.
So, it's not that I'm ready to go home because I want to be done, feeling overwhelmed, and pretending this trip never happened. It's because I have a new fire under me to implement in my next studio all the research and design strategies that I encountered; engaging in guided tours, studying up for the 10+ agri-tech companies we visited, and taking myself (and new friends from the cohort) on self-guided architecture explorations helped me soak up all I could from this worthy experience. The more you know about a specific subject, the more tools you have, and the easier it is to succeed. I am so glad I took the leap and made it work to come to this program because I feel further refined in what direction I'm going.
Go find what makes you feel “ready to go home.”
This is the second post of my Ducks Ambassador scholarship blog series! Apply for it when you go abroad:) Catch my first post here: https://geo.uoregon.edu/blog/crawford-singapore-1
Oh, and follow me on my Instagram architecture page: @arch.by.instinct
Sophia Crawford, Diverse Ducks Ambassador
Building Integrated Agriculture in Singapore
